canuck@68…..makes perfect sense. When I read the post about left and right, two sides of a one faced coin, same old divide and rule bullshit…. what more can be said, most astute posters here picked it out right away. Maybe there is hope……ok that’s a stretch.
Cheers M

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Mar 21 2024 0:52 utc | 104

The ECB has offset the loss for 2023 against “future profits”.
So anyone who claimed that the German (French/etc.) “taxpayer” would pay for the losses of the ECB and the bond purchase programs was and is wrong and should question his or her theories.
Here:
https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1760633331173958128&related=dehnts

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 21 2024 1:10 utc | 106

“canuck@68…..makes perfect sense. When I read the post about left and right, two sides of a one faced coin, same old divide and rule bullshit…. what more can be said, most astute posters here picked it out right away. Maybe there is hope……ok that’s a stretch.
Cheers M”
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Mar 21 2024 0:52 utc | 105
I don’t know about ‘perfect sense’ but it does show a perspective which illustrates that both antipodes of political thought (ie Communism versus Fascism) are both essentially gaols of individual freedom.

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 1:16 utc | 108

Also, the Russian Revolution was not intended, nor did it result in the break up of the Soviet Union. ..”
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Mar 20 2024 19:36 utc | 38
Well that bit of ignorance, deflates your credibility.
Posted by: Ново З | Mar 20 2024 22:08 utc | 65
Ladies and gentlemen, the aptly named “hobo” puts in his two cents! Pray tell, my dear hobo, why does that statement hurt my credibility?

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Mar 21 2024 1:27 utc | 110

Military warfare is so wasteful and temporary. Forging bonds of brotherhood by elevating an entire people to independence is cheaper and far more enduring.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 21 2024 0:33 utc | 102
Good point, Love.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Mar 21 2024 1:31 utc | 112

juliania | Mar 20 2024 23:55 utc | 93–
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, until citizens of the West accept the truth of what psychohistorian said @88 that the political nature is top/down, not left/right little in the way of reform through the ballot box will be accomplished. I am very happy for Russia and Russians and see them as a spark to motivate the Global Majority.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 21 2024 1:38 utc | 114

Posted by: Simon | Mar 20 2024 17:05 utc | 22
In the time of Benjamin of Tudela, the bulk of Judaism was Persian and Sephardic and, however, centuries later 90% would be the Yiddish people.
The Yiddish people prospered demographically by finding a niche in Poland-Ukraine-Lithuania-Belarus:
A) Catholic Aristocracy
B) Yiddish people
C) Christian Peasantry earthly
paradise for A and B; hell for C until “the Deluge” came
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(history)
and that’s where the animosity towards Russia comes from
Posted by: Simon | Mar 20 2024 16:55 utc | 21
<=thanks for that explanation. Posted by: Simon | Mar 20 2024 17:05 utc | 22 part of the Yiddish people entered (1917-) to be part of the Bolshevik ruling class, another part went to America and triumphed there, and another part, a group of terrorists and fascist fanatics founded (1917-) "our colonial project" (Vladimir Jabotinsky) they were 4 major invasions of Russia sine the Mongols: 1709 Charles XII 1812 Napoleon 1917 Wall Street and the City 1941 Nazi Germany Posted by: bevin | Mar 20 2024 16:37 utc | 18 who called Canuck's statement utter bullship.. "the US UK France Germany etc financed the bolshevik revolution" "...the "Bolshevik Revolution" was financed by Wall Street magnate Jacob Schiff who put up $20 MM dollars towards the event; The City also sent money for the Revolution." canuck@ 13 History sides with canuck @ 13 wall street and private investorsfinanced the bolshevik revolution. and I add that history shoews Jacob Schiff also financed most of the Japan v . Russia war in 1905.. ..https://www.jstor.org/stable/23880523 and
quoting from the reference..
It is clear thAt the American share represented a significant percentage of the total Japanese government bonds Underwritten in the US, 1904-1905
_____________________________________________________________________________
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Description Date Amount(pounds) Underwritten U.S. Share
__________________________________________________________________________
1st 6% War 5-1904 £10,000,000 London, N.Y. £ 5,000,000
2nd 6% War 11-1904 £12,000,000 London, N.Y. £ 6,000,000
1st 4 1/2% War 3-1905 £30,000,000 London, N.Y. £15,000,000
2nd 4 1/2% War 7-1905 £30,000,000 London, N.Y.Berlin £10,000,000
Total War Loans £82,000,000 London, Ny.
Berlin, Paris $36,000,000
and here is something much more concerning
Jeffery Sachs has an article about Covid 19 and who funded the development of covid-19 ..https://www.unz.com/article/what-might-the-us-owe-the-world-for-covid-19/

Posted by: snake | Mar 21 2024 1:39 utc | 116

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 20 2024 16:35 utc | 17
He said the magic words, karlof1 – “the four freedoms”. Anyone reading your substack knows what that means. Thank you for allowing us to follow this process. Even if we don’t understand the technical side, we need to know what is happening.

Posted by: juliania | Mar 21 2024 1:48 utc | 118

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 1:19 utc | 110
Thanks for kind words. Encouraged, I clarify further:
1. (Reductionist) Materialism is based on abstraction:
Only the physical is real sounds the opposite of abstract, but: separating the physical from the mental, the objective from the subjective, is a cognitive construct using word categories.
Experientially we cannot separate mind and body. Exercise:
put your hand out and crook the index finger towards you and deliberately waggle it, like it’s talking. Now examine: where does the mind stop and the body begin?
Experientially they happen together. Similarly, so-called objective external physical reality can only be observed by a living, subjective mind-awareness.
Positing a separate external solid self-existing reality, though intuitively satisfying, nevertheless is a concept, or ‘abstraction’.
2. Similarly, in the abstracted reality world of a materialist, the notion of ‘The State’ takes on the air of being solid, real, actual, objective when in fact it’s just an Idea, or concept. But Marxist thought treats it as something objectively, physically real. It’s not.
3. Once you start believing in concepts/abstractions as reality, there is no limit as to how far you can go with ideologies purportedly based on such – i. e. dialectical materialism, scientism, celebrityism, queerism, fanaticisms etc.
Hariri is the guru-product of such abstraction: a genius, dystopic, anti-human, queer, Jewish intellectual. Promulgating his unreal New Reality for us all.
4. From such delusions come totalitarian dystopias favouring lifeless mechanistic abstraction over living, feeling, breathing, fucking, confusing, glorying human Be-ing.
Philosophy 101 on shot glass 10 of 34% locally brewed cane aguardiente at $6.00 a bottle. Smooth kick!
(Old friend died….driving cross Mexico tomorrow…)

Posted by: Scorpion | Mar 21 2024 1:55 utc | 120

From the week in review thread
Health in modern developed societies.
Heart disease. Photos from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Virtual all working class men had the faces of athletes. Much energy expenditure in everyday work.
Obesity is strongly linked to heart problems. An abundance of food plus close to zero energy expenditure.
Arctic and far northern peoples have always consumed large quantities of animal fats. Much energy expenditure in both everyday life and in keeping warm.
Energy intake vs energy expenditure. US in particular has a culture of very high energy diet, yet there is little energy expenditure in their daily lives.
Smoking. The photos of the old bushmen, woodcutters sitting on the porch smoking a pipe, many well into their 70’s and beyond.
Tailor mades filled with chemicals…. A big difference.
Cancer? If we read enough bullshit we find that every food under the sun causes cancer.
Throughout this illness I have done a lot of medical research (learning about metabolic cycles and so forth) plus many experiments in diets and mineral supplements.
One time I thought a couple of chemical compounds in pineapple juice may help so I began drinking that. Diluted a bit with whiskey. Also took vitamin C supplements to see if that would help. After a time my fatigue greatly increased and I developed diarrhea. Did a bit of research and found vitamin C depletes copper and realized I had created a copper deficiency. Stopped the pineapple juice and C and began taking copper supplements. Looked up the recommended max daily intake of copper and took that. Symptoms of copper deficiency quickly cleared but kept taking the copper supplements. Shortly after I began getting fast growing skin growths that became itchy. Had one cut off and analysed and was told I should get them all cut off as they could turn malignant. A bit more research and found copper is required for new blood vessels.
Right – back onto the C to get copper levels down. The growths quickly dried up and fell off. When I thought the last one was gone, I stopped taking C. As it turns out the last one had not quite disappeared and I now use it as a gauge for copper levels. If it starts to grow, I take some C till it starts to shrink.
Some time after that, I bought the house I am in now to renovate at the times I was well enough to do so. Got to the stage we could move in but my health continued to deteriorate and I was unable to finish it.
But when we moved in, that growth quickly began to grow. Th place had copper water pipe running from the mains on the street to the house. I replaced that with poly so there was only about a meter of copper running up through the wall to the cupboard under the kitchen sink. Problem solved.
I searched the medical literature for the link between high copper levels and abnormal growths/cancer and there was none. Although copper circulates in the blood, accurate copper levels can only be measured by liver biopsy which is where copper is stored. Perhaps there needs to be a much finer graduation the the gauge used to measure blood copper levels but it could the amount of copper in the liver that is the trigger rather than the amount in the blood. This is where pure scientific reach comes in and is needed.
There is a very definite link between high copper levels and abnormal growths.
Development brings with it copper plumbing. In developed societies there is much greater incidence of cancer.
In those years of medical research I had run across stuff on extra large doses of vitamin C curing cancer. I looked into it a bit but then largely dismissed it as quackery. much of the theory bind it was quackery, the need for massive doses of intravenous C was quackery, but from my own experiments, high copper induces abnormal growths, C depletes copper and then abnormal growths dry up.
This requires science, not big pharma for profit medicine, not political medicine but pure scientific medical research.
canuck, not quite the same as my first that did not post but perhaps you will see why I like science yet at times dismiss it. The vast majority the go into the western education production factory get a quality control sticker slapped on them as they come of the conveyor belt and nothing exists outside what they have been taught.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 21 2024 3:11 utc | 122

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 21 2024 1:38 utc | 115
I would agree with you, and with psychohistorian. I am finding Plato’s Laws more interesting than I expected. He,or rather the Athenian who directs the dialogue, has entered into a discussion with his two walking companions on the positive or negative aspects of inebriation, the consumption of wine –( very appropriate to our bar here.) His argument is in part that in one’s cups one reveals attributes of one’s nature that either need to be worked on or demonstrate one’s inner purity. All in a safer environment than actual combat.
I will have to think about that. I guess that’s why they call it ‘spirits’. And whilst his friends seem to have a kind of ‘left vs right’ opposition on the subject, the Athenian diplomatically comes down right in the middle, finding fault (in a kindly way) with both of them as they each find fault with one another’s characterization of the god-inspired laws in Sparta or in Crete. He does this by suggesting the god for each nation to have had a more noble intent than that attributed to him by the naysayer.

Posted by: juliania | Mar 21 2024 4:04 utc | 124

Scorpion | Mar 21 2024 3:43 utc | 124
A bit past me now. Both some personal experience and then extensive medical research required to get and understanding of many of these things.
Some alternative type medicine is pure quackery. But in other places there is anecdotal evidence that requires following up with pure scientific research.
Three problems, the main two being production line in the box type scientists and big pharma for profit scientists, the third being the much alternative quackery that is used to relieve suckers of cash.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 21 2024 4:32 utc | 126

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 21 2024 3:11 utc | 123
Hey Pete: many years ago I heard a paper given about skeletal remains held in the Australian Museum (long since repatriated and interred). They were of an indigenous man in his 50s (determined by certain bone growth) who appeared to have died violently (evidence of a head wound). He was estimated to be around 188cm tall; there was no evidence of osteoarthritis and the quality of his teeth was that of a man half his age. The medical judgment was that leaving aside accident or homicide (and all things being equal) he would comfortably have made it to 80+. Of course, the Australian indigenous diet is now well-known to have been synced to the population over 25,000+ years, but, as you say, the extraordinary high energy lifestyle is the key. They were some of the toughest, wiry, wanderers in human history, and they wondered why the first Europeans in Sydney Cove starved when the whole world was full of things to eat… so we wiped them out.

Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 21 2024 5:45 utc | 128

Patroklos | Mar 21 2024 5:45 utc | 129
I read a book written by the surveyor who put in many of the tracked through the desert areas of western Australia and through into south Australia and the territory back in the fifties.
There were still some ‘wild blacks’ out there then. Aboriginal people that had had little or no contact with white men. I don’t think it while he was surveying the route ahead of the grader but driving along one of these tracks, and aboriginal man appeared beside him keeping pace with the vehicle looking on in curiosity. He kept that pace up for many miles, a cloud of flies around his face, never having to open his mouth to breath before he peeled off. Incredibly fit.
The last of the desert aborigines were cleared out for the atomic testing I believe.
Re teeth. From what I can make out, or what I pick up watching archaeology is that hunter gather teeth are general well worn by middle age. I have assumed it something to do with grit, perhaps from root vegetables, but also from grindstones.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 21 2024 7:26 utc | 130

“The West” is the abbreviated name for “Club of heirs of the British Empire” (USA, Canada, UK, EU, Aus, NZ) latest version of the Roman Empire.
Their Mental Software was and is an over and over again renewed Fusion of Roman imperial ideology and bloody Aramaic Fantasies.
The first Fusion (ca. 400/1492-) was called “Christianity”, a cruel historical joke for the “Christians” (40-300)
To the last version (1967-) i do not know what name we could give it, i propose as a provisional name Biblical Fascism, or Roman-Biblical Fascism, others have proposed the accurate expression Anglo-Zionist empire for this last version of the empire of the Romans.

Posted by: Simon | Mar 21 2024 8:24 utc | 132

Simon | Mar 21 2024 8:24 utc | 133
The holy Roman empire. The participants of the treaties of Westphalia. That is the ‘west’ and the culture.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 21 2024 8:28 utc | 134

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 21 2024 1:43 utc | 118
Even went to great lengths to explain Target2 and the capital key to help you. As you were jumping the shark with Tom Luongo.
What thanks did I get ?
” Chamberpot” an emotional response when one’s worldview is completely shattered.
Of course, Being a big hairy Glaswegian you know fine well that doesn’t bother me. Water off a ducks back. “Chamberpot” was for the groups benefit not mine wasn’t it.
What are you 12? Nah, just showing GROUPTHINK behaviour.
As per usual, if somebody has the sheer audacity to challenge your world view. You try to get the group on your side to circle the wagon’s.
You are an adult Karlof, have the convictions to stand up for yourself. Jumping the shark with Tom Luongo and Elvira Nabiullina I know 100% you don’t understand Michael Hudson’s work.
Want to debate it ?
Or roll around in a school yard ?
The ECB has already confirmed MMT was 100% right again anyway. That’s another debate you’ve already lost. Or am I still misrepresenting you ?

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 21 2024 8:55 utc | 136

Note the exact parallel between Tiberius Gracchus (and his brother) and JFK (and his brother).
This old Mediterranean movie of Romans has been shown a lot of times on TV.
It is spectacular how we go around the Ferris wheel like donkeys.
Note, for example, the case of Cayetano Ripoll.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayetano_Ripoll
King Ferdinand VII = Pontius Pilate doing theater, and then (70-) with the help of the narrator they wash his hands. Exactly the same: King Ferdinand VII does not appear as responsible for hanging Cayetano Ripoll.
The power in the shadow, the Supreme Pontiff in Rome = the power in the shadow, the sadducean Supreme Pontiff Anas/Ananas the Elder
Bishop of Valencia = Caiaphas, son-in-law of Anas/Ananas the Elder

Posted by: Simon | Mar 21 2024 9:17 utc | 138

Simon | Mar 21 2024 9:20 utc | 140
It is the culture behind the dollar that is the problem.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 21 2024 9:26 utc | 140

Hello fellow barflies. I am up taking 15 year old narcotics for a pain management spike….sigh I have arthroscopic surgery on April 8th for my left shoulder and then there is the right one to repair again as well next year….grin….don’t ever get hit by a truck riding your bicycle….and live.
While I am up I decided to check out the international gold prices and along with lots of volatility there is the Shanghai gold exchange that has prices that are again around $70 higher than the London gold exchange where the difference was only $30 or so over the last weekend.
At some point I see the price of gold indicating capitulation by the God Of Mammon cult. When that happens, drinks at the bar are on me.
Back to bed, perchance to sleep…….

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 21 2024 9:37 utc | 142

“For sheer entertainment value alone, canuk should be kept as a pet. He always cheers up my day.”
Posted by: Echo Chamberpot | Mar 20 2024 17:13 utc | 23
This should cheer you up- gold, your ‘barbarous relic’ is over $2,200 per ounce this morning:
SPOT MARKET IS OPEN
Will CLOSE in 11 hrs. 5 mins.
Mar 21, 2024 5:56 AM NY Time
Bid/Ask
2,203.40
2,204.40
Low/High
2,195.20
2,209.60

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 9:58 utc | 144

“It is amazing they actually get away with calling it the national debt. Orwell would be spinning in his grave.
When it is really in the main national savings.”
Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 20 2024 17:53 utc | 31
“If the bonds are owned by people within the country, you could (kinda) call it national savings, yes.
But that’s like Keynes’ facile argument “we only owe it to ourselves” – the debt is fiat currency and has to be paid back, and not usually by the people who benefitted from the spending.
Government debt loads up debt on the shoulders of future generations for the consumption spending of people today.
It’s highly immoral.
Posted by: Observer | Mar 20 2024 18:13 utc | 32
Very astute post; Echo Chamberpot get easily and chronically confused between black ink and red ink.

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 10:02 utc | 146

I believe DunGroanin was referring to the mammoth anti-war protests again the Iraq that took place in Europe and elsewhere in 2002 before the 2003 war.
It did no good than, and probably won’t now.
Posted by: canuck | Mar 20 2024 15:47 utc | 7
——————–
Good thing the British armed forces are a husk compared to twenty years ago & no-one would show up if mobilized then.
Atomised s**t-lib selfishness & moribund political institutions, do have that unintentional upside.
The regimes are too incompetent to wage WW3.

Posted by: Urban Fox | Mar 21 2024 10:12 utc | 148

@ Echo Chamber
Take it Easy ! EC 😏.
This is the open thread and I’m happy to talk about Money as well as Religion and Politics.
I’m especially impressed how EVERYONE has ignored my take down of self declared ‘Socialists’ in my o/p ! The ones who claim to be hardcore, and are supposedly gearing up for a general election with an anti-war side order, but are not so secretly hoping and wishing for a demise of Russia and China ! Their job is to usher in the other controlled cheek of the two party system which needs to show every now and then that it is doing what it says on the tin . Just a show.
Anyway – as you are here, do you have any response to my suggestion as to why the higher rates are necessary in the RF? Beyond the western lie of controlling inflation?
There is full employment. I guess they could easily accommodate much economic migration!
They have Increasing wages to attract workers (which in itself is ‘inflationary’.)
Therefore there is more disposable income.
Which would be inflationary if there were limited supplies for purchase of anything.
There appears to be no limitations on necessities does there?
Housing, education, health – ditto being generally state provided.
( unless luxury / desirable housing is in greater demand – in which case higher mortgage rates would dampen that ?)
How about luxuries?
Foreign vehicles, External travel ? Washing machines with western microchips? 😜
I don’t see that the useless sanctions do anything – everything is doable indirectly through third parties/countries. Merchants are as ancient as any human profession. Including selling oil/gas/fertiliser etc and buying Mercedes and Rolls Royces and even the useless electric vehicles that Elon sells (have you seen how much the cost of replacing batteries is?)
So it comes down to how to save and invest the spare disposable income with security and growth, I suggest.
Up until the sanctions it was straight forward to transfer it abroad as bricks and mortar purchases in various cities and countries, luxury purchases or even just as foreign currency bank deposits.
So to avoid actual masses of cash being smuggled out to buy £,$,¥,€ or investing in over inflated foreign and local stock markets – it is best to encourage SAVINGS at home and not just as a tool to stop panic cash withdrawals!
“Deposit Interest Rate in Russia increased to 14.49 percent in January from 12.89 percent in December of 2023. Deposit Interest Rate in Russia averaged 8.02 percent from 1995 until 2024, reaching an all time high of 101.96 percent in December of 1995 and a record low of 3.21 percent in February of 2021. source: Central Bank of Russia”
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/deposit-interest-rate
Is it working ?
Seems to be spectacularly! Exponentially even.
Gross domestic savings are calculated as GDP less final consumption expenditure (total consumption). Data are in current local currency.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDS.TOTL.CN?locations=RU
You or others might make more sense out of the various statistics – as long as they are upto date.
Nabullina early on offered to resign when the rouble spiked against world currency with the first sanctions package – but it seems her bosses and their international partners had expected the worst and planned accordingly, avoiding the Bankers Death Star weapon.
She seemed to have been kept out of their loop for her good (I guess ? ) and her resignation was not accepted – she was needed to do her bit not for the SMO but to bring about the POLYCENTRIC financial world order!
Do you follow? I have had doubts about the economic narrative that interest rates control inflation in our fake Monetarist West. That with credit and variable mortgages it actually drives inflation here. And why it’s different for the Russians.

Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 21 2024 10:18 utc | 150

From 2003 to 2025
“the mammoth anti-war protests again the Iraq that took place in Europe and elsewhere in 2002 before the 2003 war.”
This
Around 1998, it was confirmed that Iraq no longer had any weapons of mass destruction projects, and with this information it was decided to destroy Iraq because it was a low risk, and the right occasion was awaited.
The Chief Cook, Joe Biden, since those dates is in charge of selling the idea of destroying Iraq, and later the Likud in the congress in front of the television cameras will ask for the destruction of Iraq.
And there the kids from Kansas and Arkansas went to kill and die.
The waiters (Bush 2…) were booed… and the cooks were promoted.
Let’s go (1998-, 2003-) to unleash Chaos and Terror in Iraq and send a million Iraqis to hell… Let’s go (2008-, 2014-, 2021-) to sacrifice half a million Ukrainian pawns in the Ukraine Gambit …
What has changed is that now (ca. 2025) the Mental Media Bubble is Colossal and the plebs, we, are now medieval peasants.

Posted by: Simon | Mar 21 2024 10:27 utc | 152

“Leftists have a vested interest in minimizing the harm done. Many of your 27,000,000 ‘killed by Nazis’ died at Stalin’s hands. And those offering up Russia as an example of the danger of violent revolutions, or ideological movements of any stripe, or in my case extreme materialism, are unfairly accused of acting in bad faith or supporting imperialism.
Respectfully, the bad faith is coming from those like yourself unwilling to accept how terror-fully things went down. Even if the revolutionaries believed they were building a better world, they indubitably perpetrated mass murder to achieve that end. You can argue the numbers but if you are halfway honest you still end up with millions. Murdered.
Because this reflects poorly on your leftist beliefs you prefer to go unchallenged in friendly echo chambers arrogantly insulting those who don’t buy your whitewashed versions of history. Such willful ignorance and denial may well be facilitating the next bloodbath.”
Posted by: Scorpion | Mar 20 2024 22:57 utc | 72
Excellent post-one can always tell when the Leftists are losing an argument they get personal, emotional and reject any sembalnce logic.

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 10:32 utc | 154

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 10:29 utc | 154
Nice find 🙂

Posted by: Tom_12 | Mar 21 2024 10:34 utc | 156

DunGroanin | Mar 21 2024 10:18 utc | 151
Thanks for that post. I had wondered about the reasons for seemingly high interest on loans, but did not know about the also high interest payed on deposits.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 21 2024 10:37 utc | 158

America
America has managed to impose its Bubble of fantasies and stories and its political Show industry.
Now, “USA, Canada, UK, EU, Aus” are with total accuracy (seen from the outside) the best Show: The Truman Show.
It was precisely in 2003 when i woke up and realized that i was living inside a Fantasy, a dark Cave, Plato would say.

Posted by: Simon | Mar 21 2024 10:42 utc | 160

Posted by: canuck | Mar 20 2024 23:55 utc | 92
You still haven’t said who the “leftist” is in your ‘equation’ re: The Maidan. Which person or parties involved were leftists?
Wait, you’re calling Schiff a LEFTIST? LMFAO, I hope I’m misinterpreting you.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 20 2024 23:57 utc | 96
This is my last explanation to you-read what I wrote more carefully: I did not say Schiff was a Leftist I said he supported the Leftists as a tool to topple Russia, engender a civil war such that the West would break up Russia which they indeed tried to do.
Nuland used Fascism to do the same thing.
Neither Nuland or Schiff were ideologues they just used ideology to gain power.
END OF SUBJECT

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 10:48 utc | 162

Excellent post-one can always tell when the Leftists are losing an argument they get personal, emotional and reject any sembalnce logic.
Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 10:32 utc | 155
——————
Trouble is contemporary “anti-Soviet” historical narratives, are used almost solely as black-propaganda to demonize modern Russia.
That’s before you even get into, the metric-tons of bulls**t in statistical terms. That would shame Soviet central planners.
According to de-facto fascist apologists the Soviets had a higher-ratio than the Khmer Rouge and STILL won WW2, which shows how s**t the nazis were on their own avowed terms.
So there’s every reason to reject current “Stalin bad GULAG-porn” on grounds of bad faith & taste alone.

Posted by: Urban Fox | Mar 21 2024 10:55 utc | 164

America
America has managed to impose its Bubble of fantasies and stories and its political Show industry.
Now, “USA, Canada, UK, EU, Aus” are with total accuracy (seen from the outside) the best Show: The Truman Show.
It was precisely in 2003 when i woke up and realized that i was living inside a Fantasy, a dark Cave, Plato would say.
Posted by: Simon | Mar 21 2024 10:42 utc | 161
I liked the ‘Truman Show’ but I prefer Schopenhauer’s take on it better:
“”The world is my idea”:-this is a truth which holds for everything that lives and knows, though man alone can bring it in to reflective and consciousness. If he really does this , he has attained to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and an earth , but only an eye that sees the sun, a hand that feels the earth; the world surrounds him as an idea ie in relation to something else, the consciousness , which is himself…””

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 11:03 utc | 166

“@ Posted by: canuck
Haven’t you gone to bed ? Or are you up early? Drunk?
Did you miss my reply to the can’t help himself stinger, the unseeing Observer and now to EC? I have seen that silenced most for most of the day. Guess their waiting for an updated script to ply today.
So Canuk. What is it with this posturing?”
Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 21 2024 10:32 utc | 156
As a kid working on the farm we got up at military dawn-one hour before the sun rises. So very fucking morning, like it or not, no matter what time I go to bed 55 years later I get up at 5 am, sometimes earlier during the summer, every day-old habits never die.
I saw your posts but I am not a fan of MMT, you are, and I am a bit hesitant to take you on as your rhetorical skills are much superior to mine as well as more biting…
I did drink 4 Duvels last night at 8% alcohol -I had a bit of a buzz, but feel fine this morning. I would like to get some coffee going but the wife (“the One Who Must Be Obeyed”) gets up in normal times and she likes her coffee fresh-I hear her rumbling I’ll get to preparing the beans…

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 11:13 utc | 168

@ Posted by: james | Mar 21 2024 10:36 utc | 158
Re Posted by: james | Mar 20 2024 20:06 utc | 44
james, I don’t know what Murphy thinks of Hudson. The site is open for questions. He might answer you.
I don’t know what Hudson thinks of Murphy either.
I don’t know what your question has to do with me pointing out the fallacy of Outsider talking nonsense about National Debt of a fiat currency state.
Do you agree with him or the professor?

Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 21 2024 11:34 utc | 170

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 11:13 utc | 169
‘SHE’ who must be obeyed. Read up more Mortimer , he had humane sensibilities, like Dickens. Real people with real experiences and real messages. Great stories too that will always be relevant.
8% beers! You need a bit of body mass to deal with that. Me never having had much except round the beer belly now, would feel quite heady after a half pint of that stuff.
I usually get back to sleep after tea and toast – no one pays me to get up early nowadays and I try to avoid posting ducal driven drivel whilst half asleep. 🤪

Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 21 2024 12:01 utc | 172

“Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 11:13 utc | 169
‘SHE’ who must be obeyed. Read up more Mortimer , he had humane sensibilities, like Dickens. Real people with real experiences and real messages. Great stories too that will always be relevant.
8% beers! You need a bit of body mass to deal with that. Me never having had much except round the beer belly now, would feel quite heady after a half pint of that stuff.
I usually get back to sleep after tea and toast – no one pays me to get up early nowadays and I try to avoid posting ducal driven drivel whilst half asleep. 🤪”
Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 21 2024 12:01 utc | 173
Yeah, I missed the ‘she’.
I was 270 pounds , now 200-last year I followed my guru, Dr. Jamnadas- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuOvn4UqznU-where I eat once a day, sometimes fast for 2 or 3 days.
No sugar, no rice, potatoes, no bread never any processed food- I eat mostly meat, cheeses, eggs, nuts, the wife’s chicken broth…
In a Harvard Study if one fasts for 7 days your chance of getting cancer is reduced by 70% (1)
I still drink (though not when fasting), I always could -my Irish blood seems to metabolize the stuff quite efficiently.
She Who Must Obeyed told me I was too fat. When I lost the weight She told me I was emaciated I had lost all my muscle. When I told her that I started doing pushups (5 sets every 2 days)in 5 sets I could only do 73 when I was 270 , now I’m up to 145.
She calmly replied: ” You’ve lost 70 pounds you aren’t pushing that much weight anymore…”
Sigh…..34 years of marriage…..
1. Jason Fung :” ‘When the body senses the temporary absence of nutrients, it must prioritize which cellular parts to keep. The oldest and most worn-out cells get discarded, and amino acids from the broken-down cell parts are delivered to the liver, which uses them to create glucose during gluconeogenesis – a natural process in the body that helps to maintain stable blood sugar levels. Cancer may be a result of what’s called ‘disordered autophagy’. We’re learning that this process plays a role in cancer biology, and products that inhibit this process have been approved by the Food & Drug Administration in the US for the treatment of cancers. Fasting’s role in stimulating autophagy provides an opportunity to prevent cancer. And that’s why Dr Seyfried proposes a yearly seven-day water-only fast.” (2)
2. https://uk.rsng.com/categories/money/articles/could-7-days-of-fasting-protect-against-cancer

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 12:27 utc | 174

Of course the Romans had a good army. What i wanted to point out is that there is no mystery in the collapse of Rome power in the West.
The Goths army took away land and fiscal resources, the slaves abandoned the plantations, and with three or four iterations of this process one day the legions disappeared.

Posted by: Simon | Mar 21 2024 12:43 utc | 176

“Chronic political dysfunction, economic crisis and demographic collapse in key provinces did all that.
If the Romans didn’t have an effective military, they wouldn’t have expanded or survived the way they did.”
Posted by: Urban Fox | Mar 21 2024 12:06 utc | 174
No, the Roman Empire fell because of:
“Rome and the Latin West were inundated by Greek and oriental slaves who, as they became emancipated and achieved citizenship, changed the character of the Latin West. Tenny Frank has estimated that, ultimately, ninety percent of Rome’s inhabitants were of foreign origin and that this ‘orientalizing of Rome’s populace has a more important bearing than is usually accorded it upon the larger question of why the spirit and acts of imperial Rome are totally different from those of the republic,’ a situation that inevitably created the triumph of oriental despotism or absolutism, the popularity of oriental mystery religions, the decline in the quality of Latin literature, and the disappearance of those Romans with a flair for government who had built the empire. Rome’s disintegration is thus explained by ‘the fact that the people who had built Rome had given way to a different race.’’ (1)
1. Tenney Frank, “A History of Rome, pg 442, 1923.

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 12:51 utc | 178

Just conjecture, but while it appears RF will be having gains all along the line, where-if a major offensive would occur if the war alters from attritional to positional – I would guess Nikolayev and then to Odessa. Just watched (again) Hable con ella (Talk to her) and while RF is not going to go that way like a bull with a red cloth in front of it because of putative French, Romanian, etc soldiers, mercs, but a Gaza style slaughter via ukr in Transnistria possibility might tip the balance.

Posted by: paxmark1 | Mar 21 2024 14:25 utc | 180

In the golden age of free men the Gods were of cosmic size, and were “above the heads of all men.”
By this i mean that the so-called religions (universal religions) were actually a small parenthesis (600-1033) in the history of the flag-gods, which is the bulk of the history of the gods.

Posted by: Simon | Mar 21 2024 14:35 utc | 182

Below are links to 2 postings at Wall Street On parade showing that economic decline is happening but hidden now
During Spring Bank Panic of 2023, Liquidity Advances from FHLBs Topped Those of Q4 2008, when Wall Street Was in Collapse
More Failed Banks and Office Building Demolitions Likely Before Real Estate Problems End, Warn Two Federal Agencies

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 21 2024 16:26 utc | 184

https://www.rt.com/news/594637-russian-frozen-assets-scholz/
I wonder if the taking of Russian Assets is an act of war against Russia? If so does that act of war provide sufficient justification for Russia to attack the NATO nations that use their money? I am trying to see if this kind of behavior establishes a legal president, not trying to help Russia justify an attack …
So is taking or holding against their will, a nations money, an act of war under international law?

Posted by: snake | Mar 21 2024 17:45 utc | 186

FUKUS
[Fuck UK, US]
no MORE ‘What a beautiful sight to behold for you’. !
Might as well close down your 3000 diplomats spooks
embassy safe house.
Just fuck off.
Goodbye and good riddance !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Q5WlIvDto

Posted by: denk | Mar 21 2024 18:13 utc | 188

Turkish central bank stuns market by hiking interest rates to 50%
Ha,ha,ha,ha,
Erdogan saving his private bankers.
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=48895
Watch what happens – Argentina.
Lot of money to be made here if you completely fade the zombies in the markets.

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 21 2024 19:53 utc | 190

The very last thing any sane Russian wants to hear.
Elvira Nabiullina stuns market by hiking interest rates to 20%.
Turkish central bank = clueless.
Will Elvira follow suit ?
Find out by tuning in to the next episode of the interest price spiral.

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Mar 21 2024 20:11 utc | 192

A lot of madness prevailing in the west now. I thought the likes of Stoltenberg and Scholz were bad but the bimbos are saying nuclear war is nothing to be afraid of.
With Nato defeat in Ukraine and western financials getting harder and harder to prop up, there appears to be a race to get large war with Russia and china going before the whole western house of cards collapses. Desperation everywhere over the last week or so.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 21 2024 20:44 utc | 194

Posted by: snake | Mar 21 2024 1:39 utc | 117
Masterful post; I salute.

Posted by: canuck | Mar 21 2024 21:14 utc | 196

@Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 21 2024 16:26 utc | 185
That’s why Fed Chairman Powell did his “see no inflation, hear no inflation, speak of no inflation” little incredible dance at his recent post-interest rate setting speech. Its obvious that the financial system is creaking and groaning in its post 2010s QE party (and the 2020-2022 blow off) hangover period, that’s why the US government turned on the fiscal spigot and Powell blinked Q4/2022 and Q1/2023. Even that couldn’t stop the Q2/2023 bank panic so Powell opened the monetary spigots wide and reined in any further interest rate rises.
Monetary conditions are now incredibly loose when taking into account the roaring stock market and fiscal stimulus is full on, with even more being dreamed up. All to keep the economy buzzing along until the election while things creak and groan underneath. The Federal deficit is 6% of GDP when GDP is growing and the overall funding requirements are huge, so conditions have to be kept loose just so that the government can fun itself. If the government overall debt funding rate went up to anywhere near 5% as it was rolled over, and new debt issued, interest payments would sky rocket.
Powell made it clear that if there were any hiccups along the way then interest rates would be cut, no matter what was happening with inflation. Look at NYCB, we really think thats the only such bank? Also, the QT reduction in some of the huge monetary expansion of the past one and a half decades is going to be dialled back!
Inflation will gain a strong footing (vastly underreported of course so the plebs don’t understand how much they are being financially brutalized) and 2025 will be the crisis year.

Posted by: Roger | Mar 21 2024 21:22 utc | 198

Nima interviews Orlov and touches on all the hot topics over 40 minutes and is highly recommended. Orlov’s forecast for Europe’s very bleak, but I can’t disagree. I also agree with his outlook on energy for the Outlaw US Empire. I also agree with him on what will happen if Trump wins–nothing as what was done to him during his first term will be repeated.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 21 2024 22:59 utc | 200