Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If you include all the "hidden" taxes, I think you will find the overall rate is much higher.
While you are looking for "hidden" taxes, don't forget you phone, your loaf of bread, your tobacco, your beer and/or wine, your fuel, etc.
There are a huge load of taxed items that most people are not aware of!
Really surprised the women saying it's fine for women to be drafted. Thing is I bet there would be a complete 180 if there was war and lots of women were getting sent out to fight and getting shot/stabbed/blown up/captured and tortured etc.
Not just Sweden but any country that did. Not to mention, will women be held to the same standard if they refuse to follow orders, like what if they said they refuse to do what they are supposed to or just don't want to do because they're on their period? Will they be told just to sucks it up and deal?
All these countries where women are in a rush to serve in the army/don't mind the draft, didn't have the REAL wars for long-long time. They were spared from it. That's why women are so brave there.
But Russians were not spared, they know what the real war look like, even on their own territory, even the "defensive" war. That's why they don't have any illusions, and there is no draft for women.
But it's clear enough that they have no urging need to "access the Baltic."
I grow tired of this childish insistence on misunderstanding, so: If you want to ship stuff - or deploy naval units - from St. Petersburg to any ocean beyond the Baltic, you are dependent on passage through straits controlled by Denmark and/or Sweden. Or the Kiel canal. This is what is known as "controlling access to the Baltic".
From a military point of view, any Russian Navy unit in St. Petersburg can be kept bottled up in the Baltic.
Russian planners know this, not being complete idiots. This is why Warsaw Pact war planners assigned nuclear warheads and considerable amphibious forces to strike Denmark and Sweden.
I'm no fan of conscription, but the Swedes actually have a nation worth fighting for. With Putin nearby, I don't blame them for wanting to beef up their defenses.
To what end? Russia is not invading Sweden. I can't even imagine the circumstances that would lead Putin to do something so completely insane. And if he did, Sweden is going down with or with no military.
I grow tired of this childish insistence on misunderstanding, so: If you want to ship stuff - or deploy naval units - from St. Petersburg to any ocean beyond the Baltic, you are dependent on passage through straits controlled by Denmark and/or Sweden. Or the Kiel canal. This is what is known as "controlling access to the Baltic".
From a military point of view, any Russian Navy unit in St. Petersburg can be kept bottled up in the Baltic.
Russian planners know this, not being complete idiots. This is why Warsaw Pact war planners assigned nuclear warheads and considerable amphibious forces to strike Denmark and Sweden.
I cannot make it any plainer.
All right then, now when I understand what you are talking about, meet the Kaliningrad enclave, where
Russia is "also building a powerful anti-access/area-denial network in the southeast corner of the Baltic Sea. Built around the S-400 system and Iskander missiles, it would make U.S. and NATO operations in the region hazardous in a crisis or during wartime. Russia would also be able to quickly move its mobile Bastion anti-ship missile system into Kaliningrad, which would further threaten U.S. and allied maritime operations in the region. The relatively small size of the region also means that Russian systems reach well into, and in some cases, over the Baltic Sea. And while Russia’s Baltic Sea fleet is not very big, its submarines could still cause serious problems in a sub-surface domain that is famously challenging for anti-submarine warfare forces."
So this is from the military point of view. Yes, this enclave may be not as convenient as Estonia or Latvia or whatever they used to have ) for this purpose, but it's still THERE and Russians make the best of it. And as long as they have it, and it takes care of their military strategic needs, there is no way they are going to be bothered with attacking Sweden.
To what end? Russia is not invading Sweden. I can't even imagine the circumstances that would lead Putin to do something so completely insane. And if he did, Sweden is going down with or with no military.
Neither do I, but hey, may be then they are planning to attack Estonia or Latvia, or Lithuania?
They definitely need to attack someone, so that the whole "resurgent Russia" narrative would sound more credible.
"“Maybe, with respect to the United States, you need to be careful what you wish for,” said Lt. Col. Torsten Stephan, military spokesman for the German troops in Lithuania. “Mr. Trump says that NATO may be obsolete, and that we need to be more independent. Well, maybe we will.”
The German-led deployment — also involving a smaller number of troops from Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway — is designed to send a muscular message from Europe to Putin: Back off.
Pro-Russian websites, meanwhile, are preying on old stereotypes, harking back to Adolf Hitler and portraying the NATO deployment in Lithuania as a “second invasion” by Germany.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
