Russia Today

There's a lot to feel shitty about in Russia.

One of the big ones - one of the big ones no matter where you are - pops up when there's a real probability of a food shortage.

I'm just kinda spit-ballin' here, but knowing what we know about the Russian economy and the way an autocrat typically operates, my speculations aren't necessarily out of line.

Trump is "working" on lifting some of the sanctions that the NATO powers laid on Russia to spank Putin for invading Ukraine, and one of the favors he intends to do for Daddy Vlad is to help Russia re-establish itself on the global supply chain, with a particular emphasis on grain imports and exports.

Assuming he can take time away from his busy Retribution Tour schedule, Trump can't accomplish much in any kind of hurry, and in the meantime, Russians need to be fed.

So - what to do, what to do.

Russia remands billionaire Moshkovich in custody for two months

MOSCOW, March 27 (Reuters) - Russian farming billionaire Vadim Moshkovich was remanded in custody for two months by a Moscow court on Thursday after his detention on suspicion of large-scale fraud, the highest-profile arrest in years of a major businessman in Russia.

Court documents showed that Moshkovich is accused of large-scale fraud and could face up to 10 years in jail if convicted. Moshkovich pleaded not guilty to the charges.

"Vadim Moshkovich, the founder of Rusagro, was sent to the pre-trial detention centre," Moscow's court service said, adding that the court had dismissed appeals from his lawyers for him to be granted house arrest or bail.

The arrest of Moshkovich, who started out selling computers amid the chaos of post-Soviet Russia before building one of Russia's most powerful agricultural holdings, sent shockwaves through Russia's business elite.

There was no comment from the Kremlin on the arrest.

It is the highest-profile arrest of a Russian businessman since the 2018 arrest of Summa shipping and logistics group founder Ziyavudin Magomedov and the 2014 house arrest of AFK Sistema shareholder Vladimir Yevtushenkov.

The market capitalisation of Rusagro, Russia's leading producer of sugar, pork, oil and fats, tumbled by a third over two days on the news, according to data from the Moscow Stock Exchange.

BILLIONAIRE IN JAIL

The Kommersant newspaper said officers from the Federal Security Service (FSB) and anti-corruption police raided company offices in Moscow and other cities, as well as the homes of senior managers, and took away files, phones and servers.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the arrest, though Russia's top media outlets noted that he had been involved in a long legal conflict with the founders of a major supplier of vegetable oils and fats whose assets were bought in 2018 by Rusagro.

Rusagro changed its domicile from Cyprus to Russia this year, following a Russian court decision in a case brought by the Agriculture Ministry against Rusagro's Cyprus-based parent company.

Rusagro issued a statement on Wednesday confirming several of its offices had been searched but saying the operation was not related to its "current activities".

It said all company activities were continuing as normal, and all obligations were being met. "We are confident in the transparency of our work and expect the procedures to be completed as soon as possible."

The European Union sanctioned Moshkovich in 2022 after he attended a meeting of businessmen with President Vladimir Putin on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine. The EU said he had Russian and Cypriot passports.

Following the sanctions, Moshkovich resigned as chairman of Rusagro in 2022 and cut his stake below 50%. Rusagro, which is not under Western sanctions, is Russia's only major listed agricultural company.

Rusagro changed its domicile from Cyprus to Russia, following a Russian court decision in a case brought by the Agriculture Ministry against Rusagro's Cyprus-based parent company.

A group of members of the lower house of Russia's parliament asked the Justice Ministry in 2024 to designate Moshkovich as a "foreign agent", a legal status often assigned to opposition activists, due to the company's Cyprus domicile.

It's a pretty standard 3-fer.

1. This guy is the one you should blame for your problems
2. I'm the boss and don't you fuckin' forget it
3. To demonstrate, I'll shit on a friend to keep the rest of you in line

Overheard

If Jeffrey Goldberg is a "deceitful and highly-discredited so-called journalist" they wouldn't have added him into the group chat.

The Daddy State Rules:

1. Every accusation is a confession.

2. Every boast is an admission of inadequacy, or an attempt to claim credit for something they had practically nothing to do with.

2a. What sounds like boasting ("I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes") is intended to soft-peddle some horrific thing they've done - or intend to do, in which case, the "boast" is instructive as to what the devotees will be expected to embrace.

3. Every prediction of some dire consequence is a veiled threat.

Whatever terrible thing they're "warning" us about is something they intend to make happen (often in an attempt to coerce us into doing something they want), or to signal and motivate their mob.

4. They change the meaning of words to suit their needs.

a) if it's false but it works in my favor, then it's true

b) if it's true but it works against me, then it's false

5. They change the historical record.

“you didn’t see me do what you saw me doing"

“you didn't hear me say what you heard me saying”

6. Total criminalization.

If we're all guilty, then you can't hold me responsible without the risk of exposing your own culpability.

7. The law is my sword, but not your shield.

7a. The law is my shield, but not your sword.

8. Divide and Conquer is the order of the day, every day.

Every issue is a wedge issue to be used as a means of putting each of us in our own little silo - keeping us all isolated - separated from each other.

Marc Maron

Sometimes, when it looks like somebody's going crazy, it's really just them trying to get un-crazy.

Roland Martin

--silence--

And Now We Know

... except we don't. Not really.

Belle nails it. Republicans told us they weren't going to fuck us out of our Social Security. They said they wouldn't fuck with it at all.

Now they're saying they'll only fuck over our kids and grandkids.

I feel so much better.

My kids already don't have it as good as I had it when I was their age.

Because over the last 50 years, workin' people have lost unions, and a livable wage, and health insurance, and life insurance, 40-hour work weeks, and overtime, and disability/workers' comp, and pensions, and paid time off, and and and.

Productivity has gone up more than 60%, average CEO and Executive pay has gone up about 400%, while the average workin' guy's wages have gone up about 13%.

All kinds of shitty things have been done to beat down the ordinary everyday people.

And them motherfuckers want the rest of it now.

Time For Bible Study

Coming Soon (ish)

I was there - it sucked.

Stagflation on the radar for the US economy, but no repeat of the '70s

• Stagflation risks appear higher in response to Trump tariff policies
• Unlikely to fully repeat the high inflation and joblessness of the 1970s
• Fed official: 'Nothing more uncomfortable' than a stagflationary environment

WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) - Recent economic projections from Federal Reserve officials had shades of "Stagflation-lite," in the words of one economist, a sentiment increasingly echoed among other observers of the U.S. economy and central bank wondering if the country's outperformance during the pandemic is about to slide.

So what is stagflation and why is it suddenly on everyone's mind?

THAT (BAD) 70s SHOW

Stagflation, or a period of both high inflation and high joblessness, hit the U.S. notably in the 1970s, which may have featured the worst U.S. economic leadership since the Great Depression. Fed officials had their data and their framework wrong, and elected officials flailed against inflation with price controls and what now seem quaint public relations efforts, most notoriously the Ford administration's "Whip Inflation Now (WIN)" button campaign.

That shit was the lamest of the lame.

As economists in recent weeks have begun marking down their estimates of economic growth and marking up estimates of inflation in the face of dramatic economic policy shifts under President Donald Trump, it has sparked debate about whether that could be unfolding again now.

In theory, a weak economy with rising unemployment undercuts inflation, so the two should not coexist. But as with oil price shocks in the 1970s that drove prices higher, the tariff shock anticipated from Trump's trade policies now has the world guessing.

The Trump administration says the tariffs are part of what they bill as a transition for the economy that, coupled with other efforts to deregulate industry and cut taxes, will produce both plentiful jobs and lower inflation.

The hints of stagflation in current forecasts aren't near as bad as the 1970s, a decade in a league of its own when a surge in the so-called "misery index" combining the unemployment and inflation rates still stands out in charts of postwar economy.

But the direction of travel for major aspects of the economy has caught economists' attention. When Fed officials this week assessed the risks they see ahead they pointed uniformly towards higher inflation and higher unemployment than previously expected.

"Stagflation-lite," is what RSM chief economist Joe Brusuelas titled his analysis of the Fed's meeting last week. Policymakers' forecasts "implied mild stagflation ahead in the near term as growth slows and inflation increases," he said, noting the "pervasive uncertainty around the size and magnitude of the trade shock."

'NOTHING MORE UNCOMFORTABLE'

Fed policymakers last week left interest rates unchanged but still anticipate two quarter-point cuts by year-end. Their new economic projections, however, laid bare their conundrum. Growth is anticipated to slow, unemployment to rise a bit more than expected, and inflation to accelerate in the face of existing and widening tariffs.

Implied by their forecasts of rate cuts and higher inflation is a belief that tariff-triggered price increases would be one-off jumps, the same assumption the Fed made early in the pandemic when it called rising prices "transitory" - and was proven wrong.

Things are different now. Factories and ports are open and goods are flowing.
But given the scope and breadth of what Trump is planning, officials say the outcome remains unpredictable.

Hard macroeconomic data, as Fed Chair Jerome Powell noted in his press conference last week, remain solid. The misery index is rather low in fact.

But softer measures like sentiment are sliding, something policymakers feel could cause businesses to stall investment and hiring and households to cut back, even as tariffs lead prices to keep rising. Fed officials note growing concern among business contacts, and have begun discussing the difficult choice moments of stagflation pose for a central bank tasked with controlling inflation while sustaining employment.

“There is nothing more uncomfortable than the stagflationary environment...where both sides of the mandate start going wrong. There is not a generic answer...Which is worse? Is it bigger on the inflation side? Is it bigger on the job market side?" Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said Friday on CNBC. "Higher tariffs raise prices and reduce output so that is a stagflationary impulse."

NOTHING TAKEN FOR GRANTED

If the Fed is caught in the middle, their priority is clear: To ensure that not just inflation, but public expectations about inflation, remain under control.

Perhaps the key mistake of the 1970s was a failure to understand better the role that public psychology plays in future inflation. Scarred by rising prices, Americans' belief that costs would keep on rising kept pushing prices higher even as the economy weakened.

It took punishing interest rates and two successive recessions under Fed chief Paul Volcker to begin to establish the Fed's credibility and reset expectations through the rest of the 1980s and into the 1990s.

That's a lesson Powell has said he takes to heart, and one he says he won't repeat.

"I don't see any reason to think that we're looking at a replay of the '70s or anything like that...Underlying inflation is still running in the twos, with probably a little bit of a pickup associated with tariffs," Powell said at a press conference after the Fed's most recent meeting. "I wouldn't say we're in a situation that's remotely comparable to that.

But stable inflation expectations are "at the very heart of our framework," he said. "We will be watching all of it very, very carefully. We do not take anything for granted."

You Were Warned, MAGA

There's been a kind of dark pleasure in watching the RedHats implode as it dawns on them what they get to endure for having been snookered by Trump.

Not this time though. I feel nothing but a deep ugly pain for people who're about to go through some really bad shit - and likely take a few of us down with them.

Today's TweeXt

And again - It's more than just possible that we'd have a president named Kamala if the Dems had turned this Walz guy loose.

I would like to nominate Maxwell Smart for national security advisor. pic.twitter.com/YTJFpre5bs

— Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) March 25, 2025

Today's WTF

Just wondering what the Over/Under is on the number of days before the Press Poodles let this shit slide and we never hear about it again.

Can you say, "Memory hole"?