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Artwork for The Eastern Border
The Eastern Border · August 20 · 43 min

2.53 TFUM

Time to put on our Wall Street suits and dive into the spreadsheets to calculate the TFUM: The Total F*cked Up Metric. The Russian Federation isn't a state anymore; it's a wildly over-leveraged hedge fund/doomsday cult run by mobsters on ponyatiya, and the universe is finally issuing a margin call they cannot afford to pay. I track the systemic necrosis from the top down: the 21-billion-ruble daily hemorrhage of the federal budget, the purging of VEB's top economist for predicting a 1917-style collapse, and the staggering $15.2 billion capital flight currently draining the commercial banks. I dissect the 900-billion-ruble crater of the Wildberries logistics collapse, the resulting VTB debt bomb, and how the state is press-ganging desperate sellers into the meat grinder. Finally, a look across the border to contrast the mud of the trenches with the institutional delusion of the US military's new 80,000 PSI XM7 battle rifle. The age of the $500 kamikaze drone is here, but the Western military-industrial complex is still planning for an 800-meter duel that no longer exists. Become our patron: https://www.patreon.com/theeasternborder Merch store + another option for memberships: https://theeasternborder-shop.fourthwall.com/ Follow what's going on here in the very border of Eastern Europe: https://bsky.app/profile/theeasternborder.lv Download all episodes for free on our website; pictures accompanying certain episodes can be found there as well! http://theeasternborder.lv/ Car4Ukraine Eastern Border Summer Campaign! https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/summer-sunshine-trucks-2026-eastern-border YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/WNbdi1zPVMk Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

0:00-43:24

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show notes

Time to put on our Wall Street suits and dive into the spreadsheets to calculate the TFUM: The Total F*cked Up Metric.

The Russian Federation isn't a state anymore; it's a wildly over-leveraged hedge fund/doomsday cult run by mobsters on ponyatiya, and the universe is finally issuing a margin call they cannot afford to pay.

I track the systemic necrosis from the top down: the 21-billion-ruble daily hemorrhage of the federal budget, the purging of VEB's top economist for predicting a 1917-style collapse, and the staggering $15.2 billion capital flight currently draining the commercial banks.

I dissect the 900-billion-ruble crater of the Wildberries logistics collapse, the resulting VTB debt bomb, and how the state is press-ganging desperate sellers into the meat grinder.

Finally, a look across the border to contrast the mud of the trenches with the institutional delusion of the US military's new 80,000 PSI XM7 battle rifle. The age of the $500 kamikaze drone is here, but the Western military-industrial complex is still planning for an 800-meter duel that no longer exists.

Become our patron: https://www.patreon.com/theeasternborder

Merch store + another option for memberships: https://theeasternborder-shop.fourthwall.com/

Follow what's going on here in the very border of Eastern Europe: https://bsky.app/profile/theeasternborder.lv

Download all episodes for free on our website; pictures accompanying certain episodes can be found there as well! http://theeasternborder.lv/

Car4Ukraine Eastern Border Summer Campaign! https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/summer-sunshine-trucks-2026-eastern-border


YouTube Version:

https://youtu.be/WNbdi1zPVMk

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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