April 6th, 2023: @Twitter has been randomly shutting down API access for many apps and sadly we were affected today too. Hopefully we will be restored soon! We appreciate your patience until then.
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 #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American editor and publisher, Katrina vanden Heuvel (@KatrinaNation). She's best-known for blaming "NATO expansion" and the US on the Russo-Ukrainian War, and for running the pro-Russian magazine The Nation.
1/23
Vanden Heuvel is the daughter of Jean Stein, an heiress and author, and William vanden Heuvel, an attorney, former US ambassador and member of JFK's administration. While studying at Princeton, she met a charismatic Professor of politics, Stephen F. Cohen, fell in love...
2/23
...and never looked back. One can safely assume that Stephen's worldview, especially on USSR & Russia, heavily influenced vanden Heuvel's.
Eventually in 1984 she became the assistant editor of foreign affairs at The Nation, a progressive magazine focusing on cultural...
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American entrepreneur and investor, David Sacks (@DavidSacks). He's best-known for his investment in various tech firms, for his ghost town podcast service, Callin, and for his "peace plan" on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
1/24
David is much better as a businessman than as a political commentator - he's been involved in many successful companies such as PayPal, Yammer, and Geni.com, and as an angel investor in Airbnb, Facebook and Uber.
2/24
In 1995, While in college, Sacks and his pal Peter Thiel published a book called The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford. The book was critical of culture of political correctness in universities, arguing that campuses should...
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a German lobbyist, lawyer(!) and former politician, Gerhard Schröder. He's best-known for being the chancellor of Germany, for being BFF's with Putin, and for lobbying for Nord Stream AG, Rosneft and Gazprom.
1/22
Schröder worked as a lawyer between 1976 and 1990 before he moved to full-time politics. His most famous and controversial case was in 1980 when he helped Horst Mahler of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group to be released early from prison.
2/22
Mahler then returned back to practicing law with the help of Schröder. In Apr 2017, Mahler was again sentenced to prison for 3½ years.
Gerhard joined the Social Democratic Party in 1963. Then comes the decades of boring politics and policy stuff, power struggles inside...
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll talk about Twitter. Elon Musk recently released the Twitter's algorithm as open-source for all to see (kudos!), and people have already found some interesting things from the code.
Here's my analysis on the most interesting findings.
1/21
First of all, let's start with the "I told you so" moment: On 26 Dec 2022, I theorized that pre-Elon there was a adjustment in the algorithm that prioritized Ukraine-related content, making it more visible, thus making it gaining more likes and retweets.
2/21
After Elon took over, my engagement in Ukraine-related content went down by 40%. This same drop was experienced and reported by Denis Zakharov (@betelgeuse1922) and Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews). Apparently, right after taking over Twitter, Elon Musk put in place an...
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an opportunist, grifter and YouTuber Gonzalo Lira (@GonzaloLira1968). He's best-known for appearing as an expert and making money from controversial topics, such as the "Red Pill" movement, economics and of course the war in Ukraine.
1/21
Gonzalo has tried all sorts of careers to make an easy buck. In the 90's, he wrote corny spy-action books with characters such as "Duncan Idaho, the Langley roadrunner who skirts the line between brilliantly daring and foolishly reckless" in his hardly-a-bestseller, Acrobat.
2/21
He's also co-written,produced & directed a campy action film Secuestro in 2005.After his failure as both an author & as a filmmaker,Lira disappeared from the public sphere,only to re-appear in 2010 as an "economic expert", forecasting hyperinflation threatening the US dollar.3/21
In today's #vatniksoup I'll introduce hand-picked anti-NATO commentary by various Finnish, pro-Kremlin voices. As of today, all 30 NATO countries have ratified Finland's application to NATO, which resulted in many unhappy Finnish Putin fans.
1/14
One of the biggest anti-NATO figures in Finland has been Panu Huuhtanen (@HuuhtanenPanu). Panu has a long history of organizing demonstrations, and lately he's been active in protesting against Finland's NATO membership. He's also a HUGE fan of Vladimir Putin.
2/14
In May 2022, he tweeted that Finland and Sweden can "stop this NATO mess" based on Erdogan's political statements. In Jul 2022, he continued this narrative on Russian social media platform, VKontakte. He's often acting as a "journalist" at anti-NATO demonstrations.