Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2023-302
News & views (not related the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) ...
Posted by b on December 15, 2023 at 14:51 UTC | Permalink
next page »Someone will be along shortly to tell us deficits don’t matter.
Posted by: Fred777 | Dec 15 2023 15:24 utc | 2
“$380.58 billion in red ink. This follows on the heels of the third-largest annual budget deficit in history.”
Who the hell does they think they are kidding with that lowball figure?
Whatevs…
Posted by: Trubind1 | Dec 15 2023 15:29 utc | 3
I'll just leave this here in case you need a laugh.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/politics/missing-russia-intelligence-trump-dg/
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Dec 15 2023 15:39 utc | 4
Fred777 @2: "Someone will be along shortly to tell us deficits don’t matter."
Of course, because money grows on Magic Money Trees.
Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 15 2023 15:42 utc | 5
this article https://dc.claremont.org/restoring-american-manufacturing-a-practical-guide/ is typical of American institutional delusion. It draws all the wrong conclusions.
It is a very entertaining article to read. It also serves as reminder of the irreversible decline of the United States of America.
Posted by: J Ramón | Dec 15 2023 16:02 utc | 6
[email protected] some intelligence, eh.....it's more pathetic than funny, the writing teams must have those liberal art degrees, the ones Andrei always talks about ....
Cheers M
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Dec 15 2023 16:06 utc | 7
I'm transferring your comment, Scorpion to this open thread, as I realize I did a poor job explaining Suzanne's essay - in particular, the careful way he describes Plato's use of the word 'is', but you have picked up so well the distinction he makes. It has been, I believe, a late recognition on Suzanne's part of what Plato is really about - a struggle to redefine 'worth' in a culture very similar to that of today where oligarchs rule, having replaced our 'shining democratic state' with greedful 'aspirations' even in the young.
One can see why in his time the main thrust of accusations against Socrates for which he was condemned to death included 'corruption of the youth'. To teach the young that life isn't about becoming rich was a real threat to the oligarchical citystate Athens had become, and there was Socrates wandering around barefoot, gathering a following, preaching heretical teachings against the ruling class. As with Jesus later on, that message had become a difficult one to proclaim in a corrupted world.
Plato is brilliant in that he chose a way of doing precisely that, through dialogue. Truthtelling can be a dangerous path, only possible for the brave or the foolhardy sometimes. Plato himself must have been able to write as he did only as that citystate, like ours, began to lose its grip. That reminds me of Bulgakov hiding his manuscript in a drawer because it wasn't safe to publish in his lifetime.
Posted by: Scorpion | Dec 14 2023 22:19 utc | 108Thanks for your reply.
Interesting how the good relates to goods and ousia/value to wealth. That might be taken to intimate that value is materialistic in that just as only that which is physical is real so also only that which has measurable worth is of any true value.
Perhaps that was not exactly being argued but it's close enough to prompt an observation about the notion of ‘Middle Way’ which, like the Chinese Dao or Japanese Do, in practical contexts denotes Path, Discipline, or Way of doing/being wherein balance is emphasized, not falling into the trap of any extreme (such as nihilism vs eternalism, lazy vs workaholic, sexually repressed vs promiscuous etc.)
Basic food and shelter are good, as are the various conveniences we enjoy ('goods') but extreme attachment or emphasis becomes pathological. What we have in modern society is a kind of extreme underlying materialist mindset engendering cultural imbalances wherein so much that is fundamental to human beingness - leading a productive wisdom-enhancing life in a positive societal milieu - has been superseded by worldviews or systems that oscillate between extremes without finding rest in a more simple, saner and human Middle.
This isn’t calling for materialism vs non-materialism, rather avoiding extremism of any ilk; in our time materialism has run rampant but extreme non-materialism would prove no less problematic for when caught up in any extreme, we cannot appreciate the simple presence of living Creation, and so have lost the Way.
Posted by: Scorpion | Dec 14 2023 22:19 utc | 108
Posted by: juliania | Dec 15 2023 16:19 utc | 8
Who the hell does they think they are kidding with that lowball figure?
Posted by: Trubind1 | Dec 15 2023 15:29 utc | 3
---
If you don't stay drunk you're gonna have a hangover.
Posted by: too scents | Dec 15 2023 16:30 utc | 9
Jeffrey Sachs told Judge Napolitano yesterday that a leading Ethiopian diplomat said he listens to Napolitano’s show.
Posted by: Pundita | Dec 15 2023 16:32 utc | 10
Interesting juxtaposition of headlines about the Venezuela-Guyana meeting yesterday:
Guyana, Venezuela agree to not use force or escalate tensions in Esequibo dispute - Reuters
vs
Guyana and Venezuela agree to refrain from using force, but fail to resolve territorial dispute -AP
Posted by: super extra | Dec 15 2023 16:34 utc | 11
"COVID was all about mail in ballots and a rigged election. How many people in the World died to get Biden elected?"
Citizen Smith re Covid @11 Palestine thread.:
You really think so? You must think that US Presidential elections are really important. Why would that be? Because the difference between one deaf, dumb and blind figurehead and the other deaf, dumb, and blind figurehead is so dramatic?
There is a reason why people call the system an oligarch's duopoly- elections don't matter much, they make no difference and they sure as hell aren't so crucial that a massive and astronomically expensive pandemic would be invented and implemented to make sure that Joe f..g Biden won and Donald sod...g Trump lost.
Do you imagine that Trump would not have rushed Israel all it needed to keepits genocide going? Or that he would have dared to meet with Putin and agree to the neutrality of Ukraine and equality for the Russians?
The truth is that the pandemic was a pandemic in which millions of unnecessary deaths occurred not because an excuse was needed to issue absentee ballots in the United States but because capitalists will not allow society to divert capital and resources to public health and away from the scams they live off.
Posted by: bevin | Dec 15 2023 17:16 utc | 12
"Memories appear in our mind as if out of nowhere without our doing anything other than our desire for them. If the brain is doing that for us, that would mean the brain would have to be intelligently aware of our state of mind, and have the ability to read our desires, and then intelligently respond with words or images which we “hear” or “see” as our memories.
Whatever is causing that to happen, it must be aware of your desires, your mind, your thoughts. It must therefore be conscious of you, and intelligent. What exactly is going on?" From A Brain Cannot Comprehend Our Thoughts and Desires or: The Way Our Memory Works Proves The Existence of God
Posted by: kana | Dec 15 2023 17:50 utc | 13
Biden Administration Runs Record November Budget Deficit
The Biden administration just ran the largest November budget deficit in history.
And it managed this feat even with a 9% increase in government receipts.
The November budget shortfall came in at $314.01 billion, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement. That was 26% higher than the November 2022 deficit.
Just two months into fiscal 2024, the federal government has run up $380.58 billion in red ink. This follows on the heels of the third-largest annual budget deficit in history.
Posted by: Maney | Dec 15 2023 15:13 utc |
You are only using the liability side of the balance sheet. Now let's use the asset side of the balance sheet.
The Biden administration just ran the largest November non government sector surplus in history.
And it managed this feat even with a 9% increase in government receipts.
The November private sector surplus came in at $314.01 billion, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement. That was 26% higher than the November 2022 private sector surplus.
Just two months into fiscal 2024, the federal government has run up $380.58 billion in red ink. This follows on the heels of the third-largest annual private sector surplus black ink in history.
There fixed it for you. As explained in very simple English by Goldman's top economist below. So that a 5 year old can understand it.
https://www.businessinsider.com/goldmans-jan-hatzius-on-sectoral-balances-2012-12?op=1&r=US&IR=T
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 15 2023 17:54 utc | 14
@ 3
Indeed, state & municipal debt added onto federal debt make the total government debt picture much worse.
Regardless of all the stat manipulation to gaslight people. Into thinking things aren't so bad.
Posted by: Urban Fox | Dec 15 2023 18:08 utc | 15
"Of course, because money grows on Magic Money Trees."
Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 15 2023 15:42 utc | 5
The London School of economics went all out to try and disprove it. Stephanie Kelton went all out to try and disprove it after Warren Mosler told economists it is a magic money tree.
After trying for 12 months to disprove it They all came to the same conclusions.
London School of economics
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2022/05/why-british-state-is-magic-money-tree
Stephanie Kelton
https://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/can-taxes-and-bonds-finance-government-spending
You don't even need any of that anyway. Just a front row seat, 1 yard from the stage with the green curtain from 2008 and believing your own eyes for the last 3 years was enough.
Unless of course you have been entrapped by an ideologue or an idiot telling you otherwise.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 15 2023 18:09 utc | 16
Posted by: Maney | Dec 15 2023 15:13 utc |
Sectoral balances from the UK office of national statistics.
https://new-wayland.com/blog/uk-sectoral-balances/
What ? Don't believe your own eyes ?
Hold my coat, until I find an ideologue or an idiot.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 15 2023 18:16 utc | 17
The Personal Income Tax Rate in the United States
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/personal-income-tax-rate
FUCK ! They have spent gazillions !!
The Corporate Tax Rate in the United States
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/corporate-tax-rate
FUCK ! They have spent gazillions !!
Every US tax rate is the same hasn't moved since 2018.
FUCK ! They have spent gazillions !!
The first thing Trump will do is cut taxes. The ideologue and idiot still won't connect the dots.
The ideologue and idiot thinks there is only a fixed amount of money in America like Gold. Sitting in a corner of a field somewhere in Ohio and Once it runs out that's it. Once the field is bare You have to tax or borrow to get some more.
You can blame the Austrians for that bullshit. They fail to understand infant pre school English and the words ISSUE and COLLECT. That aren't so difficult for the rest of society over the age of 6.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 15 2023 18:33 utc | 19
[email protected]'s missing is moderation......a balance. There are human areas where more 'extremism' could be applied.....love, empathy, compassion, all unconditionally btw.
Cheers M
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Dec 15 2023 18:49 utc | 20
They are so skilled they can hold two thoughts in their head at the same time.
" It's outrageous - they are pumping $billions of interest income into the economy "
" Why is the private sector surplus going up and mirroring to the cent, the budget deficit "
Still can't connect the dots. It's quite remarkable the skill set they have got. Are they allowed out of the house without carers? Or allowed anywhere near sharp objects ?
MAGA - Mental Ability Goes Awol.
I'll not take Democrats seriously until they rename themselves the Illiberal Technocrats.They should be prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act.
Labour is now the M&M Party.Metropolitan and Minorities party. Labour policy for the last thirty years has been based upon the trick known as Triangulation. Which is all about making sure any Labour policy appears to be precisely what you want to anybody who reads it.
All labour policies are Schrodinger's Cat policies. You have no idea what state they will end up in until the votes are counted in the House of Commons well after the election.If you put on your rose tinted Europhile spectacles (available from Brussels on request), then all will become clear.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 15 2023 18:58 utc | 21
Someone on MoA once indicated that a key player—chief editor, or some such—at the Guardian/Grauniad is a demonstrable “former” officer of the US/UK intelligence services.
Am I remembering that wrong? Perhaps I’ve skewed the fact? I would much appreciate any correction/instruction on this point.
Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 15 2023 19:07 utc | 22
MEANWHILE INSIDE THE CLOWN-WORLD OF THE USA
https://nitter.net/jynpang/status/1735209366528340070#m
John Pang
@jynpang
Dec 14
This campaign of malicious disinformation relies on a combination of ignorance and racism in its target audience. You can't for a moment entertain crap like this unless you're either grossly ignorant or consider us subhuman.
凯王 Kǎi Wong
@Kai_Wong_CN
Dec 13
Fake News Alert 🚨
China is NOT tracking people by installing QR codes on their homes.
This American account edited the video in his post to spread fake news.
Posted by: MD | Dec 15 2023 19:15 utc | 23
Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 15 2023 19:07 utc | 22
Him?
Or this blast from the past?
“ According to the 1991 book Silent Coup, Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin’s exhaustive study of the aforementioned military espionage scandal, Woodward left his ship in 1969 and arrived in Washington, D.C. There he worked on the staff of Admiral Thomas Moorer, chief of Naval operations, again as a communications officer, this time one who provided briefings and documents on national security matters to top brass in the White House. Colodny and Gettlin wrote that Woodward frequently walked through the basement offices of the West Wing with documents from Admiral Moorer to General Alexander Haig, who served under Henry Kissinger—then Nixon’s National Security Advisor.
In a 2008 interview with me, Woodward categorically denied having any intelligence connections. He also denied having worked in the White House or having provided briefings there. “It’s a matter of record in the Navy what I did, what I didn’t do,” Woodward said. “And this Navy intelligence, Haig and so forth, you know, I’d be more than happy to acknowledge it if it’s true. It just isn’t. Can you accept that?”
Journalist Len Colodny, however, has produced audiotapes of interviews by his Silent Coupcoauthor Robert Gettlin with Admiral Moorer, former Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, Pentagon spokesman Jerry Friedheim and even with Woodward’s own father, Al, discussing Bob’s White House service.
At a minimum, Woodward’s entry into journalism received a valuable outside assist, according to an account provided by Harry Rosenfeld, a retired Washington Post editor, to the Saratogian newspaper in 2004: “Bob had come to us on very high recommendations from someone in the White House. He had been an intelligence officer in the Navy and had served in the Pentagon. He had not been exposed to any [major] newspaper.”
....
Posted by: robinthehood | Dec 15 2023 19:21 utc | 24
LEt'S HAVE A BIT OF FUN...
“The Class Act” Ty Cordova
Dec 13
Hunter Biden spent $1M on hookers, emptied his daughter’s college fund to buy crack, refused to support a stripper he impregnated, snorted cheese when he ran out of cocaine, fucked his sister-in-law after his brother died of cancer, and today claimed “Republicans have no shame.”
https://nitter.net/tuxlemons/status/1735042923786592404#m
Posted by: MD | Dec 15 2023 19:23 utc | 25
THE NEW STASI VERSION CALLED USA
https://ronpaulinstitute.org/traitors-congress-votes-to-extend-unconstitutional-spying-on-americans/
To EXTEND Unconstitutional Spying On Americans!
by Daniel McAdams | Dec 14, 2023
The US House this morning joined the Senate in approving the massive, trillion dollar National Defense Authorization Act where Congressional leadership snuck in authorization for the government to continue to illegally spy on US citizens not suspected or accused of any crime! In the House, Speaker Johnson only passed the bill with the assistance of Democrats – a move that cost his predecessor his job. Will Johnson suffer a backlash for betraying his promises?
Posted by: MD | Dec 15 2023 19:31 utc | 26
TIL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorer-Radford_Affair
I firmly believe Nixon was coup’d out but the question is was he specifically targeted or did he represent a faction that got dethroned.
Some commentators claim Nixon’s opening of China was the matter that irked the military. But the continued, and in fact highly expanded, opening of relations with CPC argue against that.
We must look for what radically changed after Nixon’s removal.
The most radical change in USA’s foreign policy was shifting horses from Shah of Iran to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and a change in policy from favoring Iran as replacement for UK in Persian Gulf as “Policeman” with entry of USNavy to Persian Gulf. (Woodward was Navy btw).
The Petrodollar agreement was iirc inked after Nixon was removed from power. It was a secret agreement unbeknownst to e.g. Shah or USSR. That deal and the changes in ME post fall of Shah of Iran have shaped the geopolitical world since then.
Posted by: robinthehood | Dec 15 2023 19:34 utc | 27
For a while this morning, this passage from Dr. Zhivago has been stirring in my mind:
"You realize who this Tania is?"
"Yes, of course."
"Evgraf will look after her," Gordon added after a pause: "It has often happened in history that a lofty ideal has degenerated into crude materialism. Thus Greece gaveway to Rome, and the Russian Enlightenment has become the Russian Revolution. There is a great difference between the two periods. Blok says somewhere: 'We, the children of Russia's terrible years.' Blok meant this in a metaphorical, figurative sense. The children were not children, but the sons, the heirs, the intelligentsia, and the terrors were not terrible but sent from above, apocalyptic; that's quite different. Now the metaphorical has become literal, children are children and the terrors are terrible, there you have the difference."
[Max Hayward/Manya Harari translators]
Posted by: juliania | Dec 15 2023 19:54 utc | 28
Nixon’s vision for American power projection was ironically a Persian model of native satrapies, and not a Roman model of having military bases and ‘proconsuls’ in foreign provinces. In hindsight, it now makes perfect sense what happened and why the regime changes required had to happen as they happened.
The current structure of the US ‘empire’ is Roman. CENTCOM could not come into existence in a satrap model with someone like Shah of Iran sitting on all that oil and controlling the waterways. But Iran was a Western aligned ally and directly neighboring USSR. This posed a problem.
Many in US openly (in early 70s) criticized arming the Shah with things like AWACS and F-14s. Some knew of Shah’s secret agreements with Siemens to basically kickstart Iran’s nuclear weapons track. Arabs were insistent that the Shah dreamed of restoring the Persian Empire (and now it is the Shia Safavid they use as the scarecrow). The Shah publicly (and know what he said privately) said that if West won’t arm him he would turn to the Soviets. This was credible since earlier he had turned to USSR to build Iran’s steel industry after the West refused to do so.
So contrary to what is loudly claimed by MSM and “resistance” , the fall of Shah of Iran enabled the establishment of the US military presence in Persian Gulf without affording a foothold by the Soviets (which were still in business in ‘79), The “Islamic Revolution” did fit the bill. Thus without the damaging optics (in Cold War) of actively working against a stalwart ally and then rolling in the US military, the stalwart ally was schemed against and the resultant extremist regime provided the perfect pretext for the establishment of an imperial posture for USA, with CENTCOM being its manifestation in “MENA”.
Posted by: robinthehood | Dec 15 2023 20:23 utc | 29
HEALTH-CARE IN CHINA
Nik Stankovic
China Tier-2 city public hospital experience 🧵with photos
I've been struggling with some facial pain for a couple of years that 20 doctors in Serbia and two in the US could not figure out what it is (separate story). It's not sinuses, teeth, allergies or infection, or any sort of tumor. Doctors have pretty much given up on me, and the next specialist was to be a psychiatrist (not kidding).
So last week I saw a private eye clinic here in Qingdao, told them my theory, and they too were a little suspicious, but the doctor said go do another CT, this one is 2 years old. She recommended a nearby public hospital.
So I went today. Looked it up and it was 6 subway stops from my house. It's called Huangdao Central Hospital. Your typical large Chinese public hospital with all kinds of departments.
I left home about 1:30 pm and was at the hospital a little before 2pm.
I arrived around 2pm. I have never been at a hospital in Qingdao, but have been in plenty in Beijing and Shanghai. Typically you have to get an electronic card/ID for the hospital (although I think they now do one per city) that keeps your medical history.
Took me a few minutes to figure out how to do that, however, because I am a foreigner I could not do it at one of the kiosks because I don't have a Chinese ID, had to do it manually at the counter. No biggy: name, birthdate, passport number.
At 2:19 pm I got my number to see an eye doctor first (who would then send me to do the CT).
The number (appointment) costs 7 CNY = $1.
I go wait for my turn at the Ophthalmology. I wait about 15 minutes.
Do a consultation, explain the situation, etc. The doctor says, ok go do a CT. He says let's flush the tear duct before you do the CT because sometimes there can be some leftover fluid in the tear duct and that can appear as the shade on the CT.
He enters it all into the system and tells me to a) go pay; b) get the liquid for flushing the tear duct at the hospital pharmacy. It is all on the first floor.
The CT costs... are you ready. No, are you ready? You will want to sit down for this one. Sitting down? 360 CNY = $50.75 USD.
That's because I have no health insurance in China, so it is a little on the expensive side.
The flushing medicine (really just sterile salt water) + service will cost another 21.12 CNY which is $2.98 USD.
I go downstairs and can now use one of these fancy machines to pay with WeChat. Wait in line at the pharmacy for about 5 minutes and I going back up to his office for tear duct flushing.
I go downstairs and can now use one of these fancy machines to pay with WeChat. Wait in line at the pharmacy for about 5 minutes and I going back up to his office for tear duct flushing.
It is now 3:16 pm
He flushes my tear duct, this takes about 20 minutes and I go downstairs to the CT waiting room. I report at the CT front desk and they issue me a new number and a QR code which I will use to see my results after the CT is done. I wait about 30 minutes for the CT. I am B138 (S*A is my name shortened). There are 7 people ahead of me.
CT scan takes about 5 minutes. I am out and can IMMEDIATELLY scan the QR code on my number (at the bottom) to see the results.
I use WeChat to open it and see my scan.
Sure enough the left side (which is really the right side) is still shadowed even with the flushing.
The good news is that the appearance has not changed in two years, meaning, for example, it is not some kind of tumor that grows (that is possible, and they can grow into the eye, or down into the nose).
I go back upstairs to the doctor, and we agree that most likely it is not some sort of tumor. he tries to explain to me what it might be, but, unfortunately...... it was beyond my vocabulary. So he said, ok, maybe it's just some tissue and maybe there is some infection there.
We agree to try to flush the duct with Tobradex, which are OTC eye drops (antibiotic and a bit of steroids). But he is going to flush it down as opposed to me just doing the drops, and we will do this a few times over several days.
He sends me down to buy Tobradex and does the flushing again.
If this does not work (and I suspect it won't), in theory the duct can be probed.
I get out out of the hospital, it is 4:45 pm. Get on a bus, and I was at home at 5:15 pm.
My total cost is:
- 2 CNY for bus tickets (1 each way)
- 7 CNY for the number
- 381 CNY for CT + flushing
- 26 RMB for Tobradex + flushing
----------
Total 416 RMB = $58.64 USD
I left home at 1:30 pm and was back home at 5:15 pm with the 30 minute bus wait and trip x 2 = about 3 hours at the hospital from walking in to walking out
I have no health insurance in China and I made no appointment ahead of time. I just walked into the hospital from the street.
I do speak fluent Chinese, am quite familiar with the Chinese medical system, and unfortunately I don't think anyone who does not would be able to do this. Of course, you could have someone Chinese chaperone you around.
You could also do it at a private clinic/radiology labs. The initial appointment would take a week and cost about $40. The CT could be done the same day usually (or tomorrow) for $150 USD, with another appointment costing another $40 with another 1 week wait. So two weeks and about $250 USD for the private option.
There are many expat-friendly hospitals in China, of course in the big cities. One of the more famous ones is the so-called "American hospital" actually called United Family Hospitals.
qingdao.ufh.com.cn/locations…
They used to be in Beijing and Shanghai only, but I just checked, amazingly they have one in Qingdao now too.
You walk into that hospital and it SMELLS like an American hospital. It is like you have been teleported into Palo Alto in California. Everybody speaks English. In fact, many of the doctors don't speak Chinese, so the nurses have to help translate with some Chinese patients.
You also pay US prices for healthcare.
I took my daughter once when she was little fell and hit her head. I panicked. I had international health insurance back then. Emergency department, basic tests (I think they did an ultrasound), one night observation, some other random test while we were there anyway.
$2000 USD !!!!!!
I had to pay it cash, insurance refunded $1800 two months later.
Never again will I go there.
https://nitter.net/nikstankovic_/status/1732350786800103693#m
Posted by: MD | Dec 15 2023 20:28 utc | 30
RULING CLASS JOURNALISTS
Richard Harwood October 30, 1993 - Opinion - Washington Post
In its 70-year history, the quarterly journal Foreign Affairs has had but five editors. The fifth, recently appointed, is James Hoge, former publisher of the New York Daily News and before that editor of the Chicago Sun-Times. The quarterly is published by the Council on Foreign Relations, whose members are the nearest thing we have to a ruling establishment in the United States.
The president is a member. So is his secretary of state, the deputy secretary of state, all five of the undersecretaries, several of the assistant secretaries and the department's legal adviser. The president's national security adviser and his deputy are members. The director of Central Intelligence (like all previous directors) and the chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board are members. The secretary of defense, three undersecretaries and at least four assistant secretaries are members. The secretaries of the departments of housing and urban development, interior, health and human services and the chief White House public relations man, David Gergen, are members, along with the speaker of the House and the majority leader of the Senate.
This is not a retinue of people who "look like America," as the president once put it, but they very definitely look like the people who, for more than half a century, have managed our international affairs and our military-industrial complex. John W. Davis, a Wall Street lawyer, was chosen as the council's first president in 1921 and three years later was the Democratic candidate for president against Calvin Coolidge. His successors at the council were from the same mold -- financiers, corporate lawyers and industrialists. John J. McCloy, described by Richard Rovere years ago as the patriarch of the American establishment, served as council chairman from 1953 until 1970. Allen Dulles, first head of the CIA, was a council director for 42 years and was its president from 1946 until 1950. David Rockefeller succeeded McCloy, serving as chairman from 1970 until 1985. His successor is Peter Peterson.
Today, two-thirds of the council's more than 2,000 members live in either New York or Washington and, as you would expect, include many of the leading figures of American political life: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Cyrus Vance, McGeorge Bundy, Gov. Mario Cuomo and so on. Captains of industry and finance, the big universities, the big law firms and the big foundations are heavily represented. That is the way it has always been.
What is distinctively modern about the council these days is the considerable involvement of journalists and other media figures, who account for more than 10 percent of the membership. Walter Lippmann was a director of the council in the 1930s, but he was sui generis. It was not until the late 1960s that journalists began showing up with some frequency on the council's board and in the membership lists. Hoge's appointment to the Foreign Affairs editorship is symbolic of their rising influence. So is the election of Leslie Gelb as the council's new president, succeeding Peter Tarnoff, who has gone to the State Department. Gelb for many years was a reporter and columnist for the New York Times and was a State Department official in the Carter administration.
In the past 15 years, council directors have included Hedley Donovan of Time Inc., Elizabeth Drew of the New Yorker, Philip Geyelin of The Washington Post, Karen Elliott House of the Wall Street Journal and Strobe Talbott of Time magazine, who is now President Clinton's ambassador at large in the Slavic world. The editorial page editor, deputy editorial page editor, executive editor, managing editor, foreign editor, national affairs editor, business and financial editor and various writers as well as Katharine Graham, the paper's principal owner, represent The Washington Post in the council's membership. The executive editor, managing editor and foreign editor of the New York Times are members, along with executives of such other large newspapers as the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, the weekly newsmagazines, network television executives and celebrities -- Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Jim Lehrer, for example -- and various columnists, among them Charles Krauthammer, William Buckley, George Will and Jim Hoagland.
The membership of these journalists in the council, however they may think of themselves, is an acknowledgment of their active and important role in public affairs and of their ascension into the American ruling class. They do not merely analyze and interpret foreign policy for the United States; they help make it. Their influence, Jon Vanden Heuvel speculates in an article in the Media Studies Journal, is likely to increase now that the Cold War has ended: "By focusing on particular crises around the world {the media are in a better position} to pressure government to act. ... Humanitarianism has taken on new dimensions as a component of American foreign policy, and the media are largely responsible."
Somalia is Exhibit A. American troops are there, it is generally believed, because of a decision by NBC to air BBC film of starving Somalian children. It set off a chain reaction in the press and humanitarian concern among the public, forcing the Bush administration to intervene. It is also arguable that the troops will be coming out soon because of film of a captured airman and of a dead soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.
Is there something unethical in these new relationships, some great danger that conflicts of interest are bound to arise when journalists get cheek and jowl with the establishment? Probably not. They are part of that establishment whether they like it or not, sharing most of its values and world views. In any case, they must deal with it daily in their professional lives, even to learning which forks to use.
Posted by: robinthehood | Dec 15 2023 20:51 utc | 31
Pacifica Advocate | Dec 15 2023 19:07 utc | 22
James Ball?
Posted by: Some Random Passerby | Dec 15 2023 21:37 utc | 32
"What is distinctively modern about the council these days is the considerable involvement of journalists and other media figures..."
"Journalist" is the preferred cover for spooks and their assets. Presstitutes are typically afforded the latitude for assholery that normal plebes would be censured for, and few question where their wealth comes from. They need a bundle of cash for an evil deed? No problem! They just win a literary award from some "journal" with a circulation of two and funding that traces back to the US State Department (the non-secret wing of the CIA). They get busted by local authorities? The US starts squealing about "Muh freedum of the presstitution!"
There are no presstitutes in the western corporate mass media who are not compromised by, if not partially or even fully employed by, the CIA. The industry has contracted quite a bit in the last few decades, making it much easier for the CIA to manage its stable of mass media whores. Presstitutes like it that way too since it makes their job easier and eases their atrophied consciences.
Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 15 2023 21:46 utc | 33
"Hunter Biden spent $1M on hookers, emptied his daughter’s college fund to buy crack, refused to support a stripper he impregnated, snorted cheese when he ran out of cocaine, fucked his sister-in-law after his brother died of cancer, and today claimed “Republicans have no shame.”
Posted by: MD | Dec 15 2023 19:23 utc | 25
He does sound rather like Neal Bush et al. The hookers might've been chaaper in E. Asia. Neal got his for free!
Lester
Posted by: lester | Dec 15 2023 21:59 utc | 34
When Hijabs attacks
" A few weeks ago in France, a 13-year-old girl was allegedly s*xually assaulted by a French national of migrant descent. Her father filed a complaint to the police.
The man’s sister took revenge against the victim by getting together a group of friends and beating her up in a lynching.
The 13-year-old can be heard on camera pleading. “I am sorry, I am sorry. I will even give you money if you want.” The video was filmed and shared on French social media sites, turning the girl into the subject of bullying. "
Posted by: Moonie | Dec 15 2023 22:59 utc | 35
Inspired by bevin, who recently recommended some books, having found torrents for them, I discovered that someone had uploaded many books on the theme of imperialism, so decided to download those that I could and upload them to my MEGA account. So far there are 317, mostly .pdf but quite a few .epub and a couple of .mobi files of titles such as 'Five Days in London, May 1940 [John Lukacs](2001).epub' 'Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism Today, Monopoly Has Become a Fact [V. I. Lenin](1916).epub' 'The Crime of the Congo [Arthur Conan Doyle](1909).pdf' 'Empire of the Black Sea_ The Rise and Fall of the Mithridatic World [Duane W. Roller](2020).epub' 'Israel_A Colonial Settler State [Maxime Rodinson](1973).pdf' 'The Limits of Power_The End of American Exceptionalism [Andrew J. Bacevich](2008).epub'
I created a web page listing all available, with a download link for each ebook. There are also options to place requests as well as to upload any ebooks to MEGA to share with others.
Having done all that, I then discovered Library Genesis, which has the 20 or so titles that I tried, such as the ones above, even those published in 2022. Search just the author's name in the event of it not finding the title.
Posted by: NotEinstein | Dec 15 2023 23:31 utc | 36
Granted this is Palestine adjacent but I think bigger. The Yemenis have nearly shut down commercial shipping via the Red Sea and nobody is doing anything about. The US is making noise about some coalition to do something but it’s unclear what they can do except put a small naval fleet there to watch things up close, maybe interdict actual raiding parties.
Now the Saudi war against Yemen isn’t even really over, it just faded away when the KSA-Iranian relations were restored. And so far, the US can’t even get the Saudis to spark it back up. Of course that could be a dangerous escalation for the Saudis and the global economy since the Houthis seem to be all out of fucks to give, but they do have missiles they’re willing to share. But I think it’s more than that. I suspect that the KSA is tacitly agreeing to it; they probably asked that the missiles not fly through Saudi air space on the way to Israel and that request seems to be honored.
Combined with the carrier group getting chased out of the Persian Gulf this is starting to look like impotence and/or fear. Or fear because people are starting to comprehend their impotence.
Posted by: Lex | Dec 15 2023 23:39 utc | 37
Kana:
1. It is called self-awareness, it's like self-consciousness only a little less embarrassing :) (Most of the time anyway, hopefully).
2. God doesn't need no stinking proof! :) (There's a "puny humans" joke somewhere in that at some meta-meta-meta level).
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Dec 15 2023 23:46 utc | 38
@MD #30
I had a very similar experience in a public hospital some years ago. I don’t share your pessimism about foreigners not being able to navigate- my skills are kindergarten level, and I got the records, consultation, drugs etc. With phone translation it is even easier now.
Posted by: BillB | Dec 15 2023 23:55 utc | 39
@MD #30
I had a very similar experience in a public hospital some years ago. I don’t share your pessimism about foreigners not being able to navigate- my skills are kindergarten level, and I got the records, consultation, drugs etc. With phone translation it is even easier now.
Posted by: BillB | Dec 15 2023 23:55 utc | 40
Posted by: NotEinstein | Dec 15 2023 23:31 utc | 35
This is also a fantastic library. Free as well.
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=37930
US National Resources Planning Board (NPP) is an Internet Archive is a “non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more” and is a fabulous resource for researchers.
The 432-page Report – Development of resources and stabilisation of employment in the United States. Is excellent and shows clearly how the American public has been conned for decades by a bunch of gansters.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 16 2023 0:06 utc | 41
At bevin 12. For what its worth. Truth needs to be demostrable to all. Or it isnt. Fellow Canadian Naomi Kline says let no disaster go to waste. With the pandemic the disaster was created to be taken advantage. Most likeley some oligarchs
wanting to see ROI on some investment made earlier. Disaster Capitolism V.2
Smiths hand perhaps?
Posted by: Tannenhouser | Dec 16 2023 0:16 utc | 42
Posted by: NotEinstein | Dec 15 2023 23:31 utc | 35
The free Internet Archive “pays particular attention to books”, and make books that are not commonly available in local libraries available to Internet users.
They “scan 1000 books per day in 28 locations around the World” and that gives everybody access to material that goes way back in time. You can quickly see how much higher the level of economic debate was back then.
Before corporatism mirrored communism. Where you can't debate anything nowadays and the history of economics don't get taught anymore.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 16 2023 0:36 utc | 43
Fiskalische Aspekte einer EU-Erweiterung - IW-Report Nr. 63.
Ukraine's membership will cost the EU between 130 and 190 billion euros (140 to 204 billion dollars).
According to a study by the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW), Ukraine would receive up to 17 per cent of the bloc's total budget.
At the same time, the institute estimates the population of Ukraine today at 31 million people (43.8 million before the war) and the area of agricultural land at 27.9 million hectares (32.9 million before the war).
IN GERMAN (b, this is for you.)
web: https://www.iwkoeln.de/studien/berthold-busch-samina-sultan-folgen-eines-eu-beitritts-der-ukraine-fuer-den-haushalt-und-die-kohaesionspolitik.html
pdf: https://www.iwkoeln.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Studien/Report/PDF/2023/IW-Report_2023-EU-Erweiterung.pdf
Posted by: Winston, journalist | Dec 16 2023 0:37 utc | 44
Hi all, Ive been trying to find a graph or table showing projected population
Growth/decline for most countries that was posted on an moa thread, maybe a couple of years ago. All I really remember is it showing large declines in the wealthy western nations.
Sorry, not much to go on, but Im sure it will trigger someones memory.
Cheers
Rhye
Posted by: Rhyem | Dec 16 2023 0:55 utc | 45
@43 BTW: I'm aware of the neocon bias of the IW, to me the quiet land grab at a shocking human and financial cost is all the more cynical.
Posted by: Winston, journalist | Dec 16 2023 1:02 utc | 46
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 16 2023 0:36 utc | 42
Yes, I was using https://archive.org/details/texts yesterday to grab author and publish date details of some other books I was downloading - but it isn't totally free and straight forward to use - most of the time you need an account and wait for a turn at least, while https://libgen.is is totally open to download (I used the [2] libgen.li download link of the mirrors)- no restrictions what so ever to their 20 million plus books.
As example, https://archive.org/details/cancerstageofcap0000mcmu - you can use their online reader, but no download options, whereas https://libgen.is/search.php?req=The+Cancer+Stage+Of+Capitalism&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def - just click on [2] and you have it.
Posted by: NotEinstein | Dec 16 2023 2:38 utc | 47
B' you should delete this and any similar stuff
You might be on the way for a millenium copyright act infringement trap
----
Inspired by bevin, who recently recommended some books, having found torrents for them, I discovered that someone had uploaded many books on the theme of imperialism, so decided to download those that I could and upload them to my MEGA account. So far there are 317, mostly .pdf but quite a few .epub and a couple of .mobi files of titles such as 'Five Days in London, May 1940 [John Lukacs](2001).epub' 'Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism Today, Monopoly Has Become a Fact [V. I. Lenin](1916).epub' 'The Crime of the Congo [Arthur Conan Doyle](1909).pdf' 'Empire of the Black Sea_ The Rise and Fall of the Mithridatic World [Duane W. Roller](2020).epub' 'Israel_A Colonial Settler State [Maxime Rodinson](1973).pdf' 'The Limits of Power_The End of American Exceptionalism [Andrew J. Bacevich](2008).epub'
I created a web page listing all available, with a download link for each ebook. There are also options to place requests as well as to upload any ebooks to MEGA to share with others.
who.thaiholiday.biz/imp.php
Having done all that, I then discovered Library Genesis, which has the 20 or so titles that I tried, such as the ones above, even those published in 2022. Search just the author's name in the event of it not finding the title.
Posted by: NotEinstein | Dec 15 2023 23:31 utc | 35
Posted by: Newbie | Dec 16 2023 2:44 utc | 48
Posted by: Newbie | Dec 16 2023 2:44 utc | 47
Why would you say that?
If all the books are already available for free on very well established archive web-sites, including US establishment run, how can it be classified as copyright infringement. I'm obviously going to delete my web page as it doesn't add anything.
The whole point of my post was for the bar to be aware of the availability to download ebooks, rather than buying them from Amazon etc.
Posted by: NotEinstein | Dec 16 2023 3:46 utc | 49
Posted by: NotEinstein | Dec 16 2023 3:46 utc | 48
The fact that you find them doesn’t mean they are public domain, least of all everywhere.
MCA has been used to take down many sites , better not put a target on MOA
Many would want just an excuse
Posted by: Newbie | Dec 16 2023 5:35 utc | 50
@Newbie:
You clearly don’t understand how IP law works. Posting a link and then saying “This book can be downloaded here” does not, in any way, infringe on anyone’s IP rights. Only the act of making the book available online, for free, without returning the fee demanded by the copyrights holder(s) actually infringes. Arguably not even the downloader is infringing, since the act off acquiring a bootleg copy has never been prosecuted as IP theft before. Prosecutions, such as they have been pursued, have always been against the providers. In the case of P2P prosecutions the argument against the “downloaders” has always been that they were simultaneously *sharing* the files and thus acting as a bootlegger, thus violating copyrights.
The law says nothing at all about the prosecution of the purchase/acquisition of a bootlegged copy.
Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 16 2023 6:05 utc | 51
Thanks to robinthehood and Some Random Passerby for the responses.
@robinthehood:
What a lot of people don’t know is that The China Lobby—which included Hoover, the Dulles brothers, the Luces, and many other high-ranking conservative commie-haters, as well as the entire Jiang-ruled Taiwan plutocracy—literally made Nixon’s political career. And I do mean literally: Nixon got all of his money, press, and political support from that segment of the US elites.
So the fact that Nixon made nice with China is quite sufficient to explain why he was couped out. Chiang Kaishek was furious with Nixon and publicly declared that he had betrayed his patrons.
Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 16 2023 6:14 utc | 52
I did some digging around and I believe I was thinking of this article which I probably first read because of one of b’s links:
Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 16 2023 9:08 utc | 53
@ Sunny Runny Burger | Dec 15 2023 23:46 utc | 37
2. God doesn't need no stinking proof! :)
"God don't make mistakes. That's how he got to be God."
- Archie Bunker to the 'Meathead' on All in the Family
Posted by: waynorinorway | Dec 16 2023 10:15 utc | 54
Posted by: NotEinstein | Dec 16 2023 2:38 utc | 46
Cheers I'll take a look at that as I use it for research from time to time.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 16 2023 11:18 utc | 55
Regarding Nixon these are well worth your time.
The New Nixon administration debt ceiling dilemma and the FED's solution.
But I would start with these first.
FED's monetary policy has come full circle a history tour.
Nixon’s pay board, and price controls. Which was carried out by Dick Cheney. Cheney’s boss was none other than Donald Rumsfeld.
https://www.crisesnotes.com/dont-let-dick-cheney-ruin-price-regulation-too/
The Arthur Burns that time forget and why they destroyed the trade unions.
It is very, very, very clear reading those 4 short articles that the ideologues and idiots didn't have the first clue about what they were doing. More importantly how they lie about everything today. All to try and hide in the dark the art of money creation.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 16 2023 11:37 utc | 56
Someone will be along shortly to tell us deficits don’t matter.
Posted by: Fred777 | Dec 15 2023 15:24 utc | 2
As long as US dollar is accepted worldwide - read "much sought after" as it is - debt growth is nothing but a meter for vassal subservience.
When this change, they will just declare bankrupcy and laugh at ruined creditor making faces ...
They will introduce digital world currency that everyone will seek after as buoyancy device for "some time"...
Many will be ruined, there will be war ... so what ?
Posted by: Greg Galloway | Dec 16 2023 12:15 utc | 57
@Newbie:
You clearly don’t understand how IP law works. Posting a link and then saying “This book can be downloaded here” does not, in any way, infringe on anyone’s IP rights.
Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 16 2023 6:05 utc | 51
Tell that to all torrent sites taken down
Posted by: Newbie | Dec 16 2023 12:19 utc | 58
@ Pacifica Advocate
Interesting, thanks. Entirely news. (But consider that China opening went on anyway).
Someone else mentioned Rumsfeld, Cheney. These two, along with HW Bush were promoted after Nixon fell from power. That is an additional datapoint that seems to support my thesis of Nixon’s removal being a very deep pivot by the system regarding its imperial posture and reliance on allies. (UK, for example, was very keen for Shah to take over, since that meant no facts on the ground aka American Bases in Persian Gulf.) So I think the Iran bit was a piece of the puzzle not all of it (of course) - the overall assessment: Neocons takeover of American political system started off here with Nixon.
Posted by: robinthehood | Dec 16 2023 12:50 utc | 59
Someone will be along shortly to tell us deficits don’t matter.
Posted by: Fred777 | Dec 15 2023 15:24 utc | 2
Nobody and I mean nobody on the planet says deficits don't matter.
It just an emotive, lazy thinking, ideological attack of very little thought.
As long as US dollar is accepted worldwide - read "much sought after" as it is - debt growth is nothing but a meter for vassal subservience.
When this change, they will just declare bankrupcy and laugh at ruined creditor making faces ...
They will introduce digital world currency that everyone will seek after as buoyancy device for "some time"...
Many will be ruined, there will be war ... so what ?
Posted by: Greg Galloway | Dec 16 2023 12:15 utc | 57
Complete nonsense and a complete failure to understand money.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 16 2023 12:55 utc | 60
Posted by: robinthehood | Dec 16 2023 12:50 utc | 59
Over a generation - ideology led to shrinking macroeconomic policy expertise within congress and other administrative agencies, ending in the controversy over President Nixon's impoundment of appropriate funds and the congressional budget and impoundment control act of 1974. Which created the Congessional budget office.
In other words the non sensical world of " pay fors " and deficit neutral fiscal policies.
https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/what-every-american-needs-to-know
Nixon has a lot to answer for and was a complete clown. Read the 4 links avove. The link above and what every American needs to know about " pay fors " Nixon's legacy.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 16 2023 13:11 utc | 61
Here's a number of solution's, but first you have to read it before deciding if you think it is a good idea or not.
Not respond with emotive ideological drivel.
Monetary policy without interest rate hikes: - Reimagining Demand Management and Price Stability in the 21st Century.
https://www.crisesnotes.com/new-report-monetary-policy-without-interest-rate-hikes/
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 16 2023 13:23 utc | 62
How about Giuliani's judicial execution?
Get a trial in the right jurisdiction and apply an absurd and impossible penalty.
He's not the first and won't be the last.
What does that say of the current expectations anyone can have about imperial justice?
I guess that's what people felt in rome when the remains of the republic were finally thrown under the bus.
Posted by: Newbie | Dec 16 2023 13:59 utc | 63
Newbie @63: "How about Giuliani's judicial execution?"
The Establishment, along with its royal court of presstitutes, mass media figures, academics, and corporate elites are desperate to the point of panic to regain credibility. Anyone with a soapbox higher than our host's must be completely destroyed if they call into question the credibility of the Establishment, and even our host has a wide enough reach that he causes the Establishment anxiety and heartburn (proof: the number of higher level trolls assigned to this site). Fortunately, the Establishment realizes, in its simple-minded way, that if they attack our host directly there is a strong possibility of expanding his reach, but Giuliani is beyond that. Giuliani must be destroyed at any cost, even if it is with obviously theatrical show trials.
Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 16 2023 15:36 utc | 64
Posted by: Newbie | Dec 16 2023 13:59 utc | 63
[Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was ordered by a federal jury Friday to pay more than $148 million to two Atlanta election workers he was found to have slandered by claiming they worked to cheat former President Donald Trump out of the 2020 election.]
If a country can be divided in two halves, each half with a different opinion of what is just, then that country will split in two.
Posted by: Passerby | Dec 16 2023 16:13 utc | 65
An open note to Echo Chamber:
It is apparent that you wish to share something which you deem true and important with us in the forums, and I'm convinced that you can indeed give insight on matters of great importance here. So let me thank you for your effort. I realize you speak from a point of learned understanding. I also welcome to you educate us lot of fools ever more. But I'd like to kindly suggest two things that might help you come across a little better.
First, it's true that your approach is a tad patronizing at times, as bevin recently formulated. No one wants to wonder whether he's an idiot or an ideologue, when all he did was to speak in (hopefully) good faith on some aspect of money to which you can't agree. It doesn't help anyone, it just opens an emotive sideshow, and it clouds what could otherwise be a helpful conversation.
Second, as obscuring as it is to give a layer of "worth" to each and all aspect of an argument, including its various proponents, present or otherwise, it is obscuring to refer to these layers in erudite jargon. I've been reading your comments here with growing interest and appreciation, but I can fully relate to what Scorpion (who is very good at words) said here a while ago: economical jargon is simply impenetrable for me, so much so that I basically gave up on it altogether. Whatever the reasons are for this impression I cannot know, but if you do and would accordingly choose your wordings a bit more accessible to laymen and practitioners of general interest, I'm sure many here would appreciate.
That'd be all. Thank you for your contributions.
Posted by: persiflo | Dec 16 2023 16:13 utc | 66
Time and again, we must rely on the foreign press to inform us of what's going on in our own nation. I recall primary results on Russia Today, I couldn't find elsewhere.
Posted by: Eighthman | Dec 16 2023 16:26 utc | 67
NH meteorological fall (Sept Oct Nov) for 2023 just registered on NASA-GISS's database of temperature anomalies, all the way back to 1880:
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
The global anomaly has been above +1.5C each of the past three months. Add 22 (0.22C) to adjust for the preindustrial baseline, we get 166 (+1.66C) for Fall -- the hottest full season on record, by far. Planet Earth has leapfrogged the chalk-mark at 1.5C.
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Dec 16 2023 16:40 utc | 68
A long worthwhile read
Simplicius
The United Nations Climate Change Conference—was held in Dubai. The conference is the extension of, and has been held since, the notorious 1992 Rio “Earth Summit,” where the infamous “UN Agenda 21” was first hatched. That makes the CoP summit a particularly insidious complement of the global elites’ ongoing designs to create a ‘Final Solution’ of power centralization.
The reason is this: the elite ‘Old Nobility’ of Europe has controlled the globe for centuries by way of their Western financial architecture. It’s allowed these small resource-less kingdoms to remain supreme by extracting profits from the rest of the ‘developing world’, which they’ve dutifully quashed and kept perpetually stunted in this ‘developing’ phase.
But now, for the first time in history, after a century of dogged decolonization throughout the world, the erstwhile colonized stand—for the first time—to break fully away from the centuries old system of exploitation and extractive slavery. The problem is, the way this monolithic financial system is securitized and leveraged, a single black swan contagion can bring the entirety of it down—it’s a sort of reverse RAID setup, for those familiar with hard-drive data backup systems.
"In essence, climate is their ticket to eternity—their final chance at survival as a ruling class. The trajectories of the financial system all point unerringly to terminal collapse in the near to medium term; it’s as unsustainable as a cube of ice on a palmy beach, as evanescent as a champagne bubble, bursting in a crystal glass beneath the starry vista of the Al Wasl dome; and they stand to lose everything they worked so hard for since the Middle Ages.
But maybe climate change is exactly what’s needed to rid the world of these parasites. A grand diluvian spectacle to wash away the technocratic megaliths and transhumanist corpus of their power structures, once and for all—to reset the world anew, afresh."
Posted by: ld | Dec 16 2023 17:23 utc | 69
If a country can be divided in two halves, each half with a different opinion of what is just, then that country will split in two.
Posted by: Passerby | Dec 16 2023 16:13 utc | 64
And what were checks and balances used as weapons of bias
Nothing good can come out of that
Posted by: Newbie | Dec 16 2023 18:36 utc | 71
Time and again, we must rely on the foreign press to inform us of what's going on in our own nation. I recall primary results on Russia Today, I couldn't find elsewhere.
Posted by: Eighthman | Dec 16 2023 16:26 utc | 66
And the strangest thing is that the trashiest it is the bigger the chance of finding some nuggets of truth between the manure
As for serious MSM there are none left if they go against the creed to which all must adere
Posted by: Newbie | Dec 16 2023 18:38 utc | 72
apologies if the Simpicius has been posted elsewhere
Posted by: ld | Dec 16 2023 17:24 utc | 69
He’s often posted on his garden’s posts, seldom on his darkfutura
Posted by: Newbie | Dec 16 2023 18:40 utc | 73
But maybe climate change is exactly what’s needed to rid the world of these parasites. A grand diluvian spectacle to wash away the technocratic megaliths and transhumanist corpus of their power structures, once and for all—to reset the world anew, afresh."
Posted by: ld | Dec 16 2023 17:23 utc | 68
Not really, unlike what simplicius sees, I just see them worried about having to spend too much on what they see as the 2050 10 billion bump.
Don’t waste on deplorables and keep control of the finite ressorces.
What they don’t seem to see is that we’re heading for a 1620 year cycle collapse, and the “Barbadians” are at the door.
Just crossing my fingers that it is just a smaller harmonic as the fall of Rome .
Posted by: Newbie | Dec 16 2023 19:00 utc | 74
Together with a proposed Flag for the new USofA as a Civilization-State, US Americans: Who we are, and are not:
https://therevdavidrgraham.substack.com/p/who-we-are
Posted by: The Rev. David R. Gr | Dec 16 2023 19:56 utc | 75
Is this your president or is it deepfaked?
Maybe they gave the workers some dough insisting that they cheer and applaud JFB whatever he is going to say...
Or could it be Las Vegas being an example of state-of-the-art infrastructure ? Nah,improbable
Posted by: willie | Dec 16 2023 22:17 utc | 76
Posted by: juliania | Dec 15 2023 16:19 utc | 8
Thxs for your reply. (I only just now noticed that the Open thread had changed from the previous Week in Review.)
The trajectories of the financial system all point unerringly to terminal collapse in the near to medium term...
@ ld | Dec 16 2023 17:23 utc | 69
It don't mean a thing, but short term Wall Street relishes the glide-path to WWIII we're surfing. Mr Dow Jones' mood is evidently elevated, to all-time highs, by trajectories of so many bombs. As usual, indicators unerringly demonstrate Wall Street's love of warfare; it can never get enough.
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Dec 16 2023 22:26 utc | 78
Posted by: kana | Dec 15 2023 17:50 utc | 13"Memories appear in our mind.....
Memories are mainly stored in the spleen, heart and kidneys - emotional, long-term and short-term memories respectively. At least according to old Chinese medical theory. There is scattered evidence backing it up. For example the first full heart transplant recipient in the modern West (Dr. Hua To had done the procedure earlier in China around the time of Christ) had vivid post-op visions of a nasty-looking man. Unbeknownst to him, his donor had been stabbed to death. The police artist used a sketch based on his detailed description to apprehend his heart donor's killer.
There are many assumptions about brain functions which aren't necessarily true. That brain and nerves are involved in many aspects of experience is surely the case, but sometimes it seems we give it too much credit similar to a primitive person watching TV assuming that the set is generating the sound and images from within itself. This is partly true in that the TV's innards manipulate various energies to project an image on the screen and sound in its speakers, but none of those things on their own generate either. The brain is probably similar. My personal theory is that it has more to do with both actively and passively engendering the space-time dimension we take as 'reality' to which end it is the central sense perception switchboard (why main sense organs and brain are all in the head), which also may be more of a two-way process than currently imagined.
Posted by: juliania | Dec 15 2023 19:54 utc | 28
Nice piece. Interesting how those of a materialist and 'objective' no-nonsense bent are those who bend reality no end of phantasmagorical nightmares conjured up by their lack of heart, spirit and imaginative appreciation of beauty.
Whoever or whatever God is, a profound sense of humour and irony is in the mix....
The trajectories of the financial system all point unerringly to terminal collapse in the near to medium term...
ld | Dec 16 2023 17:23 utc | 69
They have been saying that since the last quarter of 2020. With their gold standard, fixed exchange rate models. I suppose if they keep saying "near to medium term" they will get it right as some point as we now move into 2024.
One day it’s going to happen lol. Mystic meg or Rosie Lee the gypsy could tell you that.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yLvbBCmdOlg
People complain when interest rates are at O% and now complain when interest rates are at 5.5% which used to be the norm for at least 30 years.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate
The fable normally goes like this - "That interest rates in Japan would rise because “of the continuing decline in Japan’s household saving rate” and that “the higher interest rate would eventually raise the government’s interest bill by about 4% of GDP. And that would push a 7%-of-GDP fiscal deficit to 11%”. Then, so the fable goes, “This vicious spiral of rising deficits and debt would be likely to push interest rates even higher, causing the spiral to accelerate”. At which point, Japan sinks slowly into the sea never to be seen again.
Alas, as It turns out that the real world is a little different to what students read about in mainstream macroeconomics textbooks.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 17 2023 1:56 utc | 81
The conversation between Putin and the heads of Russia's political parties and head of the Duma is now available, "Putin Meets with Heads of State Duma Factions". It's an excellent follow-on to Putin's Direct Line presser as he gets feedback on it plus much more. Yes, it's a long read but one that provides some crucial information about the solidity of Russian governance in advance of the coming election.
Posted by: persiflo | Dec 16 2023 16:13 utc | 66
Thank you for the kind words. I honestly don't mean to be patronising. So will try my very best not to be.
I just lose my patience when I have to go over very simple things, like the deficit and debt and tax payers money myth 132 times. There's only so many ways you can put the facts into layman terms of quite a difficult subject like the government accounts.
Remember persiflo I have been at this for 20 years. So my patience is wearing thin by now, as all I hear is the GROUPTHINK time and time again. Year after year. That doesn't reflect the real world. I'm pretty sure you would feel the same way after 20 years. Or teach your dog to shit outside and it still shits in the house. You would sound patronising yourself after that.
It would be easier if everyone just read the deficit myth by Stephanie Kelton. It doesn't get any easier to understand than that. Was on Bloomberg recently as more and more are now waking up to the truth, after watching things with their own eyes over the last 3 years. It being an international best seller.
https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/talking-mmt-with-tom-keene
Remember this was a women that spent her time trying to disprove it at the beginning. Had been entrapped in the GROUPTHINK herself. All MMT'rs go through this process. More importantly are brave enough to admit they had been entrapped by the GROUPTHINK in the first place.
Most of the time over the last 20 years all I hear is people arguing black is white and white is black. Refuse to accept they have been entrapped by GROUPTHINK. Even after you have shown them the government balance sheets ffs.
https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781802208092/book-part-9781802208092-9.xml
An emotive ideological response triggers me now. When they don't even debate anything that has been written. I can very easily be as aggressive and patronising as they are when they do that. I'm just as good at a drive by shooting as the next guy.
However, I can also stand square on and debate as I know the subject inside out and back to front. Normally they have just grabbed it off a TV screen. Or some professor who doesn't understand money. When they can't debate any longer they are the ones who resort to a drive by shooting not me.
So I promise I will try my very best to stay patient but if I get a drive by shooting. All bets are off.
Which I only think is fair don't you ?
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 17 2023 2:56 utc | 83
Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 17 2023 2:31 utc | 82
Will check it out. I very much liked his Q&A session.
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 17 2023 3:13 utc | 84
To chsange the subject: I know that many people here are Tolkien readers and interested in the genre which he inspired.
Few, I imagine read the Weekly Worker where this week there is an excellent discussion of Tolkien etc by Paul Demarty. This is the link.
https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1471/their-tolkien-and-ours/
Posted by: bevin | Dec 17 2023 4:44 utc | 85
Posted by: bevin | Dec 17 2023 4:44 utc | 85
I found the beginning a hard slog but later on it became very interesting. Thank you. Here’s one from Unz that came out yesterday: https://www.unz.com/ghood/tolkien-the-homer-of-the-anglosphere/
Like it or not, Tolkien tapped into something. What he produced is both extraordinary and flimsy, the latter because as colourful and rich as the tapestry woven was, it never could travel far from the pages of the fictional work of art that it was. There is no end of details, quirks, particulars for critics and fans to delve into but to me over time it is the sweep and arc of the entire narrative which I find provides something somehow more lasting and durable than all today's news with its constant parade of degradation, disaster, decline and decadence.
The way Tolkien's world possessed such a deep and rich past, going all the way back into the Sylmarillion - which he wanted published along with LOTR but no publisher could countenance - was mirrored in the both glorious and tragic present told in the LOTR epic such that when it was over, although the King was restored, the Old Age and its splendour had passed and the main hero, the hobbit Frodo, had scars and wounds which could never be healed, so that he could never again enjoy the Shire whose simple goodness he had helped to protect and preserve. Similarly, the scars and wounds from The Great War of 1914 - 1948 could never truly heal and Tolkien witnessed the fall of his own nation in ways well echoed in his own sweeping tale and moreover in the existential journey we all share, that of growing into adulthood with so much power and promise only to watch it all wither and finally perish. Ultimately, Tolkien’s subject matter was mortality. Many have done so before and will do so again, but not many will invent entire languages and mythology to provide such a rich and variegated backdrop for so doing. His work was truly extraordinary.
the overall assessment: Neocons takeover of American political system started off here with Nixon.Posted by: robinthehood | Dec 16 2023 12:50 utc | 59
The Neocons are simply a merging of The China Lobby with Zionist Trotskyites.
Or to put it another way: the Neocons started with the China Lobby (from which McCarthy was spawned) way back in the early 50s. It just took a few decades before the Zionists were able to pile themselves into that circle.
Cheney and Rumsfeld were both aides/apprentices to key China Lobby members, and all of Reagan/both-Bush administrations got their start in either the group itself, or groups that were started by it.
The source of pretty much everything evil that the US has perpetrated since 1950 can be rather clearly linked to the China Lobby, the CFR, and the corporate oligarchy (Rockefellers, Carnegies, Vanderbilts, etc).
Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 17 2023 9:28 utc | 87
What was once a thriving ecosystem of web locales, authored with distinction and personality—a biodiverse bloom of the interesting and outlandish, the outré and quirky and sui generis—has been displaced by a collection heap of homogenized ‘E-Commerce’ cyber-edifices, evoking the sterilization of Middle America into an endless sprawl of hyper-commercialized blandness.
https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/dead-internet
Reminded me of the long gone, good ol' days.
And just saw a notice that Google Groups (Usenet) was shutting down, iow dying, no more new content .... it's had been in a death spiral a long time of course, but it's going to be buried now. I spent the best years of my life on Usenet .... almost 20 years on and off. Fair thee well.
Posted by: Lavrov's Dog | Dec 17 2023 10:12 utc | 88
Iran Observer:
The US will announce a coalition called "Operation Prosperity Guardian" to deter and attack the Houthis.
Ansarullah has responded by declaring that it is ready to fight this most honourable battle in history with 2 million troops and the destruction of western ships and their bases in the region.
SA and UAE are part of the mission. They also allow their ports to be used for trade goods going to Israel. Turkey also still continues its trade with Israel, including oil. Really difficult to understand.
Will a new military conflict break out? What will be the effects?
Posted by: Hamburger | Dec 17 2023 12:46 utc | 89
Also Iran Observer:
Hapag-Lloyd, the world's fifth largest container shipping company in the world, has halted its activities in the Red Sea.
MSC, the largest shipping company, and Maersk, the second largest, have also announced that they wish to avoid the Red Sea.
We can expect total disruption to logistics lines and a massive increase in the price of consumer goods.
This is because the shipping companies will be passing on the extra transport costs to the consumer.
Yemen seems to be keen on a military confrontation with the empire. Brazen, to say the least! Will there be any actual support for them?
Posted by: Hamburger | Dec 17 2023 12:55 utc | 90
@Lavrov's Dog #88
Sad. Usenet was one of the great democratizing influences- you would get highly qualified people discussing important (and not so important) topics, and often using their real names. Some of us got reputations as world-class experts and were referenced in published books. Google grabbed the archives for nothing if memory serves and squeezed the remaining profit out of it.
Posted by: Billb | Dec 17 2023 12:56 utc | 91
Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 17 2023 9:28 utc | 87
Very interesting, thanks. Good source for me to read up on online?
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/The_China_Lobby (interestingly blank)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Lobby (but this has approved content )
A bibliography from some page that considers the term China Lobby a “pejorative” term:
Bachrack, Stanley D. The Committee of One Million: "China Lobby" Politics, 1953–1971. New York, 1976.
Borg, Dorothy. American Policy and the Chinese Revolution, 1925–1928. New York, 1947. Includes references to the activities of Americans sympathetic to the Chinese Nationalist cause during the 1920s.
Cohen, Warren I. "The Role of Private Groups in the United States." In Dorothy Borg and Shumpei Okamoto, eds. Pearl Harbor as History: Japanese-American Relations, 1931–1941. New York, 1973. Discusses the lobbying activities of a number of groups and individuals between 1931 and 1941.
Friedman, Donald J. The Road from Isolation: The Campaign of the American Committee for Non-participation in Japanese Aggression, 1938–1941. Cambridge, Mass., 1968. A useful study of the organization and its work.
Keeley, Joseph. The China Lobby Man: The Story of Alfred Kohlberg. New Rochelle, N.Y., 1969. A biography that epitomizes Kohlberg's exploitation by the American right.
Koen, Ross Y. The China Lobby in American Politics. New York, 1974. A comprehensive account of Chinese Nationalist and pro-Nationalist activities in the United States during Truman's term as president. Koen is better at describing the impact of these activities than at explaining how the Chinese and their American friends functioned.
Liebman, Marvin. Coming Out Conservative: An Autobiography. San Francisco, 1992. A first-person account of the origin and activities of most of the right-wing fronts of the Cold War era, including the Committee of One Million.
Sutter, Robert G. U.S. Policy Toward China: An Introduction to the Role of Interest Groups. Lanham, Md., 1998. Focuses on lobbying activities on behalf of China and Taiwan in the post–Cold War era.
Thomas, John N. The Institute of Pacific Relations: Asian Scholars and American Politics. Seattle, Wash., 1974. An unsympathetic study of the organization with a useful chapter on Kohlberg.
////
@Lavrov
The had to kill usenet. Usenet was “out of control”.
Posted by: robinthehood | Dec 17 2023 13:42 utc | 92
SA and UAE are part of the mission. They also allow their ports to be used for trade goods going to Israel. Turkey also still continues its trade with Israel, including oil. Really difficult to understand.
Will a new military conflict break out? What will be the effects?
Posted by: Hamburger | Dec 17 2023 12:46 utc | 89
A communique style tweet that I saw 2 days ago from a handle with Yemenese characteristics very much was stressing “Arab” control of “Arab waters”. It took two shots at IRI: one implicit by saying that Yemen too can “block the Hormuz Straight” from the Oman side, and explicitly mentioned “10 billion” payment to IRI. Make of it what you will.
As for understanding, the world actors, their designated roles, their supposed alliances, and even how the funny palaces are actually run are all stage managed theatrics. To understand you have to know the players and their motives close up and that is not afforded to us. A huge (huge) part of propaganda efforts of all players is actually to enforce this mutually agreed upon narrative. [my opinion].
Posted by: robinthehood | Dec 17 2023 13:51 utc | 93
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take the Friends of the Ancient One...
[edited]
Posted by: robinthehood | Dec 17 2023 14:04 utc | 94
A bit late with today’s sermon as usual inspired by comments in this thread.
Trying to slice and dice history into distinct phases is a trick.
The avarice against China goes back a long long time.
From the Silk Road and search for the mystery of Silk itself , through none China pottery to gunpowder to Tea!
Alexander didn’t just head off on a joy ride to the East!
Some Americas, Africa and EurAsia are THE cradles of civilisations.
All our staples weee developed there!
Anyone want to guess who had the stranglehold on that Silk Road as it stretched into Europe? How they became the owners of everything they created as a means of exchange.- Money. No one else is allowed to have that control. It is theirs and theirs alone.
It is their God. Their demand for worship. Their certitude of the ownership of everything by the sold control of that Magic Goose.
How they have used it to raise armies and nations.
The Ancients who didn’t need such magic bean tokens to actually create civilisation have finally shrugged collectively and awoke from their old slumber to scratch that itch. To squash that flea that has taken many bites.
Thr old merchant and slavers who stole everything they have including religions, names and places - they being the Shaleshifters as old as history!
Enough of the highwaymen’s avarice and Demands!
Enough of their means of Power, the control of Trade routes.
Enough of their fake God of Money and the faker religions built around that , Economics and its variants of credo’s - Capitalism/AntiCapitalism. Monetarism/Fiscalism.
Enough of all the versions of why they alone should have power over the world and all its peoples and future.
Their Collective Western imperialism has tied the world together and implanted such shapeshifters across the planet under the guise of these new formed ‘nationalities’ .
No - I’m done with their stinky old Shapeshifting religions - I don’t buy into their childish tales of a fake eternity Heaven for my actual earthly years of suffering. So they Few can be born and live their human lives like kings of that heaven while the rest of us can go about slaving, suffering and dying for their entertainment.
I’m done with the fake economic religions. The tales of Mammon that has bough mercenaries for millennia and thus allowed the plunder of wealth of the Human progress.
I’m no longer a believer in their ownership of ‘ideas’ through some ‘contracts’ dreamt up by the Old Toll Collectors. Of ‘Laws’ which are just words of slavery. Of Lawyers who twist Justice for a Price.
I’m not buying their latest inventions of Climate Emergency , a Green New Deal that will ‘deal’ with that fake emergency and it will be the same Few who will ‘lead’ us Many with their latest ‘God’s’ that will ‘Save’ us.
Forever Shapeshifting.
I’m smacking the woke kids and deluded parents in the face , to wake them up from their mesmerised characters as they become surgically enhanced sex slaves and self deluded trans humans.
Mere toys of the shapeshifters who just sit back and laugh at the easily led fools.
I am watching the shills and tale tellers constantly sheep dogging the Narratives to retain the power of the fake religions, the fake leaders, the fake democracy, the fake ‘civilisation’ as it sits back and watches the latest Levantine baby Jesuses being blown to bits as we celebrate that fake religion too!
If we Collective Wasters still don’t see through the Narratives now - there is little hope for our slave kids and grandkids.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Dec 17 2023 16:20 utc | 95
Listing the symptoms without addressing the cause. Also you don’t “take over” something you yourself created. Effective preaching must address the cause.
The human being has a built in requirement to worship (so it seems), and, its entire reality is experienced psychologically. (This is a matter that one need to fully understand: what does it mean that ‘the experience of reality’ is a fundamentally a psychological phenomena? Ali (AS) had something to say about this matter, hinting at it by considering the meat organ through which we ‘see light’ .)
I think it an error to conflate spiritual guides with the wolves that always gather to make a business and a cult out of the guidance. I also find it entirely foolish to attribute the psychological experience of human to an organ or two in its body. That said, naturally the fact of the here and now of our condition indicates its ‘significance’ even for the god bothered or metaphysically inclined. Now, as to what constitutes “living like a King in this earth”, do not be offended if I note that not all find ‘satisfaction’ and ‘pleasure’ in the condition of earthly kings but it is true that most men desire that condition and think it as “heaven on earth”.
But the symptoms you list are correct. The the susceptibility of the masses to lies is also factual. So is the perennial role of a “preacher” that needs to smack people to knock sense into them. Julianna mentioned a bare foot one from Ancient Greece recently and how the “oligarchs” of the city had him killed as he was putting bad ideas — ‘life is elsewhere’ ;) — in the heads of youth.
What a puzzle.
Posted by: robinthehood | Dec 17 2023 19:00 utc | 96
@robinthehood:
The key book to read on the subject is the Koen book. It’s the most comprehensive and thorough history of the lobby. Unfortunately many libraries are tossing it, and it’s no longer in print. I got an old library copy off of Amazon back ~10 years ago. Fortunately the Internet Archive has a few copies available to read:
https://archive.org/search?query=Ross+Koen+China+Lobby
Posted by: Pacifica Advocate | Dec 17 2023 19:19 utc | 97
THE REAL CHINA !
https://nitter.net/sbmeunier/status/1735969951104553368#m
Sebastien Meunier
@sbmeunier
Dec 16
Good (long) tweet about China. The dissonance between what I had been taught/told for decades and what I saw with my own eyes visiting China was one big factor in realizing we’re being lied to about everything, all the time (not just about China)
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
https://nitter.net/RnaudBertrand/status/1735922698130489350#m
Very important thread by Graham Allison - the legendary Harvard professor who coined the "Thucydides trap" - where he lambasts "the current demonization of China".
He says he is "convinced that the current demonization of China confuses more than it clarifies" because the result is that "Americans [do not] understand our competitor as it is".
He gives as an illustration of this demonization effort the recent utterly ridiculous - and anonymous! - Politico piece (politico.eu/article/chinas-p…) that claims that "China’s Xi goes full Stalin with purge", which is filled with demonstrable falsehoods and fear-mongering fabulations (some of which Allison lists in his thread).
I've myself written on this very topic dozens of times: there is an absolutely IMMENSE gap between the China depicted in the media and the reality, so much so that most people outside China have almost zero understanding of the country. The China they have in their mind is a mirage that bears almost no ressemblance to reality..
Why? Why do we systematically see coverage like this Politico piece on China? Why here on Twitter are accounts like @songpinganq, @WallStreetSilv or @jenniferzeng97 that systematically peddle fake news on China so popular? Or Serpentza and Laowhy86 on Youtube?
READ ON FOLLOWING THE LINK !
(LET'S NOT FORGET T.CARLSON'S & CO. CRAP OF ALL SORTS CONCERNING CHINA !!!)
Posted by: MD | Dec 17 2023 19:21 utc | 98
THOSE 'FACTS' ABOUT CHINESE AUTHORITARIANISM...
https://nitter.net/GodfreeTrh/status/1735936264111894897#m
Godfree Roberts
@GodfreeTrh
Dec 16
"Daniel Bell's reputation among fellow foreign China analysts, however, has been shaped by an overriding bias in favor of Chinese authoritarianism”. Prof. Sam Crane. – Professor Pangloss Goes to Shandong.
Professor Crane is either staggeringly ignorant or unbelievably dishonest. No major nation rivals American authoritarianism, or comes close. What national leader has the sole power to
* Hire and fire the country's 5,000 top officials.
* Declare war. Frequently.
* Issue 300,000 administrative subpoenas with gag orders that enjoin recipients from ever divulging they’ve been served.
* Control information at all times (National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions).
* Torture, kidnap and kill anyone, anywhere, at will.
* Secretly ban 50,000 citizens from flying–and refuse to explain why.
* Imprison 2,000,000 citizens without a court trial.
* Execute 1,000 citizens each year prior to arrest.
* Kill 1,000 foreign civilians every day since 1951
* Massacre its own men, women and children for their beliefs.
* Assassinate its own citizens abroad, for their beliefs.
* Repeatedly bomb and kill minority citizens from the air.
No Chinese leader, including Mao, has ever possessed one such power.
Posted by: MD | Dec 17 2023 19:31 utc | 99
The comments to this entry are closed.
https://schiffgold.com/commentaries/biden-administration-runs-record-november-budget-deficit/
Biden Administration Runs Record November Budget Deficit
The Biden administration just ran the largest November budget deficit in history.
And it managed this feat even with a 9% increase in government receipts.
The November budget shortfall came in at $314.01 billion, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement. That was 26% higher than the November 2022 deficit.
Just two months into fiscal 2024, the federal government has run up $380.58 billion in red ink. This follows on the heels of the third-largest annual budget deficit in history.
Posted by: Maney | Dec 15 2023 15:13 utc | 1