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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31615 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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What oil? There is less oil reserves in Ukraine than in Belarus. And this 34% figure is for export of refined petroleum products, that while can only be possible because of the export from Russia is still option that was not locked for Ukraine.

"Id still call fighting this war as Ukraines only choice" Of course it is but main point of my post was disagreement with this "Long term they should look more like Poland" sentiment.

What oil? There is less oil reserves in Ukraine than in Belarus.

Export of oil and fertilizers is a huge source of Belarus income. Cheap oil and gas from Russia are necessary for those industries to be viable, and are de facto subsidies from RF to Belarus. Lukashenka's regime , despite being much more brutal than Ukrainian even during Yanukovich times, ensured that most enterprises were state owned, and larger share of profits stayed in Belarus (unlike Ukraine, where whole industries got privatized, their owners through lobbying avoided large taxes, and profits were rerouted to tax havens somewhere in Cyprus and later used to buy mansions in Nice).

I was trying to explain your income gap. Oil would be convenient and that is the first thing that popped up on Wikipedia as a difference.

Unless there is specific genetic weakness in the Ukranian people I see no reason to not expect them to reach the income levels of their neighbors when there is a clear desire to adopt the policies of the neighbors. That seems like a reasonable bet.

But there many more possible reasons. For example in difference with Belarus or Russia political structure where there aren't any one ruling oligarch clan and instead several competing. Better theories can be found in economists' works.

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