In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Finnish economist, conspiracy theorist and doomsayer, Tuomas Malinen (@mtmalinen). He's best-known for promoting market crash every two months, for his alleged support for the WEF conspiracy theory, and for his pro-Russian hot takes.
1/23
Malinen has a PhD in Economics from University of Helsinki, where he studied, among other things, economic crises. Currently he's working for GNS Economics (actually Kasvu ja Suhdanne Oy), a company with revenue of 100 000 EUR and operating loss of 10 000 EUR.
2/23
Based on Malinen, there are five partners on board with him on GNS.
For many years now, Tuomas has been forecasting the economic end times that never came. He's often suggested people to "withdraw cash and keep it" because the collapse can happen on "any day now".
3/23
Malinen was also at least on some level involved in the most pro-Russian party in Finland, Valta Kuuluu Kansalle (VKK; "Power to the People"). At the end of 2021, he published a video where he claimed that the top leadership of the police and of the Army don't think the...
4/23
...best for the Finns anymore. In the same video he promoted antivax- and WEF conspiracy theories, suggesting that "we are at the point where we need to start building a parallel society".
5/23
Few days after Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Tuomas commented that "VKK unfortunately didn't turn out to be what I hoped for", at the same time suggesting that he had previously collaborated with them.
6/23
Malinen has been appearing every now and then on pro-Russian and conspiratorial podcast called LEVELI. Both hosts of the podcast are members of the VKK party, and they're known for promoting conspiracy theories and for smearing Finnish politicians and journalists.
7/23
In Dec 2022, Malinen was caught up in a drama when she was blamed for "manipulation" by one of LEVELI's former podcasters, Nea Lundström-Finnilä.
8/23
She suggested that Tuomas had manipulated her by offering her a "position as his successor" by becoming her mentor, and for this she had to "give up everything". LEVELI later gave him the platform to explain the situation.
9/23
In Oct 2022, Malinen claimed that the Russian bombing of civilian targets seemed "too focused to act as a mere terror campaign" (which it was and is). He also stated that the Russian re-grouping could predict a "massive winter offensive in many fronts possibly to ...
10/23
...crush Ukrainian army altogether". "Russia would probably be able to unleash a war-machine not seen in Europe for a very long time," he continued.
Malinen has also theorized that the war could result in - surprise, surprise - market crash in Europe, and this might've...
11/23
...been Putin's strategy all along.
In Dec 2022, Malinen tweeted that he'd received "worrying information", pointing to the possibility that it was actually Ukraine that initiated the war against Russia.
12/23
Malinen attempts to create this illusion of being a neutral analyst, often using phrases like "I am hoping that the information and the speculation are wrong", but then continuing with something like "Something just doesn’t add up".
13/23
He often presents Putin as a "master strategist" and the West as the inferior party. When reporting about various incidents from the battlefield, he refers to pro-Russian propagandists such as Douglas Macgregor.
14/23
Tuomas also claims that he's receiving "extraordinary intel" from various sources on the field which is a great way to shift the responsibility to others when he's eventually wrong again. This fantastic information usually comes from people like Ritter and Macgregor.
15/23
Here's a textbook example from one of his blog posts: "Again, I hope that I am wrong and Ukraine wins the war and reclaims her territories. That, unfortunately, currently looks rather unlikely."
16/23
This "muddying the waters" approach offers a nice backdoor when Russia eventually loses the war - Tuomas can simply state that he was always rooting for the good guys.
17/23
In Jan 2023, Malinen tweeted that "there would have been a simple solution to #UkraineRussiaWar️" - by addressing the concerns of Russia and by accepting territorial losses (probably referring to Crimea) "as a result of failed foreign policies of the US and the EU".
18/23
In Mar 2023 he also blamed the Biden administration for the destruction of Nord Stream pipelines, parroting the narrative by Sy Hersh. At the same time he highlighted the "inhumane losses of the Ukrainian army", perhaps again referring to Macgregor's shitty analysis.
19/23
On 3 Mar 2023,he claimed that Finland's NATO membership makes Finland the second front-line against Russia, and will most like bring war. He also possibly thinks that "Finns are, generally, the most stupid, gullible and malevolent people" and that we have "lost our purpose".20/23
Tuomas also has a tendency to cry out election fraud in any election held in Finland - the last time he cried wolf was on 5 Apr 2023, after the Finnish Parliamentary election, when he stated the possibility of a "massive elecotral fraud".
21/23
Apparently Mr Malinen considers himself as a real threat to the "deep state", as he has tweeted that "they" are eventually coming after him with false accusations of tax fraud, sexual assault or robbery/battery.
22/23
In the grand scheme of things, he's nobody, but I wanted to demonstrate the doomsayer, "I fully support Ukraine, BUT..." type that we so commonly see these days, especially among scholars and academics.
A little dessert for today's #vatniksoup: Greg Gaylor (@SMUMustangAlum) and his company helped Malinen to obtain a visa to the U.S.
They planned of having him serve as an economist for their M&A group, but they couldn’t get him "out of the clouds" and "down to Earth".
Greg said that "he was virtually bankrupt" and had no money or prospects, but is now doing well. "I think he’s in the pay of the Kremlin," he continued.
Greg also stated that "his economic analysis is very good" but he doesn't know how to translate this into advice for clients.
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In today’s Wumao Soup, we’ll talk about Taiwan, the sovereign country the Chinese Communist Party insists is not a country, but constantly threatens to invade just like a country, while the “antiwar” crowd is eagerly encouraging them to start that war, endangering millions.
1/20
Taiwan is a country, a state. It has its own territory, government, army, police, courts, taxes, passports and elections, just like any other country.
The only difference? Its neighbor, imperialist China, wants to invade it, and other countries try to please the big bully.
2/20
Taiwan’s official name is the Republic of China, or ROC. The ROC was founded in 1912, after the fall of the Qing dynasty. The People’s Republic of China, or PRC, was founded by democidal dictator Mao Zedong and his communist party, in 1949, after fighting against the ROC.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce Russian propaganda operations around military targets like Starobilsk. For over a decade, the Kremlin has used similar strategies, combining crisis actors, “independent journalists” and fabricated evidence.
1/13
First, let’s go back to 2014. Russia funded separatist groups and sent its mercenaries to Donbas, which led to the creation of two puppet states, Donetsk and Luhansk, governed by Russian propagandists and soldiers like Igor Girkin.
The fake genocide was touted as one of the main reasons for Russia’s war during the early stages of the full-scale invasion, and the claim was made even by Putin himself. Before his mutiny, late Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said that all this was fabricated bullshit.
In this 9th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss “legitimate military targets”. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, with no declaration of war, hiding behind a “special military operation”. Yet vatniks & useful idiots pretend Russia has any legitimate or lawful targets in Ukraine.
1/8
Russia started the war in 2014 by seizing Crimea with unmarked soldiers, “little green men”. Russians have been waging an undeclared, illegal war with endless war crimes ever since, whether it’s kidnapping of Ukrainian children with genocidal intent…
… the concentration camps for Ukrainians under occupation, conscripting Ukrainians from occupied territories, or the terrorist, deliberate bombing of civilians, including their infamous “double tap” strikes.
So no, Russia does not have any “legitimate targets” in Ukraine.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Hasan Piker, a Turkish-American streamer and millionaire. He’s best known for his champagne socialism, rabid criticism of the US and Israel, support for the Soviet Union and for Chinese and Russian invasions, and for mistreating his dog.
1/20
Born in 1991, Piker grew up in a privileged and well-connected environment. His father held senior roles at big corporations and his uncle, Cenk Uygur, is the founder of The Young Turks media network. He graduated cum laude from Rutgers, a top-tier university in New Jersey.
2/20
His main activity and primary source of income consists of hours-long livestreams on Twitch where he comments on news and yells at videos. He also keeps his dog in place the whole time with a shock collar.
What you see happening here is coordinated strategic communication by the Trump cult. Elon’s baby mama and former MAGA influencer Ashley St. Clair explained this ecosystem in a long video. They have built platforms where people can find narratives to spread and get paid for doing so.
Even though the system technically breaks the platform's ToS, this is perfectly fine for @nikitabier and the rest of the X crew, because Elon pays their salaries and this is part of his election interference machinery.
If you wanna know how the system works, read this:
Here’s Ashley’s video, where she explains how the system works. She was immediately attacked by various MAGA actors, which suggests that what she said hit a nerve.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Yanis Varoufakis, a Greek economist and politician. He’s best known for rising to power at the height of the Greek debt crisis, not solving anything but endearing himself to the left, and using his fame to promote Russian imperialism.
1/20
Born in 1961 in Athens, Varoufakis studied economics in the UK and built an academic career in Australia, the US, and Europe. His early work focused on game theory, political economy, and critiques of capitalism.
2/20
Presenting himself as the fearless, unorthodox economist willing to confront the EU’s “neoliberal” elites, he rose to prominence during Greece’s debt crisis. At its height in 2015, he was appointed finance minister under the left-wing Syriza government of Alexis Tsipras.