https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/hedge-funders-have-some-thoughts-on-what-epstein-was-doing.html
and other articles on Bloomberg on Epstein and finance rather show that indeed no one knew him in finance, and that he started to get some invisible help very early in his life. No diploma and a nice teaching job…
I agree it must be rather a huge money laudering scheme than just blackmail. Considering who his closest friends/associates are (Dersho/Harvard, Maxwell clan, Jean Luc Brunel, etc)

Posted by: Mina | Jul 15 2019 15:10 utc | 103

CNBC: Prosecutors say case against accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein ‘getting stronger every single day;’ judge delays bail decision

Rossmiller also revealed that investigators found in Epstein’s $77 million Manhattan townhouse a locked safe containing cash and diamonds, as well as an expired passport dating to the 1980s from another country that has Epstein’s photograph on it — but with a different name and a stated residence of Saudi Arabia.

Passport from “another country” w/ stated residence of Saudi Arabia. Why the tortured wording? Why not just say a Saudi passport?
Unless it’s not a Saudi passport…

Posted by: Zack | Jul 15 2019 15:32 utc | 105

I doubt it can be a Saudi passport. Lebanese, maybe?
Ref KSA, this has not been mentioned here yet
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/dutch-government-defends-queen-s-meeting-with-saudi-crown-prince-1.3945743
https://www.foxnews.com/world/argentine-father-of-soon-to-be-dutch-queen-cant-escape-history-as-dictatorship-minister

Posted by: Mina | Jul 15 2019 15:45 utc | 107

The Republicans own the voting machines and are better skilled at Gerrymandering. Plus, mean old white Republicans are the most loyal and dedicated voters. So its a wash.

Posted by: Kristan hinton | Jul 15 2019 16:36 utc | 109

@ 98 dh. NOTHING Hunt does, has ever done or ever will do will lead to any sort of improvement from any perspective…
He is a political spiv at best. He makes honest John of Klassy Kwality Motors Ltd look like a Cistercian Monk.

Posted by: Beibdnn. | Jul 15 2019 17:27 utc | 111

@111 True but even political spivs have a sense of which way the wind is blowing. The question is does he want the Gulf to explode in his face or not? To my mind he’s testing the waters (kind of a pun there).

Posted by: dh | Jul 15 2019 17:58 utc | 113

@ dh 113.
Testing the waters? More like illuminating the inside a motorcycle petrol tank with a match whilst trying to ascertain if there’s any fuel in there.
In my youth I witnessed mates who smoked doing that. Despite warnings there were many singed eyebrows and more than one burnt out bike…
Hunt doesn’t come across as extremely smart or subtle. I know someone who reported to him directly when he was minister for health. The people that surround him are very intelligent, however in the opinion of those around him, he is not.

Posted by: Beibdnn. | Jul 15 2019 18:31 utc | 115

What would be the result if the 16th amendment were repealed ?
To accomplish that, it would necessary to obtain voter cooperation. .. should it be on every ones.. plate? That one amendment securitizes the federal reserve loans to the rest of the world and allows the USA to pledge the income Americans earn to promote hegemonic global intents of economic zionism.
Seems to me if the 16th amendment were repealed, and not replaced, the governance of America might revert to its original constitutional intention. If the 16th amendment were eliminated, it would definitely reduce the MIC budget, and it might bring the 527 elected, salaried governors to return America to Americans.
Can it be done? Maybe, If the voters were to ignore their party polarisation against each other, and make eliminating the 16th amendment (the IRS and income tax would both disappear) a priority in the next election, by refusing to caste a vote for an Article I congress critter unless that critter has signed and published and bonded a personally binding guarantee to make the 16th amendment disappear during their term of office. Just imagine the result. .
What do you guys think?

Posted by: snake | Jul 15 2019 18:36 utc | 117

Chinahand’s astute observation:
“i.e. not using USD or Euro. US clearing is at heart of US sanctions regime & China et al successfully establishing parallel global clearing system cant be allowed to happen. If this ‘decoupling’ happens, the ‘decoupling’ fetish of China hawks will be considered a catastrophe.”
This action is precisely what Hudson spoke of in his Guns & Butter interview linked earlier on this thread. The clearing system doubles as the Tribute System; and once that’s bypassed, the flow of tribute will drastically lessen taking a big bite out of the Outlaw US Empire’s free lunch.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 15 2019 18:42 utc | 119

@Noirette #99
My $30M estimate was for just operational expenses. Charitable donations add to this, but probably not double. Even if he did donate $20M/year to scientists as he claimed, plus the $46M to his largest client’s philanthropic foundation (may or may not be Epstein’s own money…), having Wexner put a significant amount of his wealth into Epstein’s hedge fund would be enough to justify it.
On the other hand, whether $30M or $50M a year – it seems highly implausible to think this annual income came significantly or largely from extortion.

Posted by: c1ue | Jul 15 2019 18:50 utc | 121

You er4 an idiot. period.

Posted by: Den Lille Abe | Jul 15 2019 19:05 utc | 123

@ karlof1 | Jul 15 2019 17:58 utc | 114
Thanks for the reply, sorry my comment was working out of head(stuff) and no linkage. I suspect the ’87 constitution was left intentionally vague for the very reason that legislating would be reserved for future needs, anything defined would either colour or alter whatever that legislation would be and left that decision for the future. They did include it under the federalist scheme rather than something for states to decide. If you were to read that ambiguity as a hesitation to legislate definitive political control over economic function of banking and credit, I think you would be standing on lot firmer thin ice. Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” was a mere dozen years old then, and likely read by many of the constitutional delegates.
The closest the country ever came to public control of banking and credit came under FDR’s New Deal during the 1950’s when small local private banks were found on many street corners. The vast increase in economic activity during that time put large stresses upon those small banks, mainly to provide timely accounting services as checks were flying everywhere. Larger banks were often more able to afford accounting services and eventually absorbed their smaller local rivals. As those smaller banks disappeared so to did the loss of smaller businesses that they serviced happen – empty storefronts appeared where the small entrepreneur once flourished. Start your more recent history from that point. Recall that finance once comprised of about 4% of national GDP. More recent reports now have finance of 40% or greater. There is a lot of history between the two eras that is not accounted for in the public discourse. Again regret not having links to provide for your perusal.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Jul 15 2019 19:52 utc | 125

Well this is bizarre:
Russian-backed Nazi separatists in Ukraine receive a Qatari air-to-air missile in Italy.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48987723

Posted by: Brendan | Jul 15 2019 20:21 utc | 127

@ Zanon 124
When I look to imagine what the future will be in Europe, like you say it will not return to previous. What it will look like though…well I go from thinking it can be ok, through to really unpleasant (for a number of reasons). Either way there is a sense of loss there of something that was an essential part of the continent, and it is that loss we are experiencing now. I know various countries in Europe well, it is sad to watch.

Posted by: gzon | Jul 15 2019 20:41 utc | 129

Arby, nothing about it makes sense because it’s the typical post-factual style of reporting from the BBC.
And as if that isn’t enough, the missile is French-made too.

Posted by: Brendan | Jul 15 2019 20:57 utc | 131

Mina | Jul 15 2019 21:11 utc | 132
What do you expect. 10% is a lot given this short time. Compare how long it took to assimilate the Polish people in the German rust belt. Circa 4 generations. But as long as a certain fraction of the populace remains in braindead dumb xenophobia (example: @Zanon, 124) instead of acting and perform its German culture it may take longer. Of course any sociocultural change is painful for both sides. People from East Germany that were forced to move to the Western parts from 1950-1970 met similar reactions like those. If you ask today younger people what “Mischehe” means they would not know. It was used for the case that protestant Germans married catholic Germans. Lol!

Posted by: Hausmeister | Jul 15 2019 21:49 utc | 133

Hausmeister
I think its sad that you have such hatred for your own nation, culture, continent, people living here that simply vote to curb immigration than the trouble with immigration/immigrants, its not rational, and the policies do not work. See which parties win today, its not the ideology you vote for i.e. more immigration. You are on the wrong path.

Posted by: Zanon | Jul 15 2019 23:10 utc | 135

Formerly T-Bear @125–
Thanks again for replying! I think it’s very important to know why the Fed was created as it’s a hybrid of what the Populists proposed and what private bankers like JOP Morgan preferred. In other words, it’s a compromise that’s working as do most compromises–poorly for some; great for others. US Banking was a diverse, disparate hodge-podge of local and state banks that often issued their own currency, but not coin. While the transcontinental railroad and telegraph connected the USA from coast-to-coast, there was no corresponding banking connection to support what was becoming an interlocked continental market, not just local/state/regional. Often, bank issued currency wasn’t accepted at face value, even within the same state. And the timing of financial flows then didn’t match the requirements of farmers and ranchers, then the dominant mode of living outside of the few, rising, industrial areas. It was the Populists who coined the term The Money Power to put a name to their adversaries; and often that Power was aligned with the Monopolistic Railroad Trusts; so, Populists faced two distinctly powerful rivals in the political arena. Anti-Trust Laws were a product of Populist agitation and political ascension to Congress; that they were first employed to break unions wasn’t their fault. The now famous children’s story, The Wizard of Oz was written as an adult book dealing with the political battle of gold versus silver–Dorothy’s slippers were silver, not ruby in the book, the movie being made to erase its political content–with the West being virtuous while the East was wicked. And mixed into it all were the battles over Tariff Policy.
The Populists failed to form a coalition with the rapidly rising industrial workers and thus establish a Farmers/Workers Party that would have become a viable third party and derailed the possibility for the Duopoly’s eventual formation, and chose to fuse with the Bryan’s Democrat Party instead. That Conservatives from both parties recognized their narrow escape is reflected in the correct contextual title of Gabriel Kolko’s Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900–1916, which is commonly taught and referred to as The Progressive Era. The establishment of the Fed in 1913 was one of those triumph’s.
Yes, I omitted much as it takes a semester length seminar to properly cover the era from 1876-1913. One of the best records for that period as I’ve often provided is Lawrence Goodwyn’s Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America. Fran Norris’s fictionalized history, The Octopus: A Story of California, is an excellent read dealing with farmers versus the railroads. James Ford Rhodes was a contemporary and wrote a series of histories documenting much of that era soon after it was over, including a Pulitzer Prize winner about the US Civil War, many of which are available online and can be found via his Wiki page.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 15 2019 23:37 utc | 137

I see from the various discussions above that involve William Gruff, Zanon, Mina and various others, that the real issue they are trying to reach, in spite of all the distractions, is that the West (and the US, the UK, France and Germany in particular) are using invasion, war, chaos and instability as policy tools to control the Middle East / North Africa and that region’s resources.
Forcing people in that region to become refugees and to migrate to those European countries that happen to be experiencing demographic downturns is a key component in the policy, because (a) refugees and immigrants replace falling manpower for essential industries where AI cannot replace labour; (b) refugees and immigrants are easy to mould and brainwash into New European People, and serve agendas behind Identity Politics; (c) refugees and immigrants can be easily scapegoated when people become discontented about the various forms of oppression crushing them from the elites who benefit from Total World War And Chaos (trademarked somewhere in the US Patents Office); and (d) there will be all that lovely Lebensraum from the Nile to the Euphrates river for Jewish communities across the planet to be kicked back into a Greater Israel so that they will all spontaneously and miraculously convert to Christianity and hasten the Second Coming of Jay-zus (or else go into eternal hellfire along with all the rest of us heathens while true “Christians” are raptured into Heaven).

Posted by: Jen | Jul 16 2019 0:28 utc | 139

German investment in Russia likely to break all time record despite sanctions. As the editor notes, imagine what growth would be like freed from sanctions.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 16 2019 0:49 utc | 141

@ hmpf 80
https://voiceofeurope.com/2019/04/new-study-number-of-germans-brutally-attacked-and-murdered-by-migrants-doubled-in-one-year/
Gives different figures, though you might call it biased also as it originates from Sputnik. This is not a religious survey but clearly there will be a religious element present.
I don’t know, maybe nationalised muslims have it harder and are better behaved, but that does not change the wider picture if the above article is true.

Posted by: gzon | Jul 16 2019 3:13 utc | 143

@Brendan #127
Corriere della Sera reports something entirely different (machine translation):

A MISSILE IN THE RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST ARSENAL
Latest generation assault rifles and an air-to-air missile in use, to the armed forces of Qatar, among the weapons of war seized from the «fighters» active on the front of the Donbass
War weapons, including latest-generation automatic assault rifles, have been seized by police in various cities in northern Italy. The Antiterrorism blitz was triggered against a series of extreme right-wing orbiting groups and arose from a survey of the Turin Digos relating to some Italian fighters who participated in the Donbass war in Ukraine.
More prosecutors involved
The Digos of Milan, Varese, Pavia, Novara and Forlì collaborated in the operation, coordinated by the Turin prosecutor’s office. There is also a perfectly functioning air-to-air missile between the weapons seized by the Police Antiterrorism to the right-wing extremists with extremist ideologies that in the past would have fought in the Donbass, in Ukraine. The missile, according to investigative findings, would be in use by the Qatari armed forces.
Enlist on the two fronts
Already last year, a list of 25 Italian citizens who had fought in the Donbass on the side of the pro-Russian rebels had been sent to our magistracy by the Kiev authorities. The list, drawn up by the Ukrainian secret services, was delivered by a deputy from Kiev to the Italian embassy. According to the code of criminal procedure (article 331) our diplomats have proceeded to inform the investigating authorities that they have opened a file. Other Italians in recent years have instead gone to swell the ranks of volunteers fighting alongside the regular Ukrainian army. In both cases, but mostly among the fighters on the pro-Russian front, it is, according to the magistrates, people who are committing various crimes. From the performance of «hostile acts against a foreign state» (imprisonment from 3 to 12 years), to the violation of numerous other articles: «Enlistment with terrorist aims», «Illicit war recruitment», «Training in terrorist activities ». Italian fighters on both fronts of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict often have a similar provenance. They are right-wing extremists, ultra-nationalists.

The first part of the article describes the seizure of weapons from “fighters active on the front of the Donbass”, “some Italian fighters who participated in the Donbass war in Ukraine”, “right-wing extremists with extremist ideologies that in the past would have fought in the Donbass, in Ukraine” without specifying on which side exactly they’ve been fighting. However, it’s clear from the context that they could only have fought on the pro-NATO side, as the DNR/LNR side is proud of its Soviet heritage and has zero tolerance for Nazis. Many of the foreign fighters on DNR side are Communists: Beness Aijo (Wikipedia), Russell Bentley (blog, YouTube), etc. Out of thousands of foreign volunteers fighting for DNR, there has been just one neo-Nazi: Russian national Aleksey Milchakov, whose group refused to join regular DNR army and left Donbass in the summer of 2015. That’s it. So the Nazi memorabilia are a dead giveaway what side these Italians are supporting: the pro-NATO side. If these Italians are even real. (French-made Matra Super 530F air-to-air missile? How do you get one?)
The second part of the article reports that most crimes are committed on the DNR side. Well, that is to be expected. Fighting for an internationally recognized government is usually not a crime — fighting against one usually is.
So why is the BBC pushing this “evil pro-Russia Italian fighters in Donbass” story now? You see, an Italian court has just sentenced Ukrainian nationalist Vitaliy Markiv, who also happens to have an Italian citizenship, to 24 years in prison for intentionally killing Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli in Donbass in May 2014. So it’s necessary to suppress the real story of an evil pro-NATO Italian fighter in Donbass with another (probably false, at least partially) story of evil pro-Russia Italian fighters in Donbass.

Posted by: S | Jul 16 2019 5:30 utc | 145

Caitlin Johnstone: New CNN Assange Smear Piece Is Amazingly Dishonest, Even For CNN.

Posted by: S | Jul 16 2019 6:34 utc | 147

Russian-backed Nazi separatists in Ukraine receive a Qatari air-to-air missile in Italy.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48987723
Posted by: Brendan | Jul 15 2019 20:21 utc | 127
I wonder why Brendan opted to call black white ?
Quoting the BBC: far-right groups “who have fought in Ukraine’s Donbass region against the separatists“.

Posted by: Arioch | Jul 16 2019 9:33 utc | 149

@F.T-B #148
My penmate, home-schooled in part, says in their history classes there was no discussion of US Constitution, while in her mother’s school those lessons included explicit discussion why and how US Constitution was making USA Republic and precluding USA slipping into Democracy
Also, recently Ron Unz published another article, which to a degree shares that “what constitutes history in US” topic
Within a couple of years, these federal holdings had swelled to include half a million acres of the state’s best farmland, some 1,265 small Japanese-owned hotels, and numerous urban parcels throughout Los Angeles, San Jose, and other cities. In 1942 the federal government estimated the value of these former Japanese-American properties at around $3 billion in present day dollars, but the huge postwar California economic and population boom would surely have greatly increased the worth of this real estate portfolio by the early 1950s. The business assets and patent holdings of the seized German companies were worth additional billions.
Following the end of the war, all this property needed to be sold off, and powerful Chicago interests recognized this tremendous opportunity. The 1946 elections had produced a crushing national defeat for the ruling Democrats, with the Republicans regaining control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1932. President Truman thus faced a desperate battle for reelection, and Chicago’s powerful political machine deployed its considerable political clout to place the sales process in the hands of David L. Bazelon, a young Chicago lawyer and leading Democratic fund-raiser with deep Syndicate ties.
As an extreme example, Bazelon almost immediately sold Chicago’s Henry Crown a twenty-six thousand acre California mine site, containing tens of millions of dollars worth of coal, for a mere $150,000.
http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-power-of-organized-crime/
During World War II, California was located many thousands of miles from the Pacific theater of operations, while Hawaii was obviously far closer and also served as America’s most vital military base; yet the larger population of Japanese-Americans living on those islands escaped any such mass incarceration. America’s top Republican leader, Sen. Robert Taft, was absolutely opposed to the wholesale imprisonment of the Japanese-Americans, as was FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, hardly a man noted for his deep civil libertarian tendencies.
Meanwhile, the earliest and most prominent advocate of the internment policy was California Attorney-General Earl Warren, who used the political issue with great effectiveness to unseat the state’s incumbent Democratic governor in the 1942 election

Posted by: Arioch | Jul 16 2019 9:59 utc | 151

Arioch, it looks like you read the BBC piece after they edited it to remove this part (my emphasis of edited words):
“The raids were part of an investigation into Italian far-right help for Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, local media said.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20190715180541/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48987723
The BBC replaced it with this in the current piece:
“The raids were part of an investigation into Italian far-right involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the Turin police said.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48987723

Posted by: Brendan | Jul 16 2019 10:09 utc | 153

> This seems like a new fake news tactic
Not very new, I observed similar tactics in Russian-language blogs about 2015/2016.
For example this sequence
1. Ukropaganda comes with BREAKING!!! about killing thousands of separatists.
2. Russian “patriotic and pro-people” blog reprints it along with usual “coward Putin sold our brethren, all governments are the same, Moscow=Kiev=Washington”.
3. This post gets shared a lot and linked a lot
4. Few days later Ukropaganda quietly admits that the strike was rather usual and only killed/wounded half-dozen separatists
5. The blog also publishes short notice about it. Which is far less click-baity and does not generate so many reposts and shares.
6. I post a comment asking to update the ORIGINAL post with the refutation, because it is ORIGINAL post that was spread in dozens of hyperlinks, not new short notice
7. I get polite refusal, as this new notice is supposedly enough
8. I am explaining in much more detail how it is not enough and how the ORIGINAL post containing verbatim ukropaganda is being spreaded right now, by inertia
9. I am getting s-tload of dirty words and immediate ban. The ORIGINAL post remains intact, with the secondary notice serving as fig leaf to cover disseminating of propaganda of allegedly enemy of blog holder

Posted by: Arioch | Jul 16 2019 11:24 utc | 155

RT points out the ahem, ERROR” by MSM.
“MSM link Italy neo-Nazi weapon haul to ‘pro-Russian separatists’ despite police saying the OPPOSITE ”
https://www.rt.com/news/464251-italy-missile-fake-news/

Posted by: arby | Jul 16 2019 11:31 utc | 157

Sorry about the formatting of those links, I don’t know what messes them up, you’ll have to copy and paste them to see the pages.

Posted by: Brendan | Jul 16 2019 11:41 utc | 159

Hausmeister
Actually you have (hatred), I remember last summer you got as agitated as now on me for claiming iummigration should be curbed. Meanwhile you turn a blind eye to the mess immigration have led to, everything from welfare state is weakened by every day.
Just because west are waging idiotic wars there is no law saying that west should accept refugees.
Yes parties wanting to stop immigration is winning but you are still stuck, you do not understand that the neo-liberal politics you support isnot supported by the people anymore, if it ever was.

Posted by: Zanon | Jul 16 2019 11:42 utc | 161

Hausmeister

Can’t you argue against my real point of view

Coming from someone calling me a racist/xenophob, braindead etc.
The refugees shouldnt be accepted, you said it yourself, you do not want more immigration, now you say we should take them anyway. You are not rational.
Neoliberalism is alt-right? Again, you make no sense, the neoliberal is against the anti-immigration parties and alt-right (it is in the word) is against liberalism. Didnt you catch Putin’s comment on the matter which I linked to earlier?

Posted by: Zanon | Jul 16 2019 12:22 utc | 163

Hausmeister

Well, I said it is clear that the European countries cannot and will not accept refugees ad infinitum

Earlier you said:

“Just because west are waging idiotic wars there is no law saying that west should accept refugees.” Like it or not: you are part of the West. Shall we kill those refugees then on their way to here

So, is you in support in stopping this immigration today, yes or no? Or how many refugees are too many? What is the limit?

Posted by: Zanon | Jul 16 2019 13:57 utc | 165

Posted by: Hausmeister | Jul 16 2019 13:26 utc | 164
Inequality is the problem, the split between winners and losers. The European/inner German labour market that dries some regions up. Alt-Right is about this, too, just they exploit people a second time, as their social programme is NIL but their ideas on tax reduction are HUGE.
Heard a convincing explanation by Franziska Schreiber on why anti-Muslim politics are successful mainly in places where there aren’t any Muslims – you can tell them anything about Muslims they don’t know any Muslim.
As far as I can see anti-migrant politics are over – the new e-industry is in desperate need for low skilled workers – logistics, delivering stuff, returning e-scooters and reloading, servicing rental cars ….
It is immensely ironic. People used to walk or drive to a central place to buy stuff and merchants would drive to central places delivering stuff in bulk. Now for every online order you need people to commission the stuff, pack the stuff, send the stuff and deliver the stuff the last mile to the customer.
What is saved in storing is spent on human labour.
Plus, there are lots of resources in Africa when competition of resources have grown. You cannot lock people out and mine their resources. That has never worked even in colonialism.

Posted by: somebody | Jul 16 2019 14:24 utc | 167

@somebody #167
Agreed: “Inequality is the problem, the split between winners and losers.”
Past increases in productivity have led to increases in standards of living.
The US, as a whole, has been seeing declining standards of living for a long time. It isn’t just that real wages are flat – it is costs of living are increasing by multiples over inflation: housing, medical care, education.
We’re seeing metaphors of dystopian science fiction made literal: cheap food but no way out of the ghetto for anyone already in it, but lots of way to slide down.

Posted by: c1ue | Jul 16 2019 15:18 utc | 169

@somebody #167
You said: “It is immensely ironic. People used to walk or drive to a central place to buy stuff and merchants would drive to central places delivering stuff in bulk. Now for every online order you need people to commission the stuff, pack the stuff, send the stuff and deliver the stuff the last mile to the customer.
What is saved in storing is spent on human labour.”
I split this off because it is a different discussion (to me).
Again, I agree with what you wrote.
The “revolution” in delivery is 2 parts: the first is the self-identification of the people who have money. Between the annual fee – which is basically a pre-payment of shipping – and the convenience (trumping cost), Amazon Prime has segregated the top 50 million Americans who have the majority of disposable income from the rest, who have almost none.
The second is labor. Even people in Wal-mart have a closer connection to the community than Amazon warehouse people do to the customers being served. I’d guess the delta in employment per $ sold is higher as well.
Warehouses in the middle of nowhere are much more easily labor repressed and safely out of sight. Chronic underemployment means people will go to where the warehouses are to find jobs: employment rates across the board (except over 55) are still below 2008 levels irregardless of what the unemployment rate is.
Thus the amount of human labor doesn’t matter – because the humans involved can be paid really poorly with no prospects of improvement, possibly forever. The only reason the warehouses are in the US is because this is service work – the ship time from Asia is too long.

Posted by: c1ue | Jul 16 2019 15:26 utc | 171

@Formerly T-Bear #166
Sorry, but the Japanese incarceration was entirely a function of specific politicians’ greed (at the local level) and FDR hate for Japanese.
This isn’t a case of applying modern sensibilities to the past so much as it is a case of a minority getting screwed when the opportunity presented itself.
The notion that Japan, a nation with 37M people, would invade the US – a nation with 132 million people and which was both richer and more industrialized, and 5000 miles away, is utterly ludicrous.
Compare with the Vietnam war: US population was 203M vs. Vietnam population of 42M – and which was split. The US lost, badly although the number of US dead vs. hostile Vietnamese dead was many many multiples.

Posted by: c1ue | Jul 16 2019 15:33 utc | 173

somebody | Jul 16 2019 14:24 utc | 167
Thanks for bringing in some rational sunshine!
“As far as I can see anti-migrant politics are over…” fits to my everyday observations as well.
“Heard a convincing explanation by Franziska Schreiber on why anti-Muslim politics are successful mainly in places where there aren’t any Muslims – you can tell them anything about Muslims they don’t know any Muslim.” My hobby here since years, especially when I use the train in the Eastern parts of Germany. It is exactly like this. But to know it does not help. Their filter bubble is so strong and elastic that it cannot be hurt by any reason. Therefore I came to the comparison with pushing people under the big trees in a thunderstorm. With people of a kind that “believes” in stuff like QAnon or Merkel as a hidden daughter of Hitler (seriously, appeared in Germany in a blog that exploded later from alt-right filter bubble hysteria) no one can have any successful discussion about public affairs. In a situation where a big part of the MSM only serve alternative filter bubble-fake news reason cannot find an audience with ease.

Posted by: Hausmeister | Jul 16 2019 16:16 utc | 175

@172 Noirette
Thanks.
Spain would put Cataluña under martial law if it had to, and would leave EU to do that if required, which is why EU backed off. For now the changes you mention are playing out in Spanish society and bureaucracy. The king is in a difficult position, as the different interest of society will not balance out into this new direction. The country is becoming increasingly decentralised all the time as well though. It is very chaotic and uncertain at one level, but pacified at another.
Spain would not take Andorra, full stop.
N. Ireland UK EU Ireland is difficult and it would be to guess.
Obstacles to SS. Yes Euro was the worst idea, they should have left it all as friendly nations and open borders to each other etc. Whole countries are being ruined now, since Euro, and they don’t even know how to manage themselves anymore except via EU and Euro finance. The question of Germany accepting fiscal union… I don’t know, the Germans are quietly assuming positions in EU, a new financial crisis where Germans understood they would lose repayment (target2) and position without a centralised fiscal and monetary management might see them accepting. I think it more likely other countries will pull away. As I don’t like EU structure I don’t support fiscal union.
A fedral structure is something like we have now really, it is messy or false though when talking of it being different countries, so it cannot stay this way either. A lot of the harmonisation is very superficial.
EU policy is distant or non existant on many fronts, it works by subtle liberal political influence and financial control at various levels. I find EU basically an empty front where elite get to hang out and from where they justify whatever policy they choose, ignoring responsibility to their own nation and people in the process. Most people don’t have a clear view on how financial influence works, whole countries are caught in the trap of European monetary policy and its leverage.
Trouble is most likely to start at ground level, where locals revolt at what is being applied to them, but as you say, the distractions are provided, plus there is no effective organisation left except that which is subservient to EU. Those openly advocating seceding from EU or Euro get quietly sidelined, or bought out.
What happens in future will be “interesting”.

Posted by: gzon | Jul 16 2019 17:11 utc | 177

@ Arioch | Jul 16 2019 20:35 utc | 178
I think it was the public that held that knowledge which has disappeared. Current public – well just a sad story when history is involved – if it did not happen on an iphone it doesn’t exist, never existed, will not exist. You see these zombies walking the streets everyday.
There were many anecdotal stories appearing in Readers Digest throughout the late forties and most of the fifties about families caught in that fiasco. I don’t even know if there is an archive available. I live in GCHQ terror-itory so I don’t usually do links.
What was presented was ‘Not History’ but an ignorant’s opinion about history. Not only that, that ignorant’s opinion is held by an extremely immature being. If I associated you with that, I need rectify my opinions as well. Over fifty years have elapsed since those days and nary a whiff of such narrative – now it is taken as gospel. Feck that theology, put it on the trash-heaps of history.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Jul 16 2019 21:10 utc | 179

Posted w/o need for comment
”
(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration plans to divert more than $40 million in humanitarian aid for Central America to support the U.S.-backed opposition in Venezuela, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday, citing sources and an internal memorandum.
The $41.9 million had been destined for Guatemala and Honduras, according to the Los Angeles Times, two of the three Central American countries at the center of a migration crisis in which thousands of people have fled poverty, violence and corruption and attempted to cross the southern U.S. border.
The memo said the money will instead be used for salaries, airfare, propaganda, technical assistance for elections and “good governance” training for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido and his faction, the newspaper reported.
Spokespeople for the State Department, Guaido and Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
”

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 17 2019 0:21 utc | 181

random black swan alert:
Building inspection in Australia has been privatised for a while now. Recently those building inspection firms which certify new construction projects, and whose approval is needed to get construction finance from the banks have experienced massive increases in insurance costs.
A 7 man business had its premium go from $25k pa to $85K pa and its excess go from $%k To $25k per claim.
At the same time there has been several problems with high rise appartments being evacuated due to structural failures.
Australian banks are massively exposed to real estate and the above circumstances have the potential to put a big spanner in the works.
Could this be the seemingly minor event that begins the cascade of falling dominoes? I am not sure, but if I were the Australian Prime Minister I would be telling the relevant ministers to pay very careful attention and sort it out, post haste.

Posted by: eagle eye | Jul 17 2019 11:53 utc | 183

Here’s my advice c/o G.B. Shaw for Democrats in regards to Trump: Never wrestle with a PIG, you both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
Just get the goods on him and impeach the bastard already!

Posted by: Circe | Jul 17 2019 23:41 utc | 185

@ james with the question to me about the street people in Portland.
I moved out of Portland last August but have not escaped the homeless. I was called an asshole by one today because I did not have a Bic lighter for her during my walk through the local park.
It is so sad to see that the private finance “dictators” of the West have created a growing sub-class of folks at the bottom of the socio-economic scale to receive the ire of the zombie public instead of themselves. I keep waiting for all those self righteous religious types to pressure their leadership to call out the God of Mammon anthesis to their socialist Jesus but zombies do what their controllers/dictators give them FAITH in…..private finance is the controller god for monotheism types and to the zombies it seems those street people just don’t have enough of the right faith so they must be bad instead of jackbooted by the God of Mammon.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 18 2019 2:22 utc | 187

Hausmeister
It is a well known fact that those that want immigration do not live in the impoverished suburbs where immigrants end up living permanently.
It is indirect racism by these neo-liberals hypocrites – they want them to come, and then they should keep off as far as possible. Not to mention, these hypocritites would ever house a immigrant in need to let them live in their house.
Also. I am still waiting fro you to respond on my quesiton at #165. Namely how much is too much immigration? What is the limit according to you?

Posted by: Zanon | Jul 18 2019 13:54 utc | 189