Imagine discussing Western Civilizatiion and never mentioning Byzantium….
….”At the turn of the first millennium the empire of New Rome was the oldest and most dynamic state in the world and comprised the most civilized portions of the Christian world. Its borders, were being expanded by the most disciplined and technologically advanced army of its time. The unity of Byzantine society was grounded in the equality of Roman law and a deep sense of a common and ancient Roman identity; cemented by the efficiency of a complex bureaucracy; nourished and strengthened by the institutions and principles of the Christian Church; sublimated by Greek rhetoric; and confirmed by the passage of ten centuries.….

Posted by: Exile | Jul 19 2023 4:07 utc | 104

@ psychohistorian | Jul 19 2023 3:52 utc | 102
grieved comment was triggered by debs post @ 99…
———
i don’t know how b would implement such an idea as suggested by debs or grieved… he can’t do everything..

Posted by: james | Jul 19 2023 4:25 utc | 106

James & psychohistorian
I made no suggestion that b should have to change the way he operates, just my feeling that as this site becomes more and more like 8chan, I lose less and less interest in posting here, much less wading through the dross others have posted looking for nuggets from posters who always regarded this site as we have since the early noughties for that is how long MoA has been running close on to 20 years not 10.
What b does is entirely up to b, I would never tell him how to run his site, the only thing I do have control of is what I choose to read and write and where I post. As a subscriber to sub-stack I could post there although that is probably better for people who spend more time regularly making commentary than I. All I do know is now that this open thread can get almost as flooded as the ukie ones, when I do devote considerable time & effort researching then completing a post only to see it ignored because it was drowned in a sludge of gossip, innuendo & ‘just guessing’ or equally annoying another thread is opened shortly after posting, is something I find frustrating.
Of course we all have ‘misses’, I’m well used to writing & posting something which doesn’t strike a chord with anyone else but this is different.
Equally the other side of it pisses me, there was a time when I had it spare where I would read and consider posts from others here. Not occasionally, regularly but now that would require one to be an odd type of masochist to do that. I miss that because it was by way of communication with other posters here that ideas could be hypothesised and on occasion advocated for.
Only a fool would believe that anything they wrote and posted on the net could change their socks much less something large or meaningful, that was not what MoA was about for most of us, of course there have always been egomaniacal types who thought otherwise but most of ’em tend to move on. I just wish all the reffos from other sites they have helped ruin would do the same but it is obvious they will not.
I get that b has another vision for MoA so that means I need to find an alternative.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Jul 19 2023 5:41 utc | 108

@ Debsisdead | Jul 19 2023 5:41 utc | 107 with the MoA thoughts and his own needs…thanks for sharing
I agree that it has become harder to navigate MoA since the Ukraine SMO started and I have backed off commenting because of the dross on many of the threads….paid and otherwise
Most people I talk to about this environment don’t believe that any real conversations occur in online settings like this and mostly we have to agree that MoA has been special in that regard. I don’t go to almost nakedcapitalism anymore but it did support some good conversations but not as open as here.
Bernhard has set a good example of what one person can do and I hope others follow in his footsteps. I am going to try and contribute here as long as I can but know that nothing lasts forever and will appreciate all offered by b and others I don’t scroll over…grin
Best to you in our future

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 19 2023 6:20 utc | 110

corrected:
juliania, thank you for your clear statements.

Posted by: jonku | Jul 19 2023 6:54 utc | 112

re: Sunny Runny Burger | Jul 19 2023 7:06 utc | 112 whose link to the sputnik piece was good for a solid laugh. Whatever decision is made, and it will be made at a level below the premier who will discuss it if only to tell his staff if he wanted to capitalise the defector/oin plus when, now or later when the chap has demonstrated his loyalty or at leat committment to the job.
Other groups will have their say as well because many people make many ideas. If the guy is an arsehole they’ll suss if he could be a useful arsehole if no he’s gonna be hand-balled out . . fast.
If he has promise he’s well set for life in N. Korea if that is what he’s after.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Jul 19 2023 8:54 utc | 114

Mercouris + Diesen talk with Belarusian amabassador, 2 hours:
https://theduran.com/belarus-in-great-power-politics-w-ambassador-dmitry-mironchik-alexander-mercouris-and-glenn-diesen/

Posted by: AG | Jul 19 2023 11:01 utc | 116

This might be fun to talk about, and might even unite Covid believers and Covid/vaccine skeptics on this one issue at least.
Earlier this week, David Leonhardt, the NYT’s leading guy on Covid, penned “A Positive Covid Milestone: In a sign that the pandemic really is over, the total number of Americans dying each day is no longer historically abnormal.”

During Covid’s worst phases, the total number of Americans dying each day was more than 30 percent higher than normal, a shocking increase. For long stretches of the past three years, the excess was above 10 percent. But during the past few months, excess deaths have fallen almost to zero, according to three different measures.

He includes a graph showing the deaths now bumping along the “baseline.” As far as one could tell from the article, there has been no significant change in methodology in the constructing of the graph.
In fact, there has been a very significant change in the methodology. In a July release, the American CDC included the following note:

On March 15, 2023, the methodology for estimating excess deaths was updated to account for the fact that approximately 160 weeks of data during the pandemic were being excluded in the algorithm (so that expected values were not inflated due to substantially elevated mortality during the pandemic), resulting in unstable estimates of expected weekly numbers of deaths in some cases.

So was Leonhardt’s trumpeting of the amazing decline during “these past few months” actually the result of this “updating” of the excess deaths baseline?
Previously, the deaths baseline was calculated by the simple average of the five years preceding the pandemic. If you are trying to assess the impact of the pandemic–and the vaccinations–on death rates, that’s the methodology you would use. That’s what Covid skeptic Dr. John Campbell is still using in his efforts to track excess deaths in Britain and the EU.
The CDC and most medical data websites have now switched to including data after the death rate jumped substantially with the onset of Covid and the distribution of vaccines. The effect is obviously to raise the baseline very substantially–by about 10%. Moreover, the simple average of five years has been dropped in favor of a black box calculation supposedly derived from regression analysis. The CDC explains:

To account for this limitation and provide more stable estimated expected numbers for recent time periods, the Farrington surveillance algorithms (1) were first applied to data through 2020 and used to predict the expected weekly number of deaths through 2020. To estimate the expected number of deaths for 2021..

In other words, since excess deaths were rising and falling in a sharp sine pattern since 2020, algos were applied to smooth out the data and provide a less hinky looking graph.
The website Our World in Data has also changed their baseline methodology, but they provide a more transparent explanation. They also provide a graph using the earlier methodology of the average of the five years preceding the pandemic. What it shows is that, contrary to Leonhardt, excess deaths remain a little less than 10% above the pre-Covid baseline. Dr. Campbell, in the Youtube linked above, using the same five-year average, finds excess deaths continue to be a little less than 9% above pre-pandemic and pre-vaccination levels in the UK and EU.
What the CDC has done is to create a new, higher baseline. Leonhardt’s article attempts to sell it as a return to a 2019 normal. In fact, the baseline is now 10% higher, implicitly accepting that the death rate will be 10% higher than it was before Covid and the vaccinations. Campbell would attribute that increase to vaccinations and shutdowns. Others would emphasize Covid and its follow-on effects. I’m open to all those being contributing factors with more study needed to determine which causes have the biggest effects.
But the CDC and Leonhardt don’t want any further studies. They don’t want any talk about excess deaths. They just want everybody to get back on their hamster wheels and going to Applebee’s on Friday night.

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | Jul 19 2023 14:27 utc | 118

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Jul 18 2023 14:28 utc | 80
Thank you for the explanation and I hope to see you around on the sites you mentioned.

Posted by: Wondrous | Jul 19 2023 14:52 utc | 120

Posted by: james | Jul 19 2023 14:42 utc | 118
James, flu season was significantly impacted by the Nonpharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) adopted for Covid like widespread masking in 2020, social distancing, isolation. Regular flu was way down in 2020-21, increased but was still below pre-pandemic levels in 2021-2022, and increased again in 2022-23 though the final numbers aren’t in.
I take it as a lesson that Asian cultures, where mask wearing is common, maybe know something not just about Covid but airborne diseases in general.

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | Jul 19 2023 15:13 utc | 122

Matt Taibbi’s terse compilation of some interesting email releases, regarding official suppression of COVID lab-leak clues:
‘In Their Labs’: Fifteen Illuminating Passages in the Proximal Origin Chats and Emails

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jul 19 2023 15:20 utc | 124

Posted by: Norwegian | Jul 19 2023 15:21 utc | 124
Mask wearing is a collective exercise. You keep your germs to yourself. I keep my germs to myself. That way, we can be in enclosed spaces together without spreading a disease.

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | Jul 19 2023 15:31 utc | 126

@ Henry Moon Pie | Jul 19 2023 15:13 utc | 121 / 122..
thanks henry.. that gives me more to think about..

Posted by: james | Jul 19 2023 15:39 utc | 128

The rest is history,
Posted by: TurnipFieldsForever | Jul 19 2023 15:34 utc | 126
It’s starting to look like nothing was not such a bad deal.

Posted by: Bemildred | Jul 19 2023 16:06 utc | 130

And in the US, topics that have been discussed here in excruciating detail are to starting to seep into mainstream US media.
Counterpunch has its required anti-Russian articles that it is required to post in order to be allowed to stay online. They perfectly demonstrate just how out of touch most of the US MSM really is.
But other articles are just outright brutal in their attacks on our oligarchs. Oops we call them job creators here. This pattern repeats itself in various forms in other places.
So from B to Ritter to the US MSM as much as they are permitted to post. Things are changing. SLOWLY changing.

Posted by: Woke American | Jul 19 2023 16:25 utc | 132

Karlofi recently passed on a recommendation- from Hudson or Desai I think- to read this book
“…The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism” By: Clara E. Mattei.
It really is very good. A lot of orginal research into the origins of the Austerity policies which have more or less defined “Economics” for the past century.
One of the problems in our culture is that the question of capitalism is generally held to be beyond discussion, by reasonable people- something that is given, and permanent rather than a system, political, social and economic, which it is within our purview to replace in order to improve the situation for ourselves and for life in general.
Ms Mattei’s book begins with the a discussion of the state of Britain and Italy in 1919, when, the war having ended it was widely thought that the immense sacrifices made by millions of people should be rewarded in a reconstruction of society-Homes Fit for Heroes, in Lloyd George’s famous phrase. It was also recognised that, in both countries, the war had led to an increase of state intervention in the economy, across the entire spectrum of social and economic activity, and that laissez faire and private, capitalist, control over industry had become obsolete..
And then the post war world, or those aspects of it valued by ‘businessmen’ and bankers, was restored. In Britain in the form of financial orthodoxy and conservative conformity, in Italy, where the state was younger and less resilient, in the form of Fascism. The outlines of our current world were sketched by “Economists” who saw their job as the preservation and expansion, by hook or by crook, of capitalism…
It has struck me that one of the reasons that there are so many schools of misinformation represented in our discussions (The Jews are to blame; the British Royal Family are behind it; the Nazis didn’t want war; Covid didn’t really exist- all surplus deaths were caused by the methods adopted to fight it; and so on, ad nauseam) is that our culture and education systems have socialised us to believe that any socialist alternatives to capitalism are, at best , impractical (defy ‘human nature’) and very likely to lead to state directed campaigns of terror of genocidal scale.
And so it is that, rather than examine the clearly evident basis of our society-its socio-economic structure- we are inclined to examine the most peripheral matters. And to do so in terms borrowed from sources which have one thing in common: their anti-communism.

Posted by: bevin | Jul 19 2023 18:58 utc | 134

@ Henry Moon Pie | Jul 19 2023 14:27 utc | 118
Fortunately for the truth, the insurance industry has not adjusted its baselines, and we can measure excess deaths by life insurance claims. Thanks to Ed Dowd, we’ve seen the truth of the appalling scale of harm that correlates with the vaccines. His book on the matter is a definitive source.
Dowd has a new number he just released:
Ed Dowd Drops Bombshell Data: Hematological (Blood-Related) Claims Up 522% Above Trend in 2022
In this one, he’s measuring PIP clearances in the UK – these are government disability payments.
All the numbers keep rising. All of those of us who hated the vaccines were nonetheless quietly praying that the damage would reach limits and begin to taper. But there is no leveling off, no getting over it. This is a killer that keeps on giving.

Posted by: Grieved | Jul 19 2023 23:38 utc | 136

Karlof1, If I remember correctly your procedure is tomorrow. I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking of you and hoping you will soon be home, recovering swiftly with this particularly nasty sword of Damocles lifted.

Posted by: Mexicana | Jul 20 2023 2:05 utc | 138

ZH has a posting up with the title
National Security Head Says UFOs Having ‘Real Impact’ On USAF Pilots
the quote

“We wouldn’t have stood up an organisation at the Pentagon to analyse and try to collect and coordinate the way these sightings are reported if we didn’t take it seriously,” Kirby said responding to a question on unidentified aerial phenomena.
“I mean, some of these phenomena we know have already had an impact on our training ranges for, you know, when pilots are out trying to do training in the air and they see these things, they’re not sure what they are and it can have an impact on their ability to perfect their skills. So it already had an impact here,” Kirby said, admitting that the military does not know “what they are.”
“Now we’re not saying what they are or what they’re not, we’re saying that there’s something our pilots are seeing, we’re saying it has had an effect on some of our training operations, and so we wanna get to the bottom of it. We wanna understand it better,” Kirby added.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 20 2023 3:18 utc | 140

Posted by: Debsisdead | Jul 19 2023 5:41 utc | 108
Debsisdead, feel free to spell my name any way you like. I am honored and humbled by your apology!

Posted by: juliania | Jul 20 2023 4:42 utc | 142

For me the gas lighting started when we were told that we would run out of oil in 10 years, which was 1985, and that was after they quit maintaining Federal lands and let them grow out of control. That has been going on for over 40 almost 50 years now. Yes they have changed the climate in the federal lands, let them burn unabated endlessly All Summer Long. I guess you’re getting a taste of that on the East Coast this year that is usually our entire summer on the West Coast.
I was in Japan for a while and lived there for several years on the Sea of Japan and there was significant trade with Russia at that time. Logs for cars. That is how I became interested in trade with Russia and I traded with Russia from 1991 to 2000 and I was shipping food to Russia from the west coast of USA. Soros was devaluing currencies throughout Asia during that time and in the last years that I was trading with Russia he devalued the Russian ruble by half. That was basically half of everyone’s wealth in Russia gone. I was in Russia when Clinton, on the orders of Soros, started the Yugoslavian war. A Giant gas lighting event that ripped apart that country with war atrocities beyond belief. That is when I understood that these people have no limits. Then it turned into the Iraq weapons of mass destruction which was a toppling of leadership and seizing of Iraqi assets. Then came the climate police saying the sky is falling, they sound like chicken little.
Knock off Gaddafi you’ve got Afghanistan try to topple Syria steal all the oil, this country has no boundaries. Syria knows how much oil America has stolen from them as does Iraq as does Libya. The murdering of muammar Gaddafi by Hillary Clinton and Barry Obama is a massive scar on this country. People that murder other people are criminals. Barry Obama Hillary Clinton George Soros are war criminals. They really need to be executed by firing squad.
To continue on the gaslighting theme, the man-made manufactured virus called covid was a bioweapon. It was manipulated and then disseminated worldwide via American air bases. It caused a massive scare, although it was survivable, it was man-made and disseminated at altitude by airplane like cloud seeding, easy.
So the next gas lighting was hey we got a vaccine that works. We can get all the governments of the world to buy into it since we already crop dusted them with aerosol from altitude. And all the governments bought them for big money. Turned out they didn’t protect you from anything and they filled you with heavy metal called graphene oxide and graphene dioxide. Wow when the vaccine was under electron microscope to determine what was in the vaccine it turned out it was graphing 90%. So now you’re loaded with graphene which just cuts up all your organs and your blood vessels and your blood and everybody’s dying from the vaccine. Turns out graphene agitates with 5G. So if you got a 5G phone and you got vaccinated you’re a short timer. Put your affairs in order.
But the covid and the vaccine were just shiny to take your eyes off stealing the elections because they put in new rules which make no sense as far as the elections go and they cheated the elections by millions upon millions of fake votes. The fake votes were coming from New York Illinois and California. It wasn’t just about cheating the presidential election all of the participants down ballot got cheated into office they are absolutely illegitimate. The entire pandemic was about usurping the government and overthrowing the government. It did not how matter how many people they killed. It was just about the power and taking your money.
Now they’re sending all the money abroad claiming that they are working with Ukraine for freedom which is an absolute lie. Is money laundering for the political class and the uniparty and the deep state they’re all making money hand over fist. I’m sorry for the poor souls that have perished in the needless conflict. The USA will not enter into the diplomacy at any time. It needs to be crippled and realigned. The people in power are not able to make trees or chords or agreements with anyone and they should not be trusted as far as you could toss them. All of it is about rich people trying to get richer and take from others illicitly and on the cheap. That is Soros business plan everyday. Russia at least sees it for what it is and they have put it in line and they don’t allow it to happen the West needs to grow up. When you allow the provocateurs to come into your society in gaslight you endlessly and try to show you shiny things that do not matter your entire society crumbles which it has and I’m surely not proud of it

Posted by: Diego | Jul 20 2023 6:01 utc | 144

Ununified

Posted by: Diego | Jul 20 2023 6:16 utc | 146

“So America is unable to import all it needs, all imports surge in price when inside the American market, inflation or hyper-inflation, economic decline or disaster, suffering and convulsion, re-industrialization.”
Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Jul 18 2023 15:55 utc | 85
Unfortunately, again you haven’t thought it through and ignored the big picture and all of the moving parts Johan. The reason why Macro 101 says a strong currency kills your exports and your market share.
Consumers only have a set amount of disposable income every month from which to buy goods and services. If certain imports increase in price. Consumers will simply say they can’t afford them and buy local instead or seek cheaper alternatives. That puts all the tough decisions to be made back onto the exporters if they want to keep their market share. Why they try to devalue as soon as possible.
Is exchange rate depreciation inflationary?
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=32922
We’ve saw the £ move from 1.6 to 1.18. We have saw the Aussie $ the Canadian $ show massive swings with large depreciation and the American $ drop from 120 to 75.
Yet, None of things you say will happen has happend in any of these countries. If you were a scientist you would come up with a theory, test the theory, collect the data and analyse the results. If the real data doesn’t support the theory you scrap your theory and start again.
It’s very unfortunate but the world does not show your results. The real data does not reflect your theory.
The Bank of Canada study also argues that:
“the expenditure-switching effect helps to redirect consumption and investment in a country with a trade deficit away from imports, as the exchange rate depreciates, making the country’s exports more attractive to foreigners … [thus] … The benefits of a flexible exchange rate may also be larger than they appear …”
A 2014 New Zealand central bank study – Exchange rate movements and consumer prices: some perspectives – found that:
“Petrol prices adjust substantially and quickly. But a significant share of New Zealand’s imports appear to be priced for the local market and, however they are priced, there is a large domestic distribution component for most tradable goods. That means prices for traded goods in New Zealand will adjust by a smaller percentage than any given percentage movement in the exchange rate, and may diverge from those in the rest of the world for protracted periods.”
A 2015 Bank of England paper – Much ado about something important: How do exchange rate movements affect inflation? – provided three broad conclusions:
“First, contrary to common belief, exchange rate movements don’t seem to consistently have larger effects on prices in sectors with a higher share of imported content. Second, exchange rates don’t seem to consistently have larger effects on prices in the most tradable and internationally-competitive sectors. Third, the effects of exchange rates on inflation – and even just on import prices – do not seem to be consistent across time. Most of what I learned in grad school on this topic no longer seems to apply.”
Imports prices rise hyperinflation will follow – It’s just yet another example of one of those cases where economists in classrooms or in the media just sprout textbook mantras without any coherent understanding of the empirical content of their statements. When the textbook statements don’t describe the real world.

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Jul 20 2023 9:12 utc | 148

*The link for LETI

Posted by: Noosfernoy | Jul 20 2023 9:34 utc | 150

On an anecdotal basis as someone with many older and younger folks in the family and friends I’m definitely not seeing any blood related medical trends. Like at all. Mostly phizer and moderna through the first or second booster.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 20 2023 14:41 utc | 152

Posted by: DunGroanin | Jul 20 2023 12:18 utc | 151
Thank you, DunGroanin. My experiences have been similar to yours. And being a senior senior I ask with you: Why am I not dead? In due course I will be, and I feel those who chose differently are not doomed. Our bodies are resilient; trust them.

Posted by: juliania | Jul 20 2023 15:07 utc | 154

@ juliania | Jul 20 2023 15:46 utc | 155 – “a huge secretive program of which they had been unaware”
Or they were aware of it but had never had such an opportunity before to study it forensically.
And I wonder if Russia perhaps didn’t fully appreciate in 2020 what China did, because China treated the virus as a bioweapon from the beginning. Xi in his address to the people called it “a devil” that they must defeat.
Calling something a devil…what did that remind the Chinese people of?
And I wonder what Russia took from all this, knowing that she had been largely spared in the seeding – while China and Iran were definitely targeted, and simultaneously at that – but also knowing that Russia would be in the crosshairs soon enough.
~~
Russia and all scientific communities must continue to explore all of the possibilities presented by current science and technology, including the ones being developed by the US and Israel to dominate humankind. The difference, as always, lies in the nature of a country’s governance.
China, for example, has a social credit system that the people are okay with, because they like their government, and the system in practice seems to add to the harmony and order of society. The same kind of system as is being deployed piecemeal in the USA will be an authoritarian nightmare.
It’s not the science or technology at issue so much as the governments and rulers. And I think you’re correct that the bad directions set by the bad actors are forcing a lot of research that might otherwise not be pursued.
But the technologies today are such that one dare not be left defenseless. Indeed, one must take the initiative and seek breakthroughs that establish the lead. Or perish.

Posted by: Grieved | Jul 21 2023 0:36 utc | 156