Me neither and I’m not sure what I’m having. I think at this time shrimp and noodles.

Posted by: jo6pac | Nov 28 2019 15:05 utc | 4

there’s a bean, rice and cheddar burrito with my name on it in the fridge. and some chocolate cookies for dessert. thanks, pilgrims.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Nov 28 2019 15:16 utc | 6

@2 bevin is still at it.
By referencing Scott Ritter’s arrests and conviction related to under-age girls, bevin shows his abiding interest in this subject.
So why is bevin so wrong wrt Epstein?

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 28 2019 15:41 utc | 8

Happy Bird Day man.

Posted by: Josh | Nov 28 2019 15:42 utc | 10

Transferring my post to this thread, about the decline of US fertility rates:
Japanification of the USA:
Birthrates in the U.S. are falling. Abortions have also hit an all-time low
As we all know, constant population growth is essential for the survival of capitalism, since it is one of the main factors that slow down its tendency of the profit rate to fall. The article seems to agree with this:

Birthrates have been trending downward overall since 2005, sparking concern about potential economic and cultural ramifications. Keeping the number of births within a certain range, called the “replacement level,” ensures the population level will remain stable. A low birthrate runs the risk that the country will not be able to replace the workforce and have enough tax revenue, while a high birthrate can cause shortages of resources.

Another related article approaches the issue from another angle:
Social counterrevolution and the decline in US life expectancy

Virginia Commonwealth University professor Dr. Steven H. Woolf and Eastern Virginia Medical School student Heidi Schoomaker analyzed life expectancy data for the years 1959-2016 and cause-specific mortality rates for 1999-2017. The data shows that the decline in life expectancy is not a statistical anomaly, but the outcome of a decades-long assault on the working class.

So, this is not an “anomaly”. If it isn’t, then there’s an underlying cause, which the same article hypothetizes:

Obamacare was part of a deliberate drive by the ruling class to lower the life expectancy of working people. As far as the strategists of American capitalism are concerned, the longer the lifespan of elderly and retired workers, who no longer produce profits for the corporations but require government-subsidized medical care to deal with health issues, the greater the sums that are diverted from the coffers of the rich and the military machine.
A 2013 paper by Anthony H. Cordesman of the Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) frankly presented the increasing longevity of ordinary Americans as an immense crisis for US imperialism. “The US does not face any foreign threat as serious as its failure to come to grips with… the rise in the cost of federal entitlement spending,” Cordesman wrote, saying the debt crisis was driven “almost exclusively by the rise in federal spending on major health care programs, Social Security, and the cost of net interest on the debt.”
Meanwhile, conditions for the rich have never been better. This is reflected in the growing life expectancy gap between the rich and the poor. The richest one percent of men live 14 years longer than the poorest one percent, and the richest one percent of women 10 years longer than the poorest.

I wasn’t aware of this CSIS report. If true, then this is indeed a very interesting hypothesis.
–//–
The thing I don’t understand in the WSWS article linked above is this:
The first nodal point, in the early 1980s, corresponds to the initiation of the social counterrevolution by the administration of Ronald Reagan, which involved union busting, strikebreaking, wage-cutting and plant closings on a nationwide scale, combined with cuts in education, health care and other social programs.
So, Ronald Reagan did a “counterrevolution”. That means there was a revolution before him, which I suppose is the post-war “Keynesian consensus”, the “golden age of capitalism” of 1945-1975.
I really can’t understand the logic behind the Trotskyists: they condemn the USSR and China as “stalinists”, i.e. as counterrevolutionaries. But Harry Truman was a revolutionary? Dwight Eisenhower was a revolutionary? Clement Attlee was a revolutionary? De Gaulle was revolutionary?
What kind of nonsense is this?
What is most funny is that these same Trotskyists from the same WSWS website use the rise of labor strikes in China to argue China is a capitalist empire — but uses the same strikes as evidence there was a revolution in the West during the post-war (by negative, since Reagan’s “counterrevolution” was characterized by “union busting, strikebreaking, wage-cutting and plant closings on a nationwide scale, combined with cuts in education, health care and other social programs”).
I think Trotskyism is having an identity crisis. They don’t know if they are essentially a movement whose objective is essentially to tarnish Stalin’s image or if they are closeted social-democrats. They forgot Trotsky fought for the revolution, not personal vendetta.

Posted by: vk | Nov 28 2019 15:44 utc | 12

No traditional meal for me today, but, I will have some fruit cake from Texas.
Wishing b, and all here, a very progressive and safe day..Raining here in So. Cal. We need it badly.

Posted by: ben | Nov 28 2019 16:17 utc | 14

WSWS does, despite some qualities, publish interesting stuff…just now it seems to say Mexico is on the list, and all sorts of things about the Clown threatening to attack Mexico…”Trump threatens to designate Mexican cartels as “terrorists” ”

Posted by: Walter | Nov 28 2019 16:24 utc | 16

Michael Roberts is the best economist of the left.

Posted by: Richard | Nov 28 2019 16:49 utc | 18

vk, what’s a good article describing the difference between Trotskyists and the others? Thanks.

Posted by: oglalla | Nov 28 2019 16:57 utc | 20

Walter @16
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/27/operation-condor-2-coup-trump-nicaragua-mexico/

Posted by: arby | Nov 28 2019 17:01 utc | 22

@ Posted by: oglalla | Nov 28 2019 16:57 utc | 20
I’m afraid there isn’t one.
There are, of course, Trotsky’s texts. But the main critique of the Trotskyists is that they distorted what Trotsky said and wrote.

Posted by: vk | Nov 28 2019 17:16 utc | 24

Happy Thanksgiving folks, and a friendly reminder that “Alice’s Restaurant” is degenerate garbage.

Posted by: Vegetius | Nov 28 2019 17:23 utc | 26

Following up as vk has done from the weekend thread, thanks to Walter @258 there for suggestions on further reading of de Beaumont who accompanied de Tocqueville – I only have an abridged paperback, fairly battered, of the latter at present. Would love to get the full two volumes as I’m finding it a fascinating read so far. Lots of quirky bits, due to his background, but it’s a lively account. They came during the Jackson administration and only stayed nine months – so far I’m only through the first few chapters.
And thanks also to William Gruff @ 262 on the weekend thread – yes, indeed I was thinking of expansion rather than empire, and you are correct that many peoples filled the intervening spaces with thriving civilizations. I presently feel very fortunate to live on pueblo land. I do own my little house but they own the land, and that is as it should be. Still, if you call that empire building, then you would also call the settlers who first set foot on east coast lands empire builders, since they too displaced tribal communities. I just could not see that they were as some of them were refugees, and some corporate entities – a mixed bag at least, not a military invasion. But okay, empire building for the French, the English, the Spanish as they made incursions on the established native populations, the pilgrims also – I apologize for not using the term. I did not mean to offend. I simply had a different definition, that of colonization or in some cases out and out refuge, in mind.
I compare it to what happened in my native land, that is, where I was born – New Zealand. A very similar early process and natives in separate tribes certainly occupying the entire country – so conflict ensued. I am proud also to have a bit of that native blood, as do many kiwis, through my maternal grandmother, so I know where you are coming from. It’s a wonderful gift. Still, I do think there’s a distinction between empire building that occurs from a country to other countries and that which happens within a country as populations interact. It’s hard to see New Zealand today, for instance, as an empire, but I suppose some do and we have empires in every country by that definition. (Just had a chuckle to think of states like Oregon having an empirical mindset: visit, don’t stay!)
And back to vk @ 12, I think one definite shrinkage point for population in the US is the current economical barriers to raising a family – it is extremely expensive these days to have a baby. That has deterred members of my own family – not to mention the difficulties a young couple has even without thinking of doing so. This country is eating its own children and has been for a very long time.
Well, happy Thanksgiving anyway. It was good of native people to help the needy; it just was.

Posted by: juliania | Nov 28 2019 17:52 utc | 28

Looks like NATO has a new deal:
NATO Military Spending Approved: US to Pay Less, Germany to Pay More – Stoltenberg
But, according to the CNN (the original source), Germany will still not disbuse anywhere near the 2-3% minimum required for each member.
At this point, many people here must’ve been asking: why doesn’t the other NATO members rise their contributions, since, as capitalist nations, it could provide them a consumerist black hole (infinite demand) a la Keynes? After all, what works for the USA should work for them, right?
The answer is simple: Keynes was wrong:
Military expenditure (Milex) and the rate of profit

Posted by: vk | Nov 28 2019 17:59 utc | 30

Beaumont wrote a very interesting book about Ireland that I read a while back.

Posted by: lysias | Nov 28 2019 18:31 utc | 32

For all the talk of collusion, an actual case of it just occurred. Hong Kong protest leaders were in Washington twice before the protests began (March,May), during which both the need for demonstrations against the extradition law and the desire to pass the Human Rights and Democracy Act were discussed. Mission accomplished!
Phase two was announced by Joshua Wong today, as he described Hong Kong as an “international financial centre” with status of a “global” or “world city”, and called for other states to pass their own versions of the legislation in support of Hong Kong’s “freedom.” The effective elements of the blunt stick the HKHRDA represents will inevitably weaken if not destroy HK’s position as a financial hub, a fact which the protest leaders seem not to have gamed out. Or maybe they have.
Another bizarre spectacle: people of HK imploring the international community to destroy their city in the name of “universal freedom”, much as the Maidan protesters demanded the IMF impose an austerity programme in the name of “universal values”.

Posted by: jayc | Nov 28 2019 19:05 utc | 34

wrt wsws i sincerely appreciate the alternative (actual) news source but they are so over the top i can never recommend the site without qualification. communism / marxism are ANTI establishment / authority but the wsws is the established authority on how to come across like a pseudo intellectual rich prick with the biggest shoulder chip you’ve ever seen.

Posted by: rae82 | Nov 28 2019 19:33 utc | 36

Apologies if someone already posted this but on Nov 16 Joe Rogan and Matt Taibbi discussed the current state of the MSM in a wide-ranging conversation that I think most Barflies will find very interesting:
Joe Rogan Experience #1386 – Matt Taibbi)

Posted by: HD | Nov 28 2019 19:45 utc | 38

@ psycho – 7
Nice link. It’s often interesting to hear from the source the explanation for why their actions acceptable and everything will be OK. The financial industry is generally a con game built on managing perception and after all its all about the money when we strip away the facade. As the former ZH was so effective in making known – when it gets serious one has to lie.
An also interesting counter point:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/lessons-japans-monetary-experiment

Posted by: jared | Nov 28 2019 19:47 utc | 40

Meanwhile…in outerspace…
After initiation of Operation Condor 2.0, which debuted with massacres in Bolivia following fascist coup d´etat against majority of pueblos originarios, as preparations in other countries of CARICOM are in the making, starting with Grenadine….
The swamp already overflowing even the toilets of the US sector of the International Space Station…oblying the US astronauts to use diapers…

Posted by: Sasha | Nov 28 2019 20:23 utc | 42

Kushner’s Apparent Extortion of Qatar is an interesting gem. If you remember Rex Tillerson quitting, Saudi Arabia and the UAE almost going to war with Qatar and then Brookstone Partners, financed by Qatar paying, 1.4 billion for Kushers failed 666 building in NY where they were hemorrhaging money.
All this happened so Kushner could shake down Qatar to pay for his families losses? This came out of a recent deposition in Florida concerning the royal family of Qatar. Read Ilhan Omar deposition text also names Sarsour and Kushner as Qatari assets
Quoting…
Indeed, if Bender’s testimony is accurate, they are already close.
Explaining that Qatar uses western companies to effectively launder the money they paid to American citizens, Bender cited a $1.4 billion payment which he claims was passed to Jared Kushner from Qatar, via a Canadian company named Brookfield, which he says they have invested heavily in.
Despite knowing that it was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666 Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to write off his debts.
“Why didn’t they pay Kusher directly?” the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Ms. Castenda, asked.
“Too risky,” Bender replied.
“Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?” Castenda clarified.
“Correct. That’s what they told me. … And they did it. And Kushner is happy with them because, according to them, I don’t know Kushner personally, but the Qataris said Kushner told them: ‘Choose one of two. You pay what I tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'”
“The dogs being who?” she asked.
“Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” Bender replied.
The Qataris were aware that as an investment the pay-off was a write-off, but told Bender, “‘We just paid it to pay off his debt. And as long as he’s in the White House, we have to do what he wants until we control the White House.’ We as in Qatar,” Bender clarified.
Did we really expect anything less than this?

Posted by: dltravers | Nov 28 2019 20:51 utc | 44

On the need tu purge the “5th Column”…as the illustrative case of Bolivia so clearly exposes….

The GDR historian Kurt Gossweiler (1917-2017) is probably the greatest Marxist-Leninist thinker not only of the GDR but of Germany. In the IIGM he participated since 1939 as a soldier in the Wehrmacht and in 1943 he joined the Red Army. In 1947 he joined the SED of the GDR.
Between 1958 and 1970, Gossweiler worked at the Humboldt University of the GDR as a research assistant, receiving in 1973 the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze. Gossweiler emphasized the central role of large banks in German monopolistic financial capital.
In a speech delivered at the International Seminar of communist and workers’ parties in Brussels in 1994, Gossweiler declared that “anti-Stalinism” was the “main obstacle to the unity of all anti-imperialist forces and the communist movement.”
Kurt Gossweiler, at the 1994 Brussels Seminar, defended Stalin and the “purges” carried out in the 1930s, stating that those “purges” saved the Soviet Union from a “fifth column” and secured the victory of the USSR in World War II.

https://twitter.com/berlinConfid/status/1200095498872512513

Posted by: Sasha | Nov 28 2019 21:00 utc | 46

Had turkey & avocado sandwiches for lunch; tonight’s fare is smoked duck with trimmings. Just enough time to share this Global Times editorial regarding the gross interference in China’s affairs by the Evil Outlaw US Empire’s Congress–to cooperate with the Empire is to commit treason:
“In the meantime, the law also threatens to sanction Hongkongers who do not cooperate with the US. This will suppress neutral space for people with different ideas and further tear the city apart. The only way to maintain the solidarity of Hong Kong is to resist US provocation and prevent more people from joining hands with the opposition for fear of US sanctions. Efforts to fight the forces colluding with the US should be stepped up, and the corresponding laws need to be improved. There is no way to allow traitors to prevail and patriots to suffer.
“‘One country, two systems’ is China’s independent constitutional arrangement and US intervention damages its external environment. Hong Kong society should be vigilant. To maintain “one country, two systems,” the Chinese mainland and the HKSAR need to work together. Anyone who colludes with external forces to undermine ‘one country, two systems’ must pay a heavy price.”
Here’s a softer op/ed, although it has a Confucian bite at its end:
“To sum up, Trump has signed another evil law that intervenes in China’s domestic affairs and violates the country’s sovereignty by using Hong Kong as a stick. However, in deciding how to use the stick and whether it will take the US where it wishes, Washington has to think carefully because the move would probably backfire.” [All Emphasis Mine]
The Empire has started something it cannot win. I have other thoughts on this but I just dropped by to post this and get back to my entertaining chores, me being the chef and all that.
Happy T-Day, and may Peace at some point finally prevail and come to Rule this and all other days.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 28 2019 21:22 utc | 48

If the birthrate is trending down, it is not a crisis for capitalism, but for the economy.
Actually, Earth added 83 million people to the planet last year.
We are in massive overshoot, in a collapsing ecosystem.
Not a problem, a predicament.

Posted by: Duncan Idaho | Nov 28 2019 21:39 utc | 50

some of the science about nuclear war is presented here at this link, from a 2008 study.
Computer models are much more advanced now, and it would appear that environmental consequences of even a small nuclear war would be more severe than previously thought
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/ToonRobockTurcoPhysicsToday.pdf
Environmental consequences of nuclear war – Owen B. Toon, Alan Robock, and Richard P. Turco
A regional war involving 100 Hiroshima-sized weapons would pose a worldwide threat due to ozone destruction and climate change. A superpower confrontation with a few thousand weapons would be catastrophic
More than 25 years ago, three independent research groups made valuable contributions to elaborating the consequences of nuclear warfare.1 Paul Crutzen and John Birks proposed that massive fires and smoke emissions in the lower atmosphere after a global nuclear exchange would create severe short-term environmental aftereffects. Extending their work,two of us (Toon and Turco) and colleagues discovered “nuclear winter,” which posited that worldwide climatic cooling from stratospheric smoke would cause agricultural collapse that threatened the majority of the human population with starvation.
…..Neither the US Department of Homeland Security nor any other governmental agency in the world currently has an unclassified program to evaluate the impact of nuclear conflict.Neither the US National Academy of Sciences, nor any other scientific body in the world, has conducted a study of the issue IN THE PART 20 YEARS (my emphasis)…

Posted by: michaelj72 | Nov 28 2019 21:43 utc | 52

Bruce M. Boghosian, a mathematician at Tufts U, has an interesting article in the November Scientific American entitled “Is Inequality Inevitable?” An excerpt from near the end of the article:
“We find it noteworthy that the best-fitting model for empirical wealth distribution discovered so far is one that would be completely unstable without redistribution rather than one based on a supposed equilibrium of market forces. In fact, these mathematical models demonstrate that far from wealth trickling down to the poor, the natural inclination of wealth is to flow upward, so that the “natural” wealth distribution in a free-market economy is one of complete oligarchy. It is only redistribution that sets limits on inequality.
The mathematical models also call attention to the enormous extent to which wealth distribution is caused by symmetry breaking, chance and early advantage (from, for example, inheritance). And the presence of symmetry breaking puts paid to arguments for the justness of wealth inequality that appeal to “voluntariness”—the notion that individuals bear all responsibility for their economic outcomes simply because they enter into transactions voluntarily—or to the idea that wealth accumulation must be the result of cleverness and industriousness. It is true that an individual’s location on the wealth spectrum correlates to some extent with such attributes, but the overall shape of that spectrum can be explained to better than 0.33 percent by a statistical model that completely ignores them. Luck plays a much more important role than it is usually accorded, so that the virtue commonly attributed to wealth in modern society—and, likewise, the stigma attributed to poverty—is completely unjustified.
Moreover, only a carefully designed mechanism for redistribution can compensate for the natural tendency of wealth to flow from the poor to the rich in a market economy.”

Posted by: spudski | Nov 28 2019 22:44 utc | 54

>> it is extremely expensive these days to have a baby.
Yes. USA has outsourced not just manufacturing but also its STEM education and baby-making to foreign lands. This frees discretionary capital for use in command and conquering.

Posted by: oglalla | Nov 28 2019 22:50 utc | 56

a good UnThanksgiving/Day of Mourning to you b, and to all of his most brilliant commentariat. best in the blogosphere, as far as i’m concerned. the following i a brief storify:
https://cafe-babylon.net/2015/11/26/a-view-from-colonized-first-american-un-thanksgiving/

Posted by: wendy davis | Nov 28 2019 23:26 utc | 58

The “War on PetroCaribe”…
On the verge of 6th December elections…
After Bolivia, the OAS orchestrates a new coup process in Dominica
Coup D´etat in Dominica? Thread…
https://twitter.com/Mision_Verdad/status/1199796745254952967

On December 6, Dominica will hold general elections to define its new authorities. From the OAS and the US Government, an attempt is made to create a climate of ignorance of the country’s electoral system to favor the opposition United Workers Party UWP.
OAS interference, deployed under the narrative umbrella of the implementation of electoral reforms, has been used as fuel for the opposition to convene and organize violent protests.
In the style of the guarimbas in Venezuela, almost 200 protesters in Dominica led to road blockades, burning garbage and destruction on public roads. The country’s prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit accused UWP chief Lennox Linton of organizing and directing the chaos.
More than 200 protesters clashed with police when they attempted to march to the home of President Charles Savarin on Monday night. These acts of violence, orchestrated by the main opposition force of the island, are not new.
In May 2017 the opposition organized looting, commercial fires and clashes with the police using stones and bottles, trying to force Skerrit to resign under a narrative of electoral fraud.
On this occasion, the negative influence of the OAS has been much more pronounced. Even Luis Almagro has positioned himself as a spokesman for the opposition giving him institutional weight, while legitimizing the acts of violence.
“The observation mission would be essential to guarantee and suggest improvements to the system,” said Luis Almagro from his social networks, making clear his short-term objectives: to repeat the coup d’état in Bolivia through the use of the Electoral Mission of The OAS.
Luis Almagro’s tweet was published in the midst of the acts of violence and it is no accident: the destabilization plan is synchronized with the various actors who seek to undermine the credibility of the electoral process of December 6.
In line with the position of “renewing the electoral system,” Alexis F. Ludwig, deputy representative of the US at the OAS, said the government must address three tasks for this: “Unfortunately, the Government of Dominica rejected all these recommendations”.
With a threatening tone, the US representative at the OAS asked the organization to pay attention to “the tense political situation in Dominica around the elections of December 6, and the Government’s decision to hold these elections without implementing electoral reforms”.
These movements indicate that in Dominica there is a trial of regime change in the phase of accumulation and softening of public opinion, of the street and of the diplomatic battlefield, prelude to the deployment of hard outbreaks of violence.
All this is being stimulated from above, with the figures of Luis Almagro and the US government at the center of this new trial of regime change. A reissue of the recently completed coup scheme in Bolivia is sought.
What is the OBJETIVE? Realign Dominica in the area of ​​American influence, undermine regional integration mechanisms and create a “spring effect” that encompasses Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and other allied countries of Venezuela.

Worth highliting…
https://twitter.com/Mision_Verdad/status/1200067384473772033
https://twitter.com/Mision_Verdad/status/1200067439553339393
Ehhh…Happy ThanksGiving! God is definitely with you…yeah…

Posted by: Sasha | Nov 28 2019 23:58 utc | 60

From Michael Roberts Blog’s Facebook:
How World Bank Arbitrators Mugged Pakistan (Jeffrey D. Sachs, Project Syndicate)

American economist Jeffery Sachs reveals that the World Bank, an international agency supposedly committed to help reduce poverty globally, is really funding multi-nationals to exploit poorer countries, even through outright fraud.

–//–
From Peter Lee’s Twitter page:
How Hong Kong’s greatest tycoon went from friend of China to punching bag
Reuters paraphrases it like Beijing have a naive relationship with the HK elite, but if you abstract this infantile language, you can see it strengthens my opinion that the protests in HK will hurt HK capitalism more than it will hurt Chinese socialism. They are shooting at their proverbial feet.

Posted by: vk | Nov 29 2019 0:10 utc | 62

I have to admit that reports to the effect that Horowitz will soft-pedal his conclusions as DOJ IG are unfortunately not a surprise, if a disappointment.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/doj-watchdog-expected-downgrade-spying-trump-campaign-typical-law-enforcement-activities
Of course, this could and likely is part of a strategy to leak in such a way as to minimize the impact of the report once it’s released.
Not clear to what extent Durham would be constrained by Horowitz’s conclusions, assuming that’s something Durham would resist at all.
PCR and Pat Lang had both predicted that the swamp would not be drained.

Posted by: Paul Damascene | Nov 29 2019 0:27 utc | 64

Below is a quote from the Introduction to the Ellen Brown book, Web of Debt that says things I have been writing about much more elegantly
”
The hoax is that there is virtually no “real” money in the system, only debts. Except for coins, which are issued by the government and make up only about one one-thousandth of the money supply, the entire US money supply now consists of debt to private banks, for money they created with accounting entries on their books. It is all done by sleight of hand; and like a magician’s trick, we have to see it many times before we realize what is going on. But when we do, it changes everything. All of history has to be rewritten.
”
And below is another quote provided in the foreword by Reed Simpson
”
Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are US Government institutions. They are not…they are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the US for their benefit of themselves and their foreign and domestic swindlers, and rich and predatory money lenders. The sack of the United States by the Fed is the greatest crime in history. Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers, but the truth is the Fed has usurped the government. It controls everything here and it controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks government at will.
Congressman Louis McFadden, Chairman, House Banking and Currency Committee, June 10, 1932
”

Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 29 2019 1:09 utc | 66

I am now up to the end of chapter 8 in the Ellen Brown Web of Debt book and want to provide another quote, from the end of that chapter, this time from Thomas Edison reported in the NYT in 1921
”
If the Nations can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 29%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those that contribute in some way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People.
”
This Web of Debt book provides a wonderful history of finance, foreign and domestic, going all the way back to Sumer times. It is interesting to read how tally sticks were money for over 500 years during the middle ages and the society that benefited from their use.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 29 2019 4:13 utc | 68

@65 psychohistorian
Good citations there, many thanks.
Perhaps it’s useful to drop this link again to the documentary on the Bank of Japan’s manipulation of the economy in order to bludgeon the political process into granting it independence from political constraint. This was 25 years ago, and Professor Werner, who features centrally in the documentary, makes the point very well that the same thing is happening now in the EU.
I found the film very well made, especially for using so much archival footage:
Princes of the Yen: Central Banks and the Transformation of the Economy

“…reveals how Japanese society was transformed to suit the agenda and desire of powerful interest groups, and how citizens were kept entirely in the dark about this.
Based on a book by Professor Richard Werner, a visiting researcher at the Bank of Japan during the 90s crash, during which the stock market dropped by 80% and house prices by up to 84%. The film uncovers the real cause of this extraordinary period in recent Japanese history.
Making extensive use of archival footage and TV appearances of Richard Werner from the time, the viewer is guided to a new understanding of what makes the world tick. And discovers that what happened in Japan almost 25 years ago is again repeating itself in Europe. To understand how, why and by whom, watch this film.”

Posted by: Grieved | Nov 29 2019 4:20 utc | 70

Steve Wynn has to search the couch cushions and the pocket lint. Lots of kosher mafia in the news lately. Did Adelson ever reach a settlement in the Macau snafu? No turkey for me. Big relish plate and lots of Coors. First solo in 60+ yrs and digging it.https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-11-28/wynn-settles-over-sex-allegations?fbclid=IwAR2PoeC9TydqOc1DPR8ukf3AsyCXYcJyFX4voOXLzdzjEN5PX5nlFW43wCQ

Posted by: Idland | Nov 29 2019 5:32 utc | 72

Why is ZH continuing to push the false assertion that the Steele Dossier was originally funded for Dem oppo research while it has been long known that the original contract was taken out by R primary opponents?

Posted by: Idland | Nov 29 2019 6:18 utc | 74

@7, @65, @67 psychohistorian, @69 Grieved
Any article that compares the US Government’s budget to a household budget is immediately suspect. The Federal Government, but not state and local governments, can and does issue US currency. As the issuer of the currency that is not “backed” by a commodity or pegged to another currency, the US Government faces no *financial* constraint to creating and spending as much currency as it wants. It does not need to borrow or earn US dollars to fund any program, and if you think about it, it is illogical that the entity that issues currency would have to borrow it. Government “borrowing” is the sale of a Treasury bond or bill in exchange for currency that the government created in the first place – it is an asset swap, one that exchanges an asset bearing no interest for one that does.
There is indeed an *economic* constraint to Federal spending – too much government spending leads to inflation. But to cause hyperinflation, the government would have to spend beyond economy’s productive capacity, which is what happened in Weimar and Zimbabwe after their economic output collapsed.
Furthermore, legislatures can place voluntary *legal* constraints (e.g. debt ceiling laws in the US) on government spending. But these are not inherent financial constraints.
A group of economists developed these ideas into a body of theory called Modern Monetary Theory. There is a lot of info available on the web as well as in a recently published textbook. Search for Warren Mosler, Stephanie Kelton, Bill Mitchell (Australian economist, not the talk show host), Randall Wray
A few links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnyDRwSqp2E
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=42636
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/it-must-be-impossible-for_b_1096118
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=3773

Posted by: Jimmy from NE | Nov 29 2019 6:46 utc | 76

@49
This is all old KGB propaganda – volcanoes regularly explode with billions of times more energy and cubic kilometers of ejecta.
http://ete.cet.edu/gcc/?/volcanoes_explosivity/
In the last 10,000 years, 5 with over 100km^3 of ejecta, and we’re all ok. Nukes are not even a mosquito bite to the planet compared to what nature throws at it regularly.

Posted by: Ilya G Poimandres | Nov 29 2019 8:33 utc | 78

The Chinese local elections have been called a “big defeat” for Beijing. Yet Andrew Korybko, in “Global Research”, sees a big success for Beijing, because free elections have been held without interference from China, and HK electorate has given its manifest interest in the continuation of the “One Country, Two Systems” policy:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/hong-kong-local-elections-monumental-defeat-fake-news-not-china/5696183
I would like to read an analysis of b of the elections and their importance for China’s capabiluty to withstand the Empire.

Posted by: Thomas Bargatzky | Nov 29 2019 10:23 utc | 80

Posted by: Thomas Bargatzky | Nov 29 2019 10:23 utc | 79
Hong Kong: It is difficult to tell the true consequences of these propaganda/color-revolution offensives we’ve become so fond of since our military (such as it was once) was crapified too in the name of profit. These “non-military” attacks have the potential to precipitate any other pent up tensions in the society targeted, and Uncle Sugar will use that as much as possible, hype it. So you may get results, but not the ones expected (Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, to name a few) or you may set off general societal collapse. Sometimes I think that is the desired outcome, much easier to exploit. Some places there really isn’t much government left to revolt against when we’re done, like Afghanistan, just a sort of legal fig leaf for taking what we want (opium).
A lot of the targets have large numbers of unemployed young men, a great weakness. Especially if they have experience with war. Any nation that has large numbers of unemployed young men in particular ought to have its head examined: e.g. Hong Kong. Notice this is what is being exploited against Iran now, but with less success so far. If Iran wants to avoid this in the future, they need to keep everybody gainfully employed. Same for us for that matter.
So anyway, that said, an opinion:
While Hong Kong is certainly a problem for China, I think they need to keep staying uninvolved as much as possible until it collapses, it’s not their system, and they are supposed to leave it alone. The last thing they should do is “invade” and try to fix it. That is what USA wants. Having it collapse into violence while China keeps hands off isn’t going to look good for Hong Kong “Capitalism” and “Western values”. Like say Ukraine isn’t at the moment. This seem Putin-like too, he’s stalled a couple color-revs now and let the fester: Ukraine, Georgia.

Posted by: Bemildred | Nov 29 2019 12:13 utc | 82

Walter @ 80
Banker suicides Trumps bankers boss dies. How many other loans was he overseeing? BD is a bank is in deep trouble across the board.
Never Trumpers never need evidence, just a tenuous connection of some sort. Anyway, the documents and the truth will come out eventually. One dead banker is not going to stop that. I like the idea that Trump kept two sets of books, one for the loan people and one for the tax people. That is believable and should be provable beyond mere allegations.
snake @ 76
are you saying Kushner.. blackmailed Qatar.. to retire his 666 building debt?
It is out there in Internet Land. I posted it for discussion. It sounded fishy when it happened and the other events tie into it like a bow around a Christmas gift. Blockading a country and almost starting a war to clear your personal debts? That is quite an allegation and somewhat plausible given the absolute crass nature of the couple.
The fact the the Jerusalem Post picked it up is interesting. The Western media is silent as of yet. These stories are floated and allowed to gain traction. The guy was deposed was singing like a bird and too well connected not to ask for permission to talk.

Posted by: dltravers | Nov 29 2019 13:01 utc | 84

West and Europe Are no Longer the Axis of the World, Claims Ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy

“We are no longer the axis of the world and there are demographic reasons for this”, Sarkozy said.
“The axis of the world has passed the West and today shifted to the East. Of the 7 billion people that inhabit the planet, 4 billion live in Asia”. The former French president made the statement at a conference titled “The Future of Europe”, which he attended together with former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.

I agree with Sarkozy’s overall conclusion (that the West is losing the supremacy it earned in the 18th Century), but I disagree it has demographic causes. The UK didn’t have any problem to subjugate India and China. The Dutch also subjugated much more populous nations before, as did the Iberians and probably Belgium.
Besides, the USA continues to have very generous population growths thanks to mass immigration from Central America.
Demographic decline is one more symptom of the overall problem in the West, which is the general decline (falling rates of profit) of the capitalist mode of production.

Posted by: vk | Nov 29 2019 13:58 utc | 86

FAS blog posts, from time to time, things of interest.
See> “Secrecy News. “Life Underground: US Army Subterranean Operations”
The document, newly revised and current, is 248 pages, but you know how they use paper. As always, consider not so much as claim or statement, but the implications in Policy…. The detains are innarrestin’ in between.
FAS dot org
I often think, these days, of the unpleasant profession of Johnathan Hoag,and Shirer’s description of prewar Germany, and of “a time of gifts”, between woods and water, and Klemperer’s diaries…
These dialogs here might be in an annex to the History we’re in, if it were written properly.

Posted by: Walter | Nov 29 2019 14:33 utc | 88

On the fed—
“The remainder of the regional Federal Reserve Banks’ profits is given over to the United States Treasury Department. In 2015, the Federal Reserve Banks made a profit of $100.2 billion and distributed $2.5 billion in dividends to member banks as well as returning $97.7 billion to the U.S. Treasury.”

Posted by: arby | Nov 29 2019 14:55 utc | 90

regarding wsws: andrea lobo has been merciless in her indictments evo. here’s a petition a couple socialists on Twitter put together and published at counterpunch:
‘Statement Condemning US Removal of Democratically-Elected Evo Morales‘
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/29/statement-condemning-us-removal-of-democratically-elected-evo-morales/

Posted by: wendy davis | Nov 29 2019 15:48 utc | 92

@michaelj #72
You do realize the study is from 2008, right?
The problem with models is that they need to be calibrated vs. reality, or else they become nothing more than extensions of the model-maker’s goals.
The excerpt in question isn’t a paper – it is a political manifesto.
For example: at least 6 of the 17 citations referenced in the paper refer to one or more of the 3 authors past work, extending all the way to 1973. Any paper which self-references to this degree is highly suspect. A 7th reference is to Sagan’s Foreign Affairs article talking about nuclear winter.
To be clear: I don’t believe nuclear war is, in any way, an acceptable outcome.
However, it is far from clear that models pushed by activists can be trusted in any way.
The first author, Owen Brian Toon, is also a UNEP contributor specifically called out in the Peace Prize award.
The second author, Alan Robock, is also UNEP.
The 3rd author, Richard Turco, has published papers in conjunction with one or more of the first 2 extending back to at least 1982, as well as working with prominent CAGW advocated like Trenberth.
All 3 authors of this paper have biographies in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists – progenitors of the “Doomsday clock”, so their advocacy position is extremely clear.
All 3 authors are in their 70s and have pushed their nuclear winter agenda for literally 40+ years.
They’re all smart people with a long history of academic research, but it is a lot less clear that they have credibility in modeling in general, much less computer models for either climate or nuclear war.
Their very clear political advocacy means the objectivity of their scientific pronouncements has to be questioned.
In particular, the climate models which the authors say are so much improved – still are very dramatically deviating from actual global weather even after literally 25+ years of “improvements”: A pictorial of CGM models vs. actual temperatures”
Here’s a more updated one – extending to the end of the HADCRUT temperature record: http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/McKitrick-03-550×550.jpg Note the 2015-2016 spike due to El Nino which has now ended.
Is this evidence of a successful model? To me, it is not but clearly many disagree.
The next few years will be interesting; CMIP6 is due out and is apparently continuing the CMIP5 prediction of rapidly accelerating temperature increases – much more rapid than actual temperature increase (and actual temps are increasing). The acceleration promised by the models will have to redouble from actual reality in order to catch up with the predictions – so we’ll know in 5 years or less, barring major model reconfigurations (i.e. more fixes), as the divergence will be too dramatic to downplay.

Posted by: c1ue | Nov 29 2019 16:19 utc | 94

I meant ‘series of quotes from Ellen Brown’ above @ 94, sorry.

Posted by: juliania | Nov 29 2019 16:32 utc | 96

@ vk – 96… one can’t read it unless they subscribe… it says subscribe to read…
read my linke @68 as an alternative..

Posted by: james | Nov 29 2019 17:22 utc | 98

Thanks to vk @82 for posting Fareed Z’s piece. I have been sad about him ever since the Iraq invasion after 9/11 when he was frequently the face of that criminal enterprise on tv. He has stayed true to his convictions (in the sense of being convict-worthy) in this piece. It ought to give notice that what he is saying deviates from logic and truth as per the following:
“…In Attorney General William P. Barr, Trump has found an extraordinarily useful aide, who appears to believe, despite all this history, that the great problem in the United States is that the presidency is too weak…”
I have found this belief of AG Barr to be worth considering, in light of some comments here to the effect that Trump might be a better president if not constrained by elements of what b has called the Deep State, and which AGBarr finds very resident in the makeup of both the Congress and the Supreme Court in this current tangle of “-gates”. Also the press, and as psychohistorian observes, it is ultimately all about who has control of finance. (It isn’t us.)
In my reading of de Tocqueville, I am gobsmacked (not a term I customarily use but it serves) by his constant assertion of the equality of all US citizens in the time period he is observing. Admittedly from an elite vantage point, but he does condemn slavery and point to the differences between north and south that will result in further conflict on this issue.
He also, by the way, even at the time he is writing, see the country as very much out of the mainstream of international affairs, only attempting to be to itself and its citizens a working and workable government. He is critical, but not when it comes to the vibrancy of the local governments, townships ordering themselves in setting local agendas etc. The sovereignty being actively expressed by the people themselves, unlike what is happening in Europe. It made me think that the closest example of this we have had recently has been the communities of Occupy at the height of their activities, or the people amassed in the square in Cairo. This country used to be like that. The Constitution was written in an attempt to provide for that.
When it was, there wasn’t a concerted effort by ptb to infiltrate and redirect. The various coups and ‘color’ revolutions are precisely that. This absence of or diversion from legitimate free protest is well-deservedly abhorred. This country, like Israel, has become what it previously fought and convened to prevent.

Posted by: juliania | Nov 29 2019 17:37 utc | 100