As one of the G7 fully developed countries, how did we managed to get to where people are so hard up that they could not afford one of the most basic necessities in life which is being able to keep themselves warm in their own homes during winter? To answer that we must take a stone cold, nonpartisan look at the chain of events that led us to where we are today including those well-documented events most of our parliamentarians today would prefer us not be reminded of.
Since we all know energy is the driving force of the modern world and the current cost-of-living crisis was closely connected to the acute shortage of gas and oil coming to our shores because of sanctions our government and those in Europe have imposed on Russian imports mostly at the behest of Washington, and as the result all the other opportunistic suppliers hiked their prices skywards.
It's easy to blame it all on Russia's invasion of Ukraine if we chose to ignore the documented facts leading to the invasion.
Since the disbandment of the Soviet Union which was actually Russia cutting of all the deadwood namely all those non-productive Eastern European countries acquired during their post-WWII land grab, the Russians, with vast deposits of natural resources all over their country, had turned their hands to trade with Europe and other places. Indeed, cheap energy from Russia have played a vital part in Europe's phenomenal growth during the last three decades and during that time, the tourist trade between the two also flourished. No doubt it irked the Washington hawks watching the relationship between their former cold war adversary and their allies getting cosier and cosier down the years and plans were laid to put an end to it even if that meant reneging on the promise they (NATO) made in 1990 of 'not to expand one inch further towards the Russian border' and began nurturing the neo Nazis forces in Ukraine( see Wikipedia on 'Ukraine and Racism') in order to overthrow the then pro Russia government. When that happened, the then US secretary of State couldn't wait to go to Ukraine's Maidan Square to hand out cookies to the victorious rebels which in the following eight years, carried out wholesale persecution of Russian nationals and Russian speaking people in Ukraine and killed at least 14,000 people in the pro Russia eastern regions despite having signed two Minsk Agreements and countless calls from the Kremlin to desist. For the Russians to forgo all the established trade links with Europe worth hundreds of billions of euros a year just to invade Ukraine made no sense at all unless they could no longer just stand by and watch the continuing persecution and slaughter of their own people. To say the Russian were goaded into this conflict is an understatement. Now back to the Warm Bank.
As one of the G7 fully developed countries, how did we managed to get to where people are so hard up that they could not afford one of the most basic necessities in life which is being able to keep themselves warm in their own homes during winter? To answer that we must take a stone cold, nonpartisan look at the chain of events that led us to where we are today including those well-documented events most of our parliamentarians today would prefer us not be reminded of.
Since we all know energy is the driving force of the modern world and the current cost-of-living crisis was closely connected to the acute shortage of gas and oil coming to our shores because of sanctions our government and those in Europe have imposed on Russian imports mostly at the behest of Washington, and as the result all the other opportunistic suppliers hiked their prices skywards.
It's easy to blame it all on Russia's invasion of Ukraine if we chose to ignore the documented facts leading to the invasion.
Since the disbandment of the Soviet Union which was actually Russia cutting of all the deadwood namely all those non-productive Eastern European countries acquired during their post-WWII land grab, the Russians, with vast deposits of natural resources all over their country, had turned their hands to trade with Europe and other places. Indeed, cheap energy from Russia have played a vital part in Europe's phenomenal growth during the last three decades and during that time, the tourist trade between the two also flourished. No doubt it irked the Washington hawks watching the relationship between their former cold war adversary and their allies getting cosier and cosier down the years and plans were laid to put an end to it even if that meant reneging on the promise they (NATO) made in 1990 of 'not to expand one inch further towards the Russian border' and began nurturing the neo Nazis forces in Ukraine( see Wikipedia on 'Ukraine and Racism') in order to overthrow the then pro Russia government. When that happened, the then US secretary of State couldn't wait to go to Ukraine's Maidan Square to hand out cookies to the victorious rebels which in the following eight years, carried out wholesale persecution of Russian nationals and Russian speaking people in Ukraine and killed at least 14,000 people in the pro Russia eastern regions despite having signed two Minsk Agreements and countless calls from the Kremlin to desist. For the Russians to forgo all the established trade links with Europe worth hundreds of billions of euros a year just to invade Ukraine made no sense at all unless they could no longer just stand by and watch the continuing persecution and slaughter of their own people. To say the Russian were goaded into this conflict is an understatement. Now back to the Warm Bank.