News & views (not related to the war in Ukraine) …
Back to Main
March 30, 2023
Open (Not Ukraine) Thread 2023-74
Comments
Australia (the obedient chihuahua it is) yapped insolently at China at U$ direction.
China ceased $$billions in imports of Australian meat, wine, seafood.. and Australia watched as the U$ swooped in to steal the market niche.
China didn’t pick up the phone for more than a year or longer.
No long term lessons were learnt here, of course. …
Posted by: Melaleuca | Mar 31 2023 4:30 utc | 95
This is precisely what happened with the Canadian chihuahua. Canada dutifully arrested the CFO of Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, on orders from their Washington masters, etc.. And, after Canada lost billions in agricultural sales, guess which “long time friend” scooped up the business?
You can’t make this stuff up. Fill in the blank…
________ – so far from God, so close to the United States.
Posted by: N Hanrahan | Mar 31 2023 5:40 utc | 101
@bevin 8
the Great Power. I suspect that there were a few- De Gaulle, for example, always regarded the idea that there was any power greater than him, under heaven, as silly. He was given to saying what he thought. Perhaps he was destroyed in 1968 with US help, I doubt it but…
Well, the US *is* said to have had a hand in two assassination attempts against de Gaulle. But then maybe They were just trying to rid the world of a dictator…
Posted by: Gene Poole | Mar 31 2023 5:53 utc | 102
Melaleuca | Mar 31 2023 5:02 utc | 99
And Russia did lead the way out from slavery. Tsar Alexander II freed the serfs 2 years before Lincoln freed the slaves. Lincoln’s Ambassador to Russia Cassius Clay reported the Czar’s freeing of serfs. [100 years later a Cassius Clay namesake changed his name to Muhammad Ali.]
Post-Czar-dynasty Russia refuses to succumb to the planet’s mis-leaders. Russia became the nemesis of Western acquisitor-madness and inherited-wealth monsters, who are in nervous terror of coerced to cooperate in order to survive. China has joined Russia in the sanity of “together goes better”.
[The original meaning of “competition” was “to pull together”. How odd.]
Posted by: chu teh | Mar 31 2023 5:59 utc | 103
My original response to james
”
@ james | Mar 30 2023 15:58 utc | 9 with the links to Richard Werner’s recent work
I only read the article and didn’t watch the video.
Smarmy is the description that comes to mind.
Werner talks about central planners but does not clarify that these folks are not sovereign government folks working in the best interests of the public but private individuals, organizations and bought government puppets working for the interest of the God of Mammon cult and its followers.
”
My 2nd response
”
@ james | Mar 30 2023 17:00 utc | 26 who does not agree with my assessment of Werner
50 years ago I was studying to be one of those central planners in the public sphere and saw public policy planning get taken down/out like Occupy, only different for the time…..so I went back to my computer career and have been watching the shit show since.
Yes, I am dismissive of the obfuscatory types and suggest you get him together with Michael Hudson who would expose his misrepresentations of who the central planners really are
If/when society gets rid of private finance then there is a chance that the central planners will work in the public interest but until then they work and exist at the behest of the cult
”
My final response after finishing my 8 pair shoe stand from left over 3/4 inch oak flooring.
Werner
To consider the question whether banks should be allowed to fail, we have to be aware that bank failures have a significant adverse impact on the economy.
I posit that bank failure does not have to have a significant adverse impact on the functional economy but may significantly effect the financial economy as China has shown with a public Central Bank.
The total lack of clarity throughout the article about the public/private control of the structure and actors is smarmy and he ends with
Werner
China’s success started when Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978 and immediately demanded that ideology and politics should be de-emphasised, and economic policies should be adopted that had a record of working well. So he ditched the Soviet-style monobanking system and created thousands of banks, mostly small local banks, lending to small firms.
Decentralised structures are more resilient and more successful than centralised ones, for one, because central planning crushes the human spirit. Central planners also can never get things right in detail. Decentralised forms of organisation improve motivation and boost creativity. Since money is at the heart of the economy, and banks create it, we need to ensure we have a decentralised banking system consisting of many small banks.
What the reader of the article never sees mentioned is that in China the core of finance is governmentally controlled and in the West it is controlled by the God Of Mammon cult that we don’t even get to know who they are other than Pope Frank and King Chuck.
In case it isn’t clear, we are currently in a civilization war over unipolar private versus multipolar sovereign forms of finance. Werner is bought and paid for by the unipolar private side of our civilization war, IMO
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 31 2023 5:59 utc | 104
At his Telegram, Pepe linked to my translation of Patrushev’s interview…
Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 30 2023 21:06 utc | 55
This is a great interview, beginning with the following hernia-inducing remark by the interviewer …
“Nikolai Platonovich, on Tuesday the United States will begin the second “summit for democracy”, following which, as stated by the State Department, Washington will accelerate the so-called democratic renewal of the world. What do you think about this gathering of American vassals?”
Bwa ha ha ha. Who said world geo-politics can’t be amusing?
Posted by: N Hanrahan | Mar 31 2023 6:09 utc | 106
Some media from a country that would be about 2% of the global economy claiming that an union that would be about 14% of the global economy wouldn’t be a key player of the multipolarity is so laughable. Like… Most of EU would actually innovate, a lot, while Russia would innovate less than Mauritius.
Vladimir Putin and his clique should stop obsessing over EU and start fixing Russia if they wanted the country to remain relevant in the upcoming decades.
Posted by: Nordic Beauty | Mar 31 2023 6:29 utc | 107
Phschohistorian @ 104
May I recommend walnut oil for your shoe rack.
I found yours and James’s exchange very interesting and informing, as you say it’s the very esensse of mulitypolarity I’m inclined to agree with your take.
Sorry James he’s got a good point.
Posted by: Mark2 | Mar 31 2023 6:49 utc | 108
@Melaleuca | Mar 31 2023 5:02 utc | 99
Why [will Moscow exhaust itself eventually, like the Soviet Union]? There’s nothing the Russian Federation is doing now that’s significantly comparable to 80s Soviet times.
Good question. I can start with Sun Tzu’s admonition: “There is no instance in history of a country having benefitted from prolonged warfare.”
Then there are warfare’s fundamentals:
(1) Manpower. The Russian Federation has something like 150 million people. The West has many times more. Even Europe by itself has potentially several times more manpower than Russia.
(2) Natural resources. Russia has far more of these than any other single country, but the West combined is rather large too. North America, South America, and probably much of Africa — when added — will likely out-resource the Russians.
(3) Industrial prowess. Russia has the advantage now and for the next few years, especially in the making of matériel. But if the war lasts much longer than a few years, the West will gear up too; the larger Western population will eventually be able to manufacture more than the Russians.
Yes, the Western military is a mess at the moment. But it can be fixed. And given time, it probably will be fixed. War is great motivation.
And yes, a black swan economic event — the fall of the US dollar, for example — can crash the West, allowing Russia to win rapidly. But what if the dire event does not occur? In that case, without support from the Chinese, Russia will exhaust itself. Russia’s planners can’t ignore the latter possibility; it is only prudent to prepare for the worst case.
However, if China joins the fight, all the fundamentals above will tilt quite heavily in favor of the East. China has the manpower and industrial advantages, for sure. And China is winning over much of Africa and Latin America, so their natural resources will likely go East, not West. And China has enough technology, industrial strength, and desert area to switch massively to solar energy, so its lack of oil will be less and less important. In a war of attrition, West versus East, the West will lose — badly.
“Never fight a land war against Russia in Europe”.
That is good advice for any single European country: don’t fight Russia. But the US has a lot of weight still. All the West, when it’s combined, may wear the Russians down, eventually. So that is why China will be crucial.
Posted by: Cyril | Mar 31 2023 7:05 utc | 110
OK, it’s been Friday here for more than 19 hours, meaning arts day is open &* that I consider pre-1965 MAD Magazines to be art. Well it wasn’t until 1965 that I as a pre-pubescent, pre adolscent, concluded that MAD magazine had degenerated into cliches & self-parody.
Anyway yesterday while doing some boring domestic task I found myself singing:
“ In flight, inflight,
They serve great food in flight,
The sirloins are so tasty & rare. . . .”
To the tune of “Tonight” one of the ditties from “West Side story”
Although I could remember a couple of other lines I was unsure of their accuracy so tried to check out for myself. I was fairly sure though that the lines came from one of Mort Drucker’s send up/parodies, although Drucker was the artist I had no idea who wrote the lines so I went to Doug Gilford’s excellent MAD cover site to find the comic.
I discovered that Drucker had drawn a parody “East Side story” in April 1963, issue #78 which was familiar but the ‘Tonight’ send-up was a called ‘Tonight’ and like the rest of that particular parody was focussed on amerika – USSR politics.
So the version of Tonight I recall must be from an entirely other Drucker comic strip. Is anyone out there familiar with it? On consideration I did read many post ’65 Mads, altho skimmed as my mother kept getting ’em from the newsagents, but after grokking the latest Don Martin, I didn’t read them from cover to cover as I once had, so yeah maybe the version of Tonight that is currently my ear worm could be in a somewhat later edition.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Mar 31 2023 7:15 utc | 111
.Nordic Beauty @ 107
Your view is very simplistic and a thinly disguised suggestion that western might is right.
Many of us on this blog strongly disagree.
Russia/Vladimir Putin have no choice but to defend it self from the west’s unprovoked attack, motivated by a desire to distroy Russia as it is.
Whilst the west could in a heart beat end their hostility and sanctions. They don’t.
This now becouse of the above two points has escalated into a fight to the death. Literally.
Russia won’t roll over, so you and the west need to take that into account and come back with a suggested off ramp. Bareing in mind America is incapable of agreement.
My view ? The US needs to surrender they lost.
Posted by: Mark2 | Mar 31 2023 7:30 utc | 112
Posted by: Vikichka | Mar 30 2023 16:04 utc | 11
I was a little slow to respond, and I see that your basic premise has already been demolished by other contributors.
I’m not sure if you’re in the richest 1%, but you seem to be complaining that the wealthiest in society pay a higher proportion of tax. Surely this is how it should be? However, using their vast resources the wealthiest in society find mechanisms (see Panama Papers etc) to avoid tax and as a proportion of their income they pay less tax per dollar earned than the average Joe.
“The richest 1 percent grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth worth $42 trillion created since 2020, almost twice as much money as the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population, reveals a new Oxfam report today. During the past decade, the richest 1 percent had captured around half of all new wealth.”
If Jeff Bezos or one of the other multi billionaires was taxed $100 billion of his reputed $120 billion fortune, he’d still have $20 billion to struggle by on.
This re-distribution doesn’t seem unfair in this society we live in where some elderly people cannot afford to heat their homes, children go to school without breakfast, and many people cannot afford basic dentistry and healthcare.
It’s 50 years of “greed is good” neoliberalism that has got us in this mess.
Posted by: Lev Davidovich | Mar 31 2023 7:35 utc | 113
# 107
finland just became the thirty-first member
of nato, e.u. is showing relevance and cohesion
despite no energy in germany
and the peaceful protests in france
and no weapons to send to ukraine
Posted by: Dingo | Mar 31 2023 7:54 utc | 114
@ Debsisdead | Mar 31 2023 7:15 utc | 111
Thank you kindly. Yes, miss a change of context/focus with Friday Art day, especially given, events. Long ago recognized am limited to technical drawing/charts. Perhaps there is one amongst us who could step forward once b is refreshed & renewed ?
@ Cyril | Mar 31 2023 7:05 utc | 110
I can start with Sun Tzu’s admonition: “There is no instance in history of a country having benefitted from prolonged warfare.”
Superficial, without context or understanding, re the deeper treatise & true broader meaner. Definition of a ‘prolonged war’ during Sun Tzu’s time, extrapolated millennia to modern high intensity combined arms warfare in the Year of our droL 2023 ?
Merely issued talking points that don’t float in this forum. Unfortunately, it goes downhill from there. A bit of a ‘tell’, Cyril. Poor effort. 🙁
Regarding Empire, it’s serial failures & especially so re proxy Ukraine conflict, ponder this:
“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Recommended contemplation re the course of the conflict:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Picking up on Paco @32, with thanks to migueljose @41 for the post on Mexico, I post this update from Canada’s PM Trudeau.
Yesterday (30th) he spoke with both President of Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, and PM of Barbados Mia Mottley. Highlights per the readouts — looks like someone really wants Canada to lead a military intervention in Haiti (most probably that someone is not Macron, I would wager?)
With PM Mottley
“They agreed to work together to address today’s global financing needs of developing countries through innovative and inclusive solutions. They also committed to work jointly to advance efforts to reform the international financing system.” – is this code for accepting help from China? … and/or maybe a western led solution being hashed out in Berlin as we speak (see my post in Week in Review on King Charles’ state visit)? Maybe it means trading in local currencies but I can’t imagine Canada getting away with that one. It would have to be a much more “innovative” (as in underhanded) approach.
“Prime Minister Trudeau and Prime Minister Mottley expressed concern over the deteriorating security in Haiti and the need to help address the political, security, and humanitarian crises in the country. They emphasized the importance of CARICOM’s role in supporting an inclusive political dialogue and recommitted to working together to help address the urgent needs of the Haitian people.”
With President Abinader
“Prime Minister Trudeau and President Abinader underscored the need to help address the ongoing crisis in Haiti and expressed concern over the worsening security conditions in the country. Both leaders stressed the need to hold accountable those who cultivate violence, corruption, and instability in Haiti.”
“Prime Minister Trudeau further reiterated the importance of a Haitian-led solution to the crisis and indicated that Canada is committed to supporting the Haitian National Police in its efforts to re-establish peace and security. The leaders expressed their desire for a return to stability in Haiti.”
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Mar 31 2023 9:23 utc | 116
re psychohistorian | Mar 31 2023 5:59 utc | 104 who wrote:
“If/when society gets rid of private finance then there is a chance that the central planners will work in the public interest but until then they work and exist at the behest of the cult”
Hmm sorry mate but as far as I can tell it is centralisation that was the enemy of socialism throughout the 20th century, if we permit it in the 21st, we may as well shut up shop and allow the greedy elites total control of the world. Why?
1/ When a socialist system is centralised apart from everything else it gives the arseholes a single point of contact to corrupt
2/ Centralised administration reduces all decisions to the level of those wonderful humans responsible for the 100% unwatchable TV shows. Every call is reduiced to a sort of average the derps in admin central used to call the lowest common denominator. Take the disaster in East Palestine for example. The citizens of East Palestine have been truly screwed by the toxic combination of centralised railroad administration with centralised regulation. Single point of contact has resulted in the billionaire railroad shareholders being able to pay off regulators for the entire railroads of amerika in one single hit but that isn’t even the worst of it.
Out of this horrific probably long term disaster slimy pols & the equally slimy railroad regulators will introduce a new set of universal operations, thanks to paid for compromises the new rules will be lowest common denominator stuff which the local government administrators plus residents of towns such as East Palestine will view as being too loose, too unwieldy and impossible to regulate locally where it matters most.
In the meantime there will be some towns in amerika with sound railroad infrastructure and few if any dangerous goods carried on their railroad which will find new rules unnecessary and oppressive.
Of course railroad regulation is just a small and rather simple example of myriad industries & tasks that need to be locally administered in a somewhat standardised manner.
All the regions which are subjected to the carriage of deadly freight should be playing on a level field, as should all the regions which are not. I.E. Towns which could be vulnerable to toxic substances should be consistently regulated just as all towns which are most unlikely to be poisoned must also be regulated consistent with other places in the same boat.
The only known method of achieving these outcomes is to devolve decision making down to individual communities aware that they can access what other similar regions have done, not as a stricture but as a resource to be utilised in order to make informed decisions.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Mar 31 2023 10:29 utc | 117
Bruised Northener @ 116
.Sounds like a job for Wagner.
Posted by: Mark2 | Mar 31 2023 10:30 utc | 118
That’s naive to think Beijing’s going to help Moscow. Beijing has the opportunity to increase its influence in Central Asia in letting Moscow to weaken and ridicule itself with its poor perfomance in this war. Beijing could also buy cheap resources in yuans, not in rubles or gold. Russian government wanted to trade with rubles to revitalize Russia’s economy. Trading with yuans would weaken Moscow, like trading in euros and dollars did for decades.
Stop thinking Beijing and Moscow are allies. Beijing is as predatory as Washington and its vassals could be towards Russia. Like, Beijing projected to become an arctic state, which would mean Chinese officials are planning to annex some arctic lands like Chukotka at some point.
Posted by: Loren | Mar 31 2023 11:14 utc | 119
migueljose @41
So the Empire of Delusions is trying to make a case for invading Mexico again? If their target is the cartels they should know that the best way to kill a snake is to go for the head, and in this case that head is in Langley, Va. Sending in the Marines to exterminate all life there would go a long way towards restoring America’s image in the world.
Sure, the cartels in Mexico are just like ISIS! (three pane US-Syria-ISIS cartoon)
It is the patriotic duty of all Americans to pretend they don’t know this.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 31 2023 11:22 utc | 120
Posted by: Loren | Mar 31 2023 11:14 utc | 119
Low IQ spammer
Posted by: Boo | Mar 31 2023 11:37 utc | 121
Cyril @110: “Even Europe by itself has potentially several times more manpower than Russia.”
For shame! You are misgendering Europeans!
Europe has no “manpower’. It is a peninsula of literal gimps craving abuse and humiliation from their gender fluid “mistresses” in Swampland.
As for resources from Africa and Latin America, that situation looks as fluid as European gender, so to quote one of their favorite mistresses, “Let’s just wait and see how that plays out.”
As for the dreams of industrial renaissance in the West, keep dreaming. It will never happen before economic and cultural revolutions completely remake the West into something that would be unrecognizable now… something with balls.
And no, being a vicious, nasty, bitchy cunt doesn’t mean one has balls. It just means one is a vicious, nasty, bitchy cunt.
“We came; we saw; he died!” [cackle cackle]
See? No balls. Just delusionally vicious nastiness. You’re not going to beat Russia and China with that, and that is really all you have.
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 31 2023 12:16 utc | 122
I hear you, Mark2 @ 118. The thing is there is a lot of super-ultra-weaponized crazy in the Americas, and solutions tend to not be so simple. Maybe it’s the cocaine. 🙂
I posted previously a tweet from Bad Empanada announcing that according to his reliable source, Beijing is launching an offensive on Taiwan later this year. After sifting through some of the news, I’m wondering if his source is the leader of Belarus or Serbia or Hungary.
https://sputniknews.com/20230331/there-is-threat-of-global-nuclear-war-negotiations-needed-belarusian-president-lukashenko-1108985300.html
https://hungarytoday.hu/threat-of-world-war-no-exaggeration-says-pm-orban/
https://tass.com/politics/1595537
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Mar 31 2023 12:17 utc | 123
@David Levin #69
It is live …
Posted by: Don Firineach | Mar 30 2023 23:33 utc | 71
Thanks, Don. Further attempts on assorted machines and browsers revealed that TASS’s website apparently has an invalid or out-of-date security certificate. I can’t seem to get around it, but I seem to recall its happening in the past yet getting resolved, which gives me optimism that somebody at TASS realizes this and is addressing it.
Posted by: David Levin | Mar 31 2023 12:51 utc | 124
Posted by: Melaleuca | Mar 31 2023 5:02 utc | 99
Chernobyl cost a much bigger component of USSR GDP than Afghanistan.
Gorbachev himself said it was Chernobyl that destroyed USSR…….it is estimated to have cost $235 billion
http://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/reports/kr139/pdf/kholosha.pdf
Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Mar 31 2023 12:59 utc | 125
Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Mar 31 2023 12:59 utc | 124
I think it was Gorbachev in cooperation with some americans that destroyed the USSR.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 31 2023 13:33 utc | 126
Blinken Janus-faced hypocritical BS at the ‘Summit for Democracy 2023’, Videoclip 17s.
Blinken: “More countries… using the Internet to try to control speech, squash dissent, spread misinformation and disinformation.”
@ David Levin | Mar 31 2023 12:51 utc | 123
*.tass.com Certificate
Validity
Not Before Tue, 07 Mar 2023 08:59:27 GMT
Not After Sun, 07 Apr 2024 08:59:26 GMT
DNS Name tass.com
DNS Name *.tass.com
Check what your browser reports (The Padlock – more info). Your DNS provider may be poisoning the HTTPS connection. If so change DNS …
Bruised Northerner@116
Haiti’s political problems are almost entirely due to Canadian imperialist intervention in 2004. The current situation would right itself if the imperialists wthdrew their backing of the gangs which they employ to intimidate the people, withdrew their forces of occupation, stopped interfering in Haitian elections, paid Haiti the tens of bilions in reparations, and interest, that it is owed, and allowed the Haitian people, the first people in north America to free themselves, the opportunity to choose their own form of government and leadership.
The Canadian capacity for hypocrisy is internationally known to be infinite but Trudeau’s racist arrogance over Haiti, combined with his masturbating choirboy pretense of concern and his infatuation with US power and ultra violence still has the capacity to amaze those unaware that he is, essentially, an actor manque.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 31 2023 13:35 utc | 128
Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 31 2023 13:33 utc | 125
I think you are wrong. Chernobyl was KNOWN inside KGB as an “accident waiting to happen” in 1983 ……….it was a signal failure of the “scientifically advanced” USSR to show technological capability as the economy floundered after the Merkel……sorry I mean Brezhnev ……Era of Stagnation.
Gorbachev made big mistakes because of his wife Raisa having too much influence – which was a Politburo complaint………..it was however the Soviet economy which had been moribund for years importing grain from USA and stuck in heavy industry in an emerging software age……..
Chernobyl was the key to the Ukrainian economy – the wealthiest SSR in the USSR and home to most precision technologies
Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Mar 31 2023 14:07 utc | 129
So much crap here in the oz media. this crap called the voice. just more political bullshit. never once do these clowns post a photo or a quote of an aboriginal person. plenty of white skinned niggers.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 31 2023 14:24 utc | 130
Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Mar 31 2023 14:07 utc | 128
yeah she had far too much influence, and so did Gorbachev’s apparent admiration for US values. There was no need to break up the USSR, Chernobyl had occurred several years before. My understanding is that this was top down, and when I see how much the people who influenced Raisa Gorbachev benefited that explains to me how that came about.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 31 2023 14:37 utc | 131
There’s a poster named Tatyana (iirc) at Craig Murray’s blog who is Russian, I think I will ask her opinion about how Russians viewed the breakup of the USSR. She was a teenager at the time, or even younger, so she may not know.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Mar 31 2023 14:42 utc | 132
LGB NO. 65
Which global position please.?
Posted by: ThusspakeZarathustra | Mar 31 2023 15:07 utc | 133
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 31 2023 5:59 utc | 104
I posit that bank failure does not have to have a significant adverse impact on the functional economy but may significantly effect the financial economy as China has shown with a public Central Bank.
_____________________________________________________________________
So what exactly do you think is different about the Central Bank of China compared to the Central Bank of the USA?
The reason a failed bank such as SVB does not have a significant adverse impact on the functional economy is because of Deposit Insurance. Without Deposit Insurance the SVB bank failure would have had enormous negative impact on Main Street economic activity.
There is no other US entity that has as much govt laws and regulations that constrain its activities than US banks. And Deposit Insurance is the basis for such tight govt control over banks. If the taxpayer is on the hook for deposit losses then its a no-brainer that deposit institutions should be run only in ways that protect that public interest.
Posted by: jinn | Mar 31 2023 15:12 utc | 134
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 31 2023 5:59 utc | 104
In your own inimitable way, you cut to the chase, psychohistorian. Thank you. There are layers of internal wranglings that we get caught up in, but I was thinking this morning, that the true original Americans are the indigenous plus those who came to these shores as poor immigrants, either cast out from their ‘home’ countries or themselves electing to come to find better conditions than those they were facing. They were not conquerors. Those came soon after and are a separate, elite class bent on acquiring power and extracting wealth. This happens in every country, and sadly also to every religion. The true leaders are those who hearken back to holistic and peaceful ancestors. We all have such as well.
It’s the roots that count.
Posted by: juliania | Mar 31 2023 15:16 utc | 135
@ jinn | Mar 31 2023 1:05 utc | 76
thanks, but i did mention richard werners name in my response to pyshcohistorian @ 9.. i am glad you appreciated the links.. if you had watched the full video of the interview with the lady from kitco, you would understand what @ Grieved | Mar 31 2023 1:25 utc | 77 pointed out to you! and not to create too much confusion here, but although people have become comfortable with BDC’s – bank digital currencies – debit cards, the idea of CBDC’s is a whole other level of abuse and power that people need to wake up to… personally i do everything i can do avoid the use of BDC’s and credit cards for that matter… these are middle men, scrapping off profit on everything and people need to get back into cash to resist this – or even better, go into some form of direct barter.. check out that interview with the kitco lady to understand more fully how radical the idea of adding the C – for central banks is, in this mix… consider the trucker convey and trudeaus use of freezing those protesters accounts as a trail balloon introduction to the power of CBDC’s here… it is a whole other level of power and manipulation of the masses…
@ juliania | Mar 31 2023 1:54 utc | 85
thanks juliania.. no problem!
@ psychohistorian | Mar 31 2023 5:59 utc | 104
thanks! here’s the deal… richard werner is on the same level of understanding as michael hudson… you have only scratched the surface with the one short article you read.. like i said previously – watch the video ‘princes of the yen’ .. here is a direct link to the 1 1/2 hour documentary… Princes of the Yen | Economic Ascent | Central Banks | Creation of Money
just because he doesn’t directly talk about it in the short article you read, doesn’t mean he doesn’t address it or understand what is going on here!! that is the part you miss.. i have never disputed much of what you say and in fact i think if you were to actually look into richard werners work, you would come away with a great respect and appreciation for the man, his work and what he knows and says about all of this… that’s all.. cheers james
@ Debsisdead | Mar 31 2023 10:29 utc | 117
i don’t know how much you know about CBDCs – central bank digital currencies – but it is the antithesis of everything you believe and stand for… yes, BDC’s ( bank digital currencies – debit cards, and credit cards) have become an accepted part of many people’s lives, but the next step they are working on is truly frightening and more people need to know exactly what this all means in terms of social control, or fascism, totalitarianism and a world or society going down those roads…
Posted by: james | Mar 31 2023 15:29 utc | 136
Posted by: Debsisdead | Mar 31 2023 7:15 utc | 111
Thanks for the Mad link! I’d say that it was the late 1990’s is when things very obviously started going downhill in the art media. All of a sudden the stupid blocky Legos characters got popular and have been ever since…talk about dumbing down the kids.
Posted by: nathan in WA US | Mar 31 2023 15:29 utc | 137
bevin @128
bevin I very much appreciate your contributions here and I know you are committed to a certain ideological viewpoint. I just think this comment is over-the-top. There are those photos of the Clintons vacationing in Quebec prior to significant events in Haiti… anyway – you should be pleased that Trudeau is not promoting an intervention in Haiti.
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Mar 31 2023 15:33 utc | 138
Vastly Important: Russia’s New Foreign Policy Concept was delivered today at the meeting of the Security Council which I’ve translated and can be read here. For those who cannot access VK, here’s the Kremlin link. The full document I’ve yet to translate and won’t be able to until later today, but it’s here in Russian.
It’s unfortunate b is taking some time off because IMO this merits a formal article that connects Lavrov’s outline to the specific sections of the formal document. As I note in my preamble, the document finally formally announces Russia’s main adversary and that of the larger world to be the United States. I’d also want to look into where the document interacts with the two major policy statements/declarations by China and Russia. So far there’s been no reaction by Chinese media that I’ve seen, although there’s a lot happening regarding Tsai’s pending trip to the Empire.
For those who were wondering, the US is asking for immunity in that MK-ULTRA mind-control case before the Quebec Court of Appeal.
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/u-s-argues-for-immunity-in-mk-ultra-mind-control-case-before-quebec-court-of-appeal-1.6336254
The Royal Family Channel on YouTube is showing footage of the Royal couple in Hamburg. I thought b’s note about blogging fatigue was maybe a German way of saying, “to the barricades!” or something and he was busy making a placard to join in the protests. But maybe he’s in the rows of people watching, maybe even calling out, “Your Majesty!” to get a reaction from King Charles. Or – most likely neither of those two possibilities, but it is fun to insert him in Hamburg events (in my imagination) like a blogging version of Waldo. Which I’ll cease to do now.
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Mar 31 2023 15:51 utc | 140
Re: De-Dollarization
Ultra deep dive into current Insolvency of Federal Reserve Bank…..key paragraphs
……Deferred Asset
The cumulative losses through the end of 1Q23 exceed the Fed’s capital of $42 billion. In a commercial bank, this would create insolvency, but the Fed operates by a different set of rules. Under Fed accounting, the losses have no impact on its capital. Instead, the losses are carried in a newly created deferred asset account called “Earnings Remittances Due to the Treasury,” which is recorded as a negative liability on the balance sheet. Losses will continue to increase the deferred asset account until the Fed turns profitable again and those earnings will then be used to reduce the deferred asset. Such treatment causes the Fed to create new reserves to cover the losses.
The Fed has a huge research staff of hundreds of PhD economists. They have studied the issue of the likelihood of recording deferred assets since the Fed began paying interest on reserves. In 2018 they published a simulation analysis that concluded there was a 30% chance of the Fed carrying a deferred asset, and they determined that it would be no larger than $20 billion. The study was updated in July 2022 when the Fed stated, with certainty, that a deferred asset would soon be booked. This analysis concluded that the deferred asset would peak at $180 billion.
Eight months later the Fed has, on the books, a $44.2 billion deferred asset, and it now looks like it will grow beyond their top estimate by mid-2024. The Fed is currently losing more than $2 billion per week.
So much for the PhDs simulations.
The Fed’s SOMA portfolio has an unrealized loss of $1.1 trillion
In addition to their operating losses, the Fed is carrying a $1.1 trillion unrealized loss on their SOMA portfolio….
…The irony of the Fed’s situation is that they have the same exact asset/liability mismatch on their balance sheet that is roiling the banking industry causing the current banking crisis. The Fed is trying to douse the flames of a burning banking industry while their own house is on fire.…
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4591412-the-fed-loses-money-for-the-first-time-in-107-years-why-it-matters
Posted by: Exile | Mar 31 2023 15:51 utc | 141
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Mar 31 2023 15:33 utc | 138
Not sure what you’re implying with the remark of the Clintons vacationing in Quebec nor what that would have to do with bevin’s comment. As to being “pleased” that Trudeau isn’t promoting an intervention, that suggests nothing more than the benign neglect that passes for leadership these days in the West and in particular Canada. There will be no intervention because the Haitians would not welcome more intervention at the hands of countries that have already stripped out any value from them. Child trafficking not being the least of the crimes committed there. “Pleased” indeed. There’s little interest in solving issues in a husk that is of their own doing. Nothing that has any return for the Canadians.
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Mar 31 2023 15:51 utc | 142
Concerning the financial situation
Without eliminating the corruption merry-go-round wherein players revolve in and out of governance positions in order to assure the (pyrrhic) victory of finance capitalism — which concentrates wealth and impoverishes the productive economy and ordinary people, the spiraling out of control will continue in ever-extreme gyrations.
The SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the USA) legalized bribery with its Citizen’s United decision, rendering US regulation however cumbersome an exercise in covering for the exploitation and heist by the oligarchs.
Dedollarization will restrict the reach of the crime scene but not bring it to a halt. For that a new social compact is necessary, one purged of the many years of secreted, burdonsome, corruption and crimes. With the red-team players here accusing the blue-team players ( all on the oligarchs’ teams) of being “radical left Democrats,” language itself in the permitted media has been rendered no more useful for communication than inventive mockingbirds’ songs except the latter sounds pleasant to the ear and causes no harm.
~~
“…what’s happened is that instead of the banks being nationalized, the Treasury has been privatized by the banking system. That is sort of the ultimate victory of finance capitalism, but the result is that it’ll destroy industrialization and what used to be industrial capitalism in the United States.”
https://michael-hudson.com/2023/03/the-treasury-privatized/
~~
“The recent crisis highlights a structural problem in our current financial system: there needs to be a safe place for businesses to place their reserves and working capital without providing funds to speculative financiers, and without fear that their deposits will be wiped out in a bank failure. That, among other reasons, is why we need publicly provided accounts where households and businesses can hold their money, risk-free. A healthy economy needs a set of basic institutions that provide financial services to families and businesses that facilitate their productive and necessary activities. The problem with private, more speculative, banks like the ones that dominate our economy is that they provide poor and costly services to most families and smaller businesses, and when they do, such as offer deposit accounts, they often put these at risk by engaging in highly leveraged and overly risky activities that often have little social value.”
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/03/the-financial-crisis-of-2023-protecting-big-finance-coming-and-going.html
Posted by: suzan | Mar 31 2023 16:04 utc | 143
Posted by: james | Mar 31 2023 15:29 utc | 136
That is the longest post from you I have ever seen, james! My first thought to your final one is, don’t you think there will be uprisings if that last digital universality is attempted? People are the same the world over, and such a universal domination cannot be tolerated, won’t be tolerated. It’s what Russia, China, and the rest of the world are working against. Remember how the Russian people pushed back, even against Putin, when the policies were not working at their level. And Putin immediately responded. That’s the needed flexibility the world’s systems require.
To me, it is rather like the craziness of supposing that self driving cars would ever be a thing, or that artificial intelligence can so dumb down the human initiative that we don’t bother to know about history or about language differences. We are human beings! The dangers of (as I said humorously to Grieved a few days ago) submitting to roboticization (ha! if that’s not a word, I make it so) will, if only instinctively, be resisted!
We can appreciate that on the level of communication that banks have with one another, digital works. They are, after all, about numbers manipulation, not about life as it is lived. Human relationships? Not so fast! And that’s where folk like Hermit, I think, lose their bearings when they demean spiritually inclined folk. If we are only rational beings, machines beat us hollow. The good thing is that we are much more complex than they and this will always be so.
Posted by: juliania | Mar 31 2023 16:05 utc | 144
Meanwhile, as is often the case, France might be an emerging bellweather for whether or not citizens have any part to play in developed Western Axis ‘democracies.’
The political suicide of Emmanuel Macron and his desire to see the country collapse with him mask a very deep crisis. It is not by chance that the French successively elected an American agent at the head of the country, Nicolas Sarkozy, who destroyed the independence of France and violated the result of the referendum on the European Constitution by adopting the same text through parliamentary channels; then a petty bourgeois, François Hollande, who transformed the presidency of the Republic into vaudeville; and finally an investment banker who has made the Elysée Palace a reception hall for cocktail parties for American multi-billionaires. Four times (they re-elected Emmanuel Macron), the French took responsibility for this descent into hell.
Today, they have to deal with food and energy inflation of 20 to 25%. There is no longer a doctor in more than half of the territory and the hospitals are closing their emergency services. Above all, everyone notices that nothing is going right: the level of education has very dangerously collapsed, the police can no longer maintain order, the justice system does not have the means to do anything before two years, the army is unable to respond to high intensity warfare. The problems are so numerous that one does not know where to start.
The French are beginning to realize that public services should not be patched up, but redesigned according to new realities: the computerization of the means of production and the globalization of trade. According to some, the crisis began in 2007, with the vote by Parliament of a text that had been rejected by referendum; or again, according to others, in 2005, with the riots in the Parisian suburbs; unless it was, in 1990, with the French participation in the United States war in the Gulf. Still, the country does not find itself in what its political class has become, and even less in the policy it leads.
Emmanuel Macron, who was elected with the promise of modernizing the country, appears today as the one who is blocking its transformation, who is preventing the emergence of a new society.
The French, who in 1789 took the initiative to overthrow the Old Regime and create modern society, hope to take another initiative to create a new world. They know indiscriminately that at the same time Africa is freeing itself from the domination of French governments and that Russia and China are reorganizing international relations, but they are very little informed on these subjects.
It is very surprising to observe their thirst for a new paradigm and their fear of plunging into a violent revolution. To resolve this crisis, it would be enough for their political class to listen to them, as King Louis XVI did at the very beginning of the Revolution. But we are witnessing a dialogue of the deaf.
America is facing a similar quandary as internal divisions (most of them deliberately stoked) run rampant. What about UK and Germany, becoming increasingly unrecognizable to those born there only a few decades ago? At what point will The People start demanding something different and better? Or are they so poleaxed by propaganda that they have lost all agency? Hopefully there are still enough matières grasses in their cheese to give Les Citoyens sufficient ooh-la-la to brave les barrières once again for Liberté, égalité, fraternité! For all our sakes!
In any case, I believe these sorts of internal pressures are on the Menu, indeed the desired outcome of the SMO – another reason why there is no reason for the RF to hasten its end with any sort of premature kinetic victory on the ground.
France Blocked for 4 years – Thierry Meyssan 23.3.25
@ juliania | Mar 31 2023 16:05 utc | 144
thanks juliania!! you have missed my longer posts then – but not this one, lolol!!! every once and a while i stretch out, lol.. not often, i will admit…
i hope you are right… but look at the complacency here in canada over the trucker convey! the biggest take away is how the media likes to present this as something that most canucks were happy about – specifically trudeau introducing the emergency act to garnish protesters bank accounts! you can’t get more dictatorial or controlling then that, and yet we are supposed to believe that the majority of canucks went along with this… when you compare the docile nature of the protesters in ottawa at this truckers protest to the protesters in france who are burning public buildings, you realize how easily duped many canucks are – all according to our beloved cbc – the national broadcaster… i am calling bullshit on that! if my wife is any example, she is very much a feet on the ground person and it got under her skin! this is like a precursor to the whole concept of CBDC’s – central bank digital currency… the gov’t puts itself in a place where it can turn off or on a switch over peoples bank accounts.. it is quite scary frankly and if nothing else trudeau needs to be taken down, not that any of our options look much better… this whole political process in the west of so called democracy is one big sham at this point… we are being run by the corporations and elite… it won’t end well…
end of rant, lol… you probably like me better when i stay short and polite! how is your garden doing?? i am waiting to put the onions and leeks i started from seed in the ground.. hopefully the next 2-3 days i can get it done before we go off for a visit to seville and portugal mid april.. cheers james
Posted by: james | Mar 31 2023 16:21 utc | 146
some music i am listening to..
Joséphine · Omer Klein
Sleepwalkers
maybe b went on a trip.. i hope so..
Posted by: james | Mar 31 2023 16:25 utc | 147
Posted by: james | Mar 31 2023 16:21 utc | 146
The freezing of protesters bank accounts was frightening enough as it was, and then to take the draconian measures further they also froze some accounts of people who were supporting the protest through contributions to the convoy funds. Ordinary people who saw that what was happening was an organic, grass roots protest. Private citizens having their accounts frozen. And for good televison include the military. All this because a government would not deign to at least speak with the protesters. People in Canada are “too busy” to understand the implications of any CBDC rollout. As long as they can use them through their iphones all will be well. Lemmings one and all.
james, you should expound more often and you’re right….it won’t end well….
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Mar 31 2023 16:31 utc | 148
“..Ordinary people who saw that what was happening was an organic, grass roots protest. ”
Is that what it was? A recent article in Briar Patch magazine argues that the Truckers Protest was a spin off of Oil Industry financed astroturfing in western Canada of which the Industry lost control.
I can’t find the link now but the article is worth looking for.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 31 2023 16:46 utc | 149
James wrote: “the idea of CBDC’s is a whole other level of abuse and power that people need to wake up to… ”
I have no idea what exactly it is that you think people need to wake up to.
As far as I know there already is a Central Bank Digital Currency in both the US and Canada. The digital currency is used by deposit institutions to make payments from one deposit facility to another to cover the checks and deposit transfers as they move from one facility to another when depositors make payments. In the US every bank (including the State Bank of North Dakota) has a CBDC account with the Fed.
I myself use paper currency as much as possible. But I don’t see that there is much chance of currency disappearing anytime soon. In 1980 currency in the US economy was equal to less than 4% of GDP and today it is at about 8.5% of GDP. In 2020 due to the covid pandemic paper currency shot up due to depositors exchanging their deposits for currency. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=121zC
In the Werner interview that you linked to, the Kitco interviewer suggested that the Fed was intentionally trying to undermine confidence in bank deposits to promote a transition to CBDC (whatever that may be?). Werner conceded that there is always the danger of Central banks to create crisis to get the people and the govt to consent to more central bank authority. For that to work it takes a lot of people who are unable to observe the facts and not paying attention.
It should be noted that Kitco is an outfit that sells precious metals. To do this, Kitco reps will encourage you to give them your bank deposit in exchange for shiny pieces of metal. That to me, looks like they have more confidence in the bank deposits they want you to give them than the pieces of metal they are trying to get rid of.
I can’t comprehend why anybody thinks that freezing the accounts of protesting truckers would be a way to promote public acceptance of CBDC (whatever it is). I would think most people with half a brain would react the opposite.
Posted by: jinn | Mar 31 2023 16:48 utc | 150
Cedric Durand in Sidebar today on the “second death” of the Finance industry:
“The chain reaction that followed the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy exposed the myth of self-regulating financial markets. Incapable of supporting itself, finance had to abandon its claim to be the totalizing element of economic life, the site where the hopes of today would harmoniously align with the resources of tomorrow. At the commanding heights, however, this pretension persisted. In the throes of the Great Recession, amid the spasms of the Eurozone crisis and throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the authorities never stopped prioritizing financial stability. For example, in 2020 and 2021, to ensure that the effects of lockdown did not cause another collapse, the European Central Bank practically doubled its balance sheet, adding liquidity and buying securities to the tune of €4,000 billion: roughly a third of the Eurozone GDP, or €12,000 per inhabitant.
“Now, the second death of financial hegemony has come at the hands of wealthy investors in Californian tech. In 2008, the banks were saved, but bankrupt borrowers were forced to abandon their homes. In 2023, start-ups and venture capitalists pleaded for, and obtained, Washington’s support to recuperate their savings from Silicon Valley Bank. As panic mounted, banks were once again rescued by sovereign largesse and liquidity valves were opened wide. (A great irony for a sector impregnated with libertarian ideology and profoundly hostile to state intervention.)….
“….This conjuncture may also mark an inflection point for ultra-powerful central banks. Whether it’s the fight against inflation or the conditions of financing the economy, these institutions appear to be in over their heads. Price caps, surveillance of business margins, multi-annual salary negotiations, credit policies, investment banks and public services, and the development of social protection are all instruments that permit better coordination of economic activity over the long term, on the condition that strict regulation arrives to deflate the unsustainable financial sphere. Our epoch has more important things to worry about than the ups and downs of the market. The time has come to say farewell to financialization for good. It will only die twice…”
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/crisis-in-slow-motion?pc=1505
Posted by: bevin | Mar 31 2023 16:49 utc | 151
Posted by: bevin | Mar 31 2023 16:46 utc | 149
You’re right, I might have got ahead of myself there. And I do remember seeing something like that as well, but haven’t come across it since.
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Mar 31 2023 16:50 utc | 152
Posted by: bevin | Mar 31 2023 16:46 utc | 149
Perhaps should have said “organized” protest.
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Mar 31 2023 16:52 utc | 153
Is this how revolutions begin? According to Frederic Lordon FRance’s government has now put the police in charge with orders to clear the streets.
For those inclined to protest Marcon has a “A single message: don’t go out in the street, stay home, watch TV, obey…”
“…politics, with all its sudden force, has seized the country. Spontaneous events erupt on all sides: unannounced walkouts, road blockages, riotous outbursts and demonstrations, assemblies of student activists; youthful energy fills the Place de la Concorde, the streets. Everyone feels as if they are walking on hot coals, impatience coursing through their legs – but not on account of the trivialities which continue to occupy the Parisian goldfish bowl, its inhabitants each more ignorant than the next about what we’re now reaching: boiling point.
“It’s beautiful what happens when the ruling order starts to unravel. Small but incredible things occur that shatter the resigned isolation and atomization on which the powerful rely. Here, farmers bring bags of vegetables to striking rail workers; there, a Lebanese restaurant owner hands out falafels to kettled protestors; students join pickets; soon, we’ll see individuals opening their doors to hide demonstrators from the police. The real movement has begun. We can already say that the situation is pre-revolutionary. What are its prospects? Might the ‘pre-’ be shaken off?
“In France, the legitimacy of the power structure has collapsed; it is now nothing more than a coercive bloc. Having demolished all other mediations, the autocrat is separated from the people only by a police line. Nothing can be ruled out, for reason deserted him long ago.
“Macron has never accepted otherness. He is in conversation only with himself; the outside world does not exist. That is why his speech – if we focus on the real meaning of his words – bears no trace of the collective validation that comes from rational discussion with others. On 3 June 2022, he could affirm, without batting an eyelid, that ‘the French are tired of reforms that come from above’; on 29 September that ‘the citizen is not someone on whom decisions will be imposed’. Isn’t it obvious that, confronted with a leader of this kind, there can be no possibility of dialogue? That nothing he says can ever be taken seriously? Such a person is incapable of owning up to any error save factitious ones, since you have to listen to the ‘outside’, to the non-self, to realise that you’ve made a mistake. This is why Macron’s promises of ‘reinvention’ – so enchanting to journalists – can be nothing other than pantomimes, produced in closed circuit.
“For the despot, left to his own devices by political institutions that were always potentially – and are now actually – liberticidal, all forms of violence are foreseeable. Anything can happen; indeed, everything is happening. The footage of kettling on the rue Montorgueil this Sunday sends a clear signal that Macronian politics are in the process of dissolving. From now on, power governs by roundup. The police will cart off and arrest anyone, including passers-by with no connection to the protest, scared men and women, stupefied by what is happening to them. A single message: don’t go out in the street, stay home, watch TV, obey…”
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/the-french-uprising?pc=1505
Posted by: bevin | Mar 31 2023 16:56 utc | 154
@ Debsisdead | Mar 31 2023 10:29 utc | 117 about CENTRAL Planning and James about almost the same issue
I erred in continuing to use Werner’s Central Planning term where people equate that with dictatorships. Planning at all levels needs to happen but, to me, it is more important what the purpose is, public/private. Who will the benefits of the planning go to?…the public or the cult?
How can one argue about the appropriate level of planning when the structure is wrong to begin with? Finance is a perfect example of having a structure to make money for the cult and not provide finance as a public utility….all the planning around that structure is mis-directed and intentioned.
Planning is and will continue to go on in our lives and all around us at all levels but what are the incentives affecting that planning?….social good or cult profit?
Social structure matters and finance is key to social structure but is owned and run by a cult of unknown membership in our world. What does that say about us as a species?
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 31 2023 16:59 utc | 155
Posted by: bevin | Mar 31 2023 16:46 utc | 149
briarpatch
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Mar 31 2023 17:06 utc | 157
Posted by: Debsisdead | Mar 31 2023 10:29 utc | 117
In the meantime there will be some towns in amerika with sound railroad infrastructure and few if any dangerous goods carried on their railroad which will find new rules unnecessary and oppressive.
____________________________________________________________________
Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any local railroads left in the US.
In the 1930’s this county had 360 miles of railroad track. The trains ran everyday delivering milk from 1000’s of dairy farmers to one central dairy plant that at the time was the largest in the world.
Today the tracks have all been torn up and only about 100 feet of track with a caboose sitting on it sits in the county seat as a memorial to a bygone era.
Posted by: jinn | Mar 31 2023 17:07 utc | 158
Digital Spartacus@152
It’s a weird situation. Remember that the Russian Revolution of 1905 began when a demonstration led and organised by the Tsar’s secret police the Okhrana, developed its own momentum, left Father Gapon behind and…
There is no reason why an Oil industry financed and planned grassroots organisation, feeding off the legitimate complaints of working class people and petty contractors during a period of economic downturn and insecurity, should not develop into a perfectly respectable popular movement by throwing off the traces and developing its own leadership and strategies.
The problem with the Trucker protest was that both its leadership and its strategies emerged from the febrile politics of Alberta where the conjunction between Hydrocarbon monopolists and a population brought up in a crypto fascist ‘Socred-Reform” atmosphere of anti-communism and right wing nihilism ensured that if anything good was ever going to emerge, it would take a long time and a lot of changes before it did.
In a way, that is what appears to have happened, or to be happening.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 31 2023 17:22 utc | 159
Reuters has the info below posted and I have always seen Marcon as a face for the God of Mammon cult
PARIS, March 31 (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron will head to China next week for a rare visit to the rising superpower, in an awkward balancing act between his global statesman ambitions and his struggle to contain embarrassing pension protests at home.
I think Marcon may find a friendlier reception at home than in China…..
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 31 2023 17:31 utc | 161
Posted by: bevin | Mar 31 2023 17:22 utc | 159
It would only stand to reason that anything like that “movement” would be co-opted by some other more nefarious group to take that assemblage and cobble their own ideology onto that particular wagon. I think you’re right though, a little too slick by half. An infiltration even before they left the Prairies seems about right.
You’re welcome, the link one of the first hits I came across. Curiously a lot of nonsense also spouted about the mandates and all. Never was about that really, or so it seems.
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Mar 31 2023 17:52 utc | 162
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 31 2023 17:31 utc | 161
Chinese FM might have something to say about the human rights situation in France.
Posted by: unimperator | Mar 31 2023 17:55 utc | 163
Re: The Trump indictment(s?) – He’s 100% correct that this is all political. The establishment doing what they failed to do when he was in office and making sure (in their delusional minds) that he doesn’t become President again.
My own take? Fuck him and I hope he dies in a jail cell before Julian Assange, who he personally took an interest in indicting, for General Soleimani, and for the Central Park 5. Good luck with that, though. If you have enough money in the USSA you’re almost never going to see the inside of a jail cell. Even for booking.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 31 2023 17:58 utc | 164
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Mar 31 2023 17:06 utc | 157
Thanks for that link. I took a lot of crap around here back during the trucker “protests” in Canada and I always suspected it was, to a large degree, astroturf with big money and special interests hiding behind it. Kind of like the “Tea Party” in the US back when Obummer was president.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 31 2023 18:19 utc | 165
@Grieved | Mar 31 2023 4:41 utc | 96
The world and China all see that Russia is doing this thing, this opposition to the west, and that she is succeeding, and that furthermore her spirit is resolved to carry this matter through unto success, and that, even more than this, she will in fact succeed.
Starting the SMO was brave on Russia’s part, and more than a little risky. Yes, Russia could well win. But this is not guaranteed.
The Russians will defeat Ukraine, and there is little doubt of that — but this war is a civilizational conflict, and is broader than Ukraine. Can Russia overcome all the West (while using only conventional forces) without enormous luck, something on the order of a total economic crash of the West? I doubt it. Absent such luck, Russia likely will get bogged down after 404 is done. Then China’s help — for example, with an economic takedown of the West — will be essential.
And I do not wish to imply that China is late to the game in any way, or a follower in any way, because the rapport between Russia and China cannot be doubted, and their bond was never shaken, not even as Russia surged into Ukraine.
No, I don’t think you were implying that the Chinese are late. And I agree that Russia and China are unlikely to split, even after the retirement of Putin, as both countries realize that if either one should lose, the other will sink too. I doubt that they will lose; combined, they’re militarily nearly invincible and economically quite overwhelming.
Posted by: Cyril | Mar 31 2023 18:34 utc | 166
@163:
It’ll be interesting to see how this Trump indictment affair plays out. You’re correct that money usually prevents one from going to jail in the US as long you don’t piss off other wealthy and politically connected people. AFAIK, Trump haven’t done that during his time as POTUS. IMO, this comes down to how the GOP base feels. IF they abandon him then Trump is finished; otherwise, expect an early July 4th fireworks show.
Posted by: Ian2 | Mar 31 2023 18:35 utc | 167
… you probably like me better when i stay short and polite! how is your garden doing?? i am waiting to put the onions and leeks i started from seed in the ground.. hopefully the next 2-3 days i can get it done before we go off for a visit to seville and portugal mid april.. cheers james
Posted by: james | Mar 31 2023 16:21 utc | 146
Au contraire, james! But you are right – Canada is having a hard time, as are all the ‘dominions’. Have a wonderful holiday! My garden is becoming my obsession. I’m getting finicky in my old age about having paths wherever I need to go instead of crashing through vegetation Humphrey Bogart style. Rocks I have aplenty, and a wall which keeps most of the critters out. It’s been fun reworking all the paths; I don’t concrete them in place, just reset (hah!) everything into new patterns every springtime. This year more berms and hollows as well as paths.
Yesterday I worked to dig under my multiple pear tree – which has never really produced, so I would not recommend the multiples. In a teeny garden I thought back in the day it was a good idea. The tree was leaning towards the wall, so I hope what I did works: I removed as many embedded rocks as I could from the inner side underneath, below roots, replaced with a tubfull of rock-less earth from another section and watered all that mounded up in. So the plan is that the settling roots and some torsion on upper branches (its a fairly big tree, just sporadic fruiting going on) will encourage it to lean away from the wall. It may not work; those roots go way down, but at least more earth is good.
My trees haven’t blossomed yet, thanks to cold nights and fingers crossed. I am a klutz on the finance, sorry – far better for me to embrace other sorts of economy!
Posted by: juliania | Mar 31 2023 18:36 utc | 168
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 31 2023 18:19 utc | 164
No worries, but thank bevin for spurring me to look for that article as I had seen it too but had forgotten about it. And then mistakenly suggested it was an organic, grassroots thing. May have been “grassroots” by design and appearance only to further an agenda not necessarily aligned with the motives it began with.
Ah, yes, the Tea Party…..many tents in the circus.
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Mar 31 2023 18:48 utc | 169
@Outraged | Mar 31 2023 8:51 utc | 115
[With regard to my Sun Tzu quote:] Superficial, without context or understanding, re the deeper treatise & true broader meaner.
Why don’t you read more than the first few words of my longish post before declaring it a superficial comment? Here’s the link to that post: Cyril | Mar 31 2023 7:05 utc | 110.
Posted by: Cyril | Mar 31 2023 18:49 utc | 170
@William Gruff | Mar 31 2023 12:16 utc | 122
For shame! You are misgendering Europeans!
LOL
Posted by: Cyril | Mar 31 2023 19:38 utc | 171
139 Cont’d–
Although there seems to be very little interest, I’ve finished translating the text of the new Foreign Policy Concept Decree, which is 43 pages long which obliged me to split it into two parts. So, here’re all the links to my three translations, Lavrov’s Outline for Security Council; Part One of Decree; Part Two of Decree. Kremlin Russian language links: Lavrov’s Outline; Text version of Decree and PDF of Original Document.
Cyril @ 93, 110:
Your argument looks good but it is premised on assumptions about Russia and the West that may have been plausible in the past but may not be so now.
Having a large army and large reserves is significant, yes, but using soldiers and reserve forces effectively is even more important. Hence Russia’s current mode of warfare seems to be to draw out the conflict by creating traps for Ukraine and NATO to pour their forces into, while conserving its own forces. Effective use of artillery counts as well, and the conflict so far demonstrates that the Russians are relying on an intense use of artillery while the Ukrainians are relying on outmoded strategies and tactics like trench warfare.
That Russia is able to use artillery at the intense levels being reported in online news suggests that the country has mobilised industry to produce materiel efficiently enough to support such intense use, and at the same time continue to support current Russian living standards. The Russian people don’t appear to be much affected by the numerous sanctions enacted by the West; indeed individual European nations are suffering more, esp if their major trading partner before the sanctions began was Russia.
As we know, the US spends far more on “defence” and military industry yet for all the money spent, the output and results are pitiful. The F-35 fighter jet has been in production since the late 1990s but has been plagued with various technical and performance issues despite the billions spent on it. The US armed forces spend huge amounts on marketing, recruitment and training, to the extent that Hollywood has long been their propaganda arm, and still cannot muster enough adequately trained soldiers.
In short, where the billions of US taxpayer money goes is a mystery that the US Dept of Defense seems uninterested in investigating. I suspect most of that money goes straight into people’s deep pockets and thence to Wall Street or politicians’ election war chests and their constituencies to create jobs and work for unemployed people.
You say the US and its immediate allies will rely on Latin America and Africa for natural resources. Those are the very regions whose nations more and more are switching their attention and trade relationships to Russia and China. Even tiny nations in the Pacific Ocean region are keen on trade and other business relations with China at least.
Access to natural resources, industrial resources and human resources counts for little if they are not being used effectively.
Posted by: Refinnejenna | Mar 31 2023 20:37 utc | 173
Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 31 2023 17:31 utc | 161:
I think Marcon may find a friendlier reception at home than in China…..
That the visit is announced means China has issued an invite. As an invited ‘guest’, Chinese tradition means he will be treated fairly and with proper decorum. He’ll do okay, I think, if he himself knows to be polite.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Mar 31 2023 20:53 utc | 174
Western officials would want India to join NATO.
https://www.timesnownews.com/world/amid-ukraine-war-us-signalling-india-to-join-nato-us-nato-ambassador-says-door-is-open-article-99155329
Posted by: Reva | Mar 31 2023 20:57 utc | 175
Western officials would want India to join NATO.
https://www.timesnownews.com/world/amid-ukraine-war-us-signalling-india-to-join-nato-us-nato-ambassador-says-door-is-open-article-99155329
Posted by: Reva | Mar 31 2023 21:02 utc | 176
I see that was a waste of time. Sputnik has the entire decree and a related article, both of which were posted many hours ago. On top of that, there’s clearly no interest.
I read your copy of the decree, Karlof, so thank you. It does seem likely that such important documents will be translated to other languages by officials in Russia, so perhaps your time would be better spent on other things while waiting to see if a translation is provided.
Posted by: Dalit | Mar 31 2023 21:56 utc | 178
@Reva, #174:
Western officials would want India to join NATO. No surprise there. They were conceiving Quad as the Asian version of NATO some time ago. They wanted NATO be involved in South China Sea issues. It’s been clear since the breakup of USSR, the West’s target is China all along!. It’s not ideological; it’s not economical; it’s not geopolitical. It’s racial, pure and simple. The Anglo-Saxon-Zionists, along with most of the European Caucasian races, have deep racial aversion against a race known as Chinese.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Mar 31 2023 22:10 utc | 179
@ Digital Spartacus | Mar 31 2023 16:31 utc | 148
thanks.. i think the gov’t showed too much of its hand.. that is a bad move in a game of poker.. trudeau as a wef leader is pursuing a path that won’t end well for canada… i am not sure any of the canuck leaders are different…
@ bevin | Mar 31 2023 16:46 utc | 149
i think the trucker convoy protest can be characterized a few different ways, but one thing we know for sure – in any legitimate protest there are forces that try to undermine them too – most often the intel agencies… it’s possible there are a few agendas at work simultaneously… but with regard to the briarpatch link that @ Digital Spartacus | Mar 31 2023 17:06 utc | 157 shares, i’d like to poke some holes thru it… to expect any govt funded parties to be neutral or impartial when they rely on gov’t funding, is expecting too much.. you may as well believe in factcheck websites too, which coincidentally are also funded by the gov’ts…
we are in the middle of an information war… beware of the voices you hear and who it is that is funding it.. it works a number of different ways… relying on gov’t funded voices is not a safe way to go as i see it… all voices need to be questioned…let me quote something relevant here, as i think it applies..
“Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich responded to the news that Elon Musk was purchasing Twitter by declaring that preserving free speech online was “Musk’s dream. And Trump’s. And Putin’s. And the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue, and modern-day robber baron on Earth. For the rest of us, it would be a brave new nightmare.” According to Reich, censorship is “necessary to protect American democracy.”
To a ruling class that had already grown tired of democracy’s demand that freedom be granted to its subjects, disinformation provided a regulatory framework to replace the U.S. Constitution. By aiming at the impossible, the elimination of all error and deviation from party orthodoxy, the ruling class ensures that it will always be able to point to a looming threat from extremists—a threat that justifies its own iron grip on power.
A siren song calls on those of us alive at the dawn of the digital age to submit to the authority of machines that promise to optimize our lives and make us safer. Faced with the apocalyptic threat of the “infodemic,” we are led to believe that only superintelligent algorithms can protect us from the crushingly inhuman scale of the digital information assault. The old human arts of conversation, disagreement, and irony, on which democracy and much else depend, are subjected to a withering machinery of military-grade surveillance—surveillance that nothing can withstand and that aims to make us fearful of our capacity for reason.”
—————–
@ juliania | Mar 31 2023 18:36 utc | 167
gardening is a nice obsession!! i wish i had more time.. i am still doing a lot of music performance and this week is a busy week for me too.. i am playing in a music theatre show this weekend.
our older pear tree only produces every 2nd year.. you might get results with the change of rocks to soil under the tree.. hopefully it doesn’t bloom too soon, if you are still getting frost or cold nights.. that will impact any possibility of fruit coming.. do you prune the tree?? i have a number of fruit and nut trees here – 9 to be specific.. it is a lot of work in the winter, but i enjoy pruning.. perhaps having a crabapple tree would help the pear tree… the crabapples cross pollinate with all the other fruit trees.. we have an old crabapple tree as well.. we also have mason bees.. are you familiar with them??
Posted by: james | Mar 31 2023 22:11 utc | 180
@ Cyril | Mar 31 2023 18:49 utc | 169
Indeed did. Yet you assume much & assert one did not … your assumptions & assertions re RF & the West are also invalid & superficial, IMV. Demonstrably so. Yawn.
@ karlof1 | Mar 31 2023 21:14 utc | 175
Cheers. 🙂
@ Oriental Voice | Mar 31 2023 20:53 utc | 173
An ideal thought. Often inadvisable to travel overseas under such circumstances … may there not be a presidency to return to ?
A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century
for those who like classical flavoured jazz – more omer klein..
Sun Girl · Omer Klein
Personal Belongings
Posted by: james | Mar 31 2023 22:19 utc | 182
OMFG its citigroup again….
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/03/congress-sweats-the-small-stuff-as-four-wall-street-mega-banks-have-a-combined-3-3-trillion-in-uninsured-deposits/
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Mar 31 2023 22:19 utc | 183
Mark2 | Mar 31 2023 7:30 utc | 112
Whilst the west could in a heart beat end their hostility and sanctions. They don’t.
All they need to do is stop supplying weapons. Zelenskyy will be forced to negotiate, in order to save as much as possible of Ukrainian territory and lives.
I think everybody could easily agree, unless they still think, as they are tought by the media, that Ukraine can win. Drop that military illusion, and off goes your political argument as well, which makes you advocate weapon deliveries to Ukraine.
Putin is still offering a negotiated surrender that will take away only 4 oblasts – Odessa would remain untouched. He keeps it that low on purpose: it increases acceptability, and hence the chance for such a treaty to materialize. Some propose he take all, or a bigger piece, of Ukraine. But he knows the West will escalate to prevent that. That’s why he goes slow on the battlefield, in order to keep the door open, and help the West come to its senses. For the alternative is nuclear war.
Posted by: grunzt | Mar 31 2023 22:26 utc | 184
Dalit @176–
Thanks for your reply. The problem relates to media’s previous practice by not including links to the original documents let alone providing translations as was the case with Sputnik. Since I reside in the Pacific time zone well behind Moscow time, one of my first tasks is to see what’s new at Russia’s MFA and Kremlin websites and then provide what’s there first to MoA readers, then if what’s there’s important enough, I compose an article for posting to my VK Wall. In other words, what Sputnik did was highly unusual as it has never even linked to Putin’s important speeches even though it publishes articles about them. However, I ought to be accustomed to seeing important documents ignored by barflies since that’s so often the case.
Outraged @179–
Back at ya! Reminds me it’s time to super-chill my beer! Cheers!
uncle tungsten @181–
Of course! The most corrupt bank on the planet was a shoe-in to be involved in this crisis. Perhaps this time it will get Nord Streamed!
@ jinn | Mar 31 2023 16:48 utc | 150
sorry.. i missed your response until now.. please do watch the full interview at kitco to understand the nuances and distinctions being discussed… thanks.
Posted by: james | Mar 31 2023 22:58 utc | 187
CBR, which was hit by sanctions, deprived of half of its reserves and cut off from transactions with world currencies, ended 2022 with a record loss in its history.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1641144068766826525
Posted by: Bernadette | Mar 31 2023 23:39 utc | 188
Grunzt @182
Yep I agree with all that. So it’s a total deception created for the public/tax payer/ voters eye.
And yet in reality its Vladimir Putin that still has all the cards and the moral high ground.
The west dosent even know what winning looks like. They cant wont say becouse they know it’s not about Ukraine its about atacking Russia as an entity in its own right.
They have no insight, you can only take brinkmen ship so far.
If we’re talking war between NATO and Russia it’l get ugly very fast.
Thanks for your feed back.
Posted by: Mark2 | Mar 31 2023 23:56 utc | 189
German MP: “After 78 years, it is now time for US soldiers to go home. All other allies left Germany a long time ago… The US administration gives the impression that they don’t actually want allies, just loyal vassals.”
Bundestag address – Twatter, 4m clip.
On top of that, there’s clearly no interest.
Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 31 2023 21:14 utc | 175
There’s clearly not no interest. 8^)
Thank you for the links to your VK articles and to Sputnik‘s transcript.
Posted by: David Levin | Apr 1 2023 0:16 utc | 191
Karlof1:
Despite how important it is I barely managed to force myself through the multiple news reports, so personally I’m not up for going any further than that 🙂
The relative speed means they’ve clearly prioritized this translation. I think/guess they’re crossing t’s and dotting i’s in preparation for what may come next (full war, and not in ex-Ukraine) and wanted this out and available before the further Union State meeting(s) and their UNSC presidency.
Maybe it comes as close as possible to naming the US a belligerent enemy as can be done without declaring war. That’s my impression so far, that and maybe also making it easier to respond with military force to all the various provocations against them. Others would have to say if that’s the case or not, Russian legal experts and diplomats for example.
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Apr 1 2023 0:19 utc | 192
James wrote: ” please do watch the full interview at kitco to understand the nuances and distinctions being discussed… ”
I did watch the entire interview. I have also read much of what Werner has written in the last couple of decades.
I admire Werner because he tries to get the facts correct. The vast majority of economists do not get the facts right.
One of the things Werner has frequently promoted is small local banks. The large financial interests want to get rid of the small local banks. One of the ways in recent past to demonize local banks was to blame them for the 2008 meltdown. There are many economists who do that and many fools who believe them. That is just one example of getting the facts wrong that identifies a good economist from one that is working for Wall Street.
Posted by: jinn | Apr 1 2023 0:28 utc | 193
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/italian-prime-minister-shouts-mps-185405127.html
Europe has no “manpower’. It is a peninsula of literal gimps craving abuse and humiliation
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 31 2023 12:16 utc | 122
Just current crop of EU prime minister will provide a nice-sized troop of Valkyries, all hale and combative. Add supporters of lower rank, ministers and below, including think tankeresses, and you get a terrifying division of “girl power”.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 1 2023 0:28 utc | 194
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/03/congress-sweats-the-small-stuff-as-four-wall-street-mega-banks-have-a-combined-3-3-trillion-in-uninsured-deposits/
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Mar 31 2023 22:19 utc | 181
_________________________________________________________________
Yes indeed, they say it will cost $20 billion to bail out the uninsured depositors at SVB. The people who pay for that are small insured depositors. Wallstreetonparade on parade are helping make sure that does not change.
It would be dead simple for Congress to pass law to make large depositors pay for the deposit insurance that they have enjoyed for 90 years, but Pam Martens and Russ Martens are interested in pulling the wool over your eyes so they will never in a million years tell you that simple fact.
The wealthy depositors will continue to have their deposits insured and the low income depositors will continue to be billed for the cost and the liars will continue to not tell you the facts. Its the American way.
Posted by: jinn | Apr 1 2023 0:40 utc | 195
Chris Rea – The Road To Hell 1989 Full Version
Happy Friday everyone!
Posted by: nathan in WA US | Apr 1 2023 0:54 utc | 196
A brief interruption in transmission by Dementia Prez, then it’s back to the Rolling Stones. Yeah!
Ehret How to Save a Dying Republic Ehret’s latest. He is writing shorter substacks these days latest on how to restore the US Republic. Intro:
How to Save a Dying Republic Part 2: Introducing Hamilton’s American System
Matthew Ehret
Mar 30
In the last installment, I introduced the false solutions being fed to society with the Great Green Reset agenda which aims at creating a new economic order. This order, as it is being promoted by Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, George Soros, Bill Gates and other minions of the City of London is shaped by a devout belief in depopulation, world government and master-slave systems of social control. These modes of thinking are not new but go back thousands of years and the only way to properly understand the true constitutional nature of the United States of America is to see this nation as the first (albeit imperfect) successful independence revolt from this historic system of oligarchism which established a new system of government not upon systems of hereditary power, but on the consent of the governed and the premise that all humanity are created equal with certain inalienable rights which no monarch could grant or remove because they cannot be owned.
This revolution of 1776 also gave rise to a system of political economy which placed value NOT upon the worshiping of money, markets or some communist utilitarian mechanism, but rather upon the inherent powers of creative reason located in the minds of all citizens. This potentially infinite resource (or “the resource that creates all other resources”) is only expressed IF a nation’s citizens are given the opportunities, means, hope and inspiration to express them. The means developed by leading figures of the revolution, to be used by government with the aim of actualizing those powers of mind included practices of national banking, public credit, selective protectionism and increasing the productive powers of labor via investments into internal improvements, infrastructure and scientific progress. None of these practices are taught in modern academia.
Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 31 2023 22:32 utc | 183
“However, I ought to be accustomed to seeing important documents ignored by barflies since that’s so often the case.”
Please accept my deep appreciation of your service to me, the bar at MoA, and to humanity, in providing the timely transcripts and translations of the policy statements and speeches of the administrations and leaders of the states not of the US-aligned ‘West’.
For me, these documents have and continue to be among the most valuable sources for forming my opinions on the geo-political and economic revolution taking place globally. I usually don’t have any comment to offer in response to your posting of the documents. So often they say all that needs to he said. All I can add is that the vision they express has transformed my perspective and guides my modest personal political actions. I am sure I am not alone in this. (as is already evidenced by some of the other replies to your post).
Karl, I understand that you are an historian. In disseminating these documents you help make history by inspiring people such as me to contribute to the creation of a more just and humane world. You also the help ensure the recording of history for posterity. (The MoA archive and your VK channel, suitably preserved, represent an invaluable historical resource).
Please continue your work. It may not always be obvious from the volume of comments elicited by your posting of transcripts, but you can be sure that they are not ignored. They prompt much reflection and not insignificant action.
Kindest regards to you.
Posted by: Andrew Celestina | Apr 1 2023 1:01 utc | 199
@ jinn | Apr 1 2023 0:28 utc | 191
okay.. thanks.. then you will understand the difference werner is highlighting between digital bank currency and central bank digital currency… although we use debit cards and etc now – the idea of the central bank having absolute power to shut a person or a group of people off of their bank deposits is the concern i have for central bank digital currencies… cheers..
Posted by: james | Apr 1 2023 1:04 utc | 200