Did I say all that?” Yahweh said, the buzzing suddenly getting quieter…almost like a low hum. … < Use as open (not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) thread ... Posted by b on September 8, 2024 at 11:54 UTC | Permalink They might not be trillions, but they sure can make a mess. Always glad to see you back and wishing you all the best.

Posted by: Newbie | Sep 8 2024 12:19 utc | 3

Old testament eh, such a waste, and still today it’s trotted out, fills volumes, even here, the dead bodies piled high behind it…..they are all murdering, me was here first cults, (can I get an n for and l) just ask YMCA, he told me, I wrote it down, see, look here, Me First.
Old testament death cult…..2000 years, death death death, see: YMCA told me we was foist……I tells ya!
Cheers M

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Sep 8 2024 12:32 utc | 5

Posted by: Eighthman | Sep 8 2024 12:17 utc | 2
You are behind the trends-the mid to late 2020’s will mirror the commodity boom of the mid to late seventies.
Buy mining companies as commodity prices ramp up as fiat currencies devalue.
China has a savings rate of roughly 40% , US has a savings rate of 3.4%. China can ramp up consumer spending domestically and doesn’t need exports as they have been less and less of GDP inputs over the past decade..

Posted by: canuck | Sep 8 2024 12:41 utc | 7

“the American empire, however, are not soldiers but capitalists.”
Capitalism is a perversion. Free Market Capitalism requires money/currency to trade and account. Therein is the seed of Monopolies, especially Monopolies in Finance/Banking.
Even old money-grubber Warren Buffet has always made it clear. He will only invest in a business that has effective Monopoly control of its market or in a market where there is only 2 or 3 dominant players where they can carefully monitor each other.
America is a Totalitarian State, obvious to an outsider, carefully constrained and white-washed inside the walls of the U.S. Empire.
The 81 million votes/ballots and the stall of the count that brought known Grifter Biden as the U.S. figurehead and the hook-off-the-stage of blithering old Joe to be replaced by a 60 year old B(J) player from the Chorus Line, would make Shakespeare blush.
When you institute a Central Bank that can make or break any player or many players, you are not and never were “Capitalist”.

Posted by: kupkee | Sep 8 2024 12:58 utc | 9

“? The global economy doesn’t look very good right now
Posted by: Eighthman | Sep 8 2024 12:17 utc | 2”
The trick is to live in the now yet simultaneously think & plan long term.
Today’s actions yield tomorrow’s consequences.

Posted by: Mary | Sep 8 2024 13:00 utc | 11

Posted by: Eighthman | Sep 8 2024 13:00 utc | 10
Freeport McMoran, a major copper producer would be my first pick-now at $40 per share, got in 4 years ago at $9.10.Pays a small dividend 1.3%
Tech stocks will unravel in the next 6 months like they did in 2000-with the yen carry trade breaking up -I would get out..
Anyways, that’s what makes a market, bulls v bears.
Only time will tell whom made3 the right call.

Posted by: canuck | Sep 8 2024 13:14 utc | 13

If this counts as an open thread, hope it’s OK to submit a comment arising from a discussion on Colonel Lang’s old blog. It’s about what happens after the war.
Of the two points that I have always believed are the outstanding questions when the Ukrainian war is done with, the first question is how the Russians will deal with the question of remnant Ukraine. The second, whether the Russians will continue to deliver lifeline supplies to a fiercely Russophobic Europe.
On the first question, it seems unrealistic at the moment but I still think Putin is angling for a political settlement that will come from within Ukraine itself.
The second question is key. All the commentators go on about how Germany’s getting a hammering and how that could become worse.
But that’s not only tough on the Germans. Germany is the economic superpower of Europe and the lynchpin of the entire EU set-up. That includes us because we still do half our trade with the EU.
If Germany catches a cold, therefore, the rest of us in Europe get pneumonia.
So that second question is no mere debating point! Apart from the little countries on Germany’s periphery the Germans are the fiercest opponents of Russia in Europe. From Merz’s speech in the Bundestag in the first days of the SMO to all the Scholz/Habeck/Baerbock diatribes since there has been nothing much from them except Russia hate.
And we needn’t take too much notice of Wagenknecht or the AfD in this context They’re more cashing in on the popular discontent with the economic downturn or with mass immigration.
So there’s Russia still feeding in fuel and raw materials to Germany. Quite a lot of that being turned into weapons, and lots of them, to kill Russian soldiers.
And although you and I will see the use of old German helmets and German tanks in the recent Kursk incursion as merely isolated incidents, which they are, to Russians brought up on the memory of WWII that’s going to be full confirmation of the White Tiger side of this war.
Add to that silly comments made recently by some of the Balts that they still want to see the RF broken up – we scarcely notice them but you can be sure the Russians do – and there’s not a lot of incentive for the Russians to keep feeding fuel and raw materials in. Not forgetting that Europe’s going Net Zero. Given that, it’s not a market for the Russians that would justify long term investment in energy infrastructure or pipeline maintenance in any case. There were reports not long back that the Russians have already earmarked natural gas that would otherwise have come to Europe for internal use or for export elsewhere.
On current contracts, Putin said in ’22, at the start of it all, that the Russians would honour existing contracts but would reconsider when those contracts came up for renewal later. That was before NS got blown up.
The NS1 contract for natural gas was an advantageous contract for Germany. It was their get out of jail free card in the sanctions war. It was a long term contract – decades to run, if I remember correctly – and it supplied natural gas to Germany at rates several times below current LNG spot.
Presumably that contract’s gone. The Germans must now pay spot and increasingly have to pay spot LNG prices.
There’s one NS2 pipeline left and that, so far, the Russians have said they’re prepared to supply natural gas through. The problem there is that the Germans refuse to take gas through that remaining pipeline. They’ll probably continue to refuse to do so.
So we move from the position at the start of the SMO, when the Germans were sitting pretty as far as natural gas went, to the position today when they are no longer sitting pretty. The fact that that’s by their own choice is neither here nor there – I think it’s politically impossible for the Germans to take natural gas supplies through the one remaining NS pipeline.
They’re also paying over the odds for some other fuel supplies they get from Russia. All the “Latvian blend” nonsense and getting fuel through third parties adds to the price they pay. In effect though not in law they’re sanctions busting and that always costs money.
In addition to all that they’ve lost market share in Russia, and that was a very good market for them. The Russian crash programme of import substitution means they’re unlikely to get that market back.
So there’s the economic lynchpin of Europe paying over the odds for fuel and raw materials, much of that fuel and raw materials still coming from Russia, and earning less than it used to.
At the same time still vehemently anti-Russian, talking of putting many more troops on the Russian border, and installing missiles that could be nuclear aimed directly at Russia. If we remember, the very things the Russians were going on about in late ’21.
If it all gets a little too much for the Russians they can, while scarcely damaging themselves at all, respond by imposing, quite legally, counter sanctions that would ditch the remnants of the Wirtschaftswunder and the rest of the continent with it!
I go on a bit about the Eurocrats, but it must astonish anyone that Berlin/Brussels is quite blind to this obvious risk. Has been all along. They move heaven and earth to damage the Russians while seemingly unaware that if they chose, the Russians could ditch them tomorrow!
They Russians might not so choose. They don’t want their new friends to see them wielding the energy weapon. But the risk that they might choose to do so is a risk the Europeans seem not to take the slightest notice of.
Nor of course Starmer. But he’s set on felo de se anyway so I doubt the risk bothers him either.

Posted by: English Outsider | Sep 8 2024 13:24 utc | 15

“Now the dollar share of FX reserves is 58%- ie. the downswing trend line has kept the same curve since 2000. ”
Posted by: canuck | Sep 8 2024 12:49 utc | 8
“Now do currencies with regards to their share of global trading, since the two are quite distinct.”
Posted by: TJandTheBear | Sep 8 2024 13:35 utc | 16
Yes they are distinct:
Global trading by currency: 44.15% US Dollar
16.40 Euro
6.40 British Pound
3.93 CNY and HK Dollar
3.38% Australian dollar
2.82 Canadian dollar (1)
1. https://www.ig.com/en/trading-strategies/what-are-the-top-10-most-traded-currencies-in-the-world-200115

Posted by: canuck | Sep 8 2024 13:51 utc | 17

Even the Men in the Democrat Party Are Women. https://shorturl.at/XYaDc

Posted by: Dogon Priest | Sep 8 2024 14:08 utc | 19

Hunter Biden’s guilty plea is missing from the Week in Review

What Did the Biden Family’s Foreign Clients Get for their Money?
Hunter Biden pleads guilty to federal tax charges.
Hunter Biden has been convicted of federal crimes for not paying all the taxes he owed on his foreign income. But the most important question for Americans remains unanswered: What exactly did his overseas clients get in return for their money? His Thursday guilty plea on tax charges prevented testimony that may have gone some way toward providing an answer. This potential testimony may also explain why Hunter Biden waited until now to acknowledge his guilt.
The Journal’s Sara Randazzo, Ryan Barber and Annie Linskey report from Los Angeles:

Federal prosecutors signaled an aggressive strategy as the trial drew near, previewing an approach that would show how foreign interests paid the younger Biden to influence the U.S. government while his father was vice president during the Obama administration. Prosecutors said they planned to cast a light on a lucrative arrangement with a Romanian real-estate magnate who was facing a corruption investigation in his home country, along with his ties to the oil company CEFC China Energy and his tenure on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.
In court Thursday, [prosecutor Leo Wise] insisted on reading the entirety of the 56-page indictment into the record—over the objection of Biden’s lawyer—to establish the facts underlying the guilty plea.

Alanna Durkin Richer reported last month for the Associated Press:

Hunter Biden’s lawyers say prosecutors are inappropriately trying to insert “politically-charged” allegations about his foreign business dealings into the upcoming federal tax trial against the president’s son.
Special counsel David Weiss’ team told the judge last week that they plan to call to the witness stand a business associate of Hunter Biden’s to testify about an arrangement with a Romanian businessman who was trying to “influence U.S. government policy” during Joe Biden’s term as vice president…
The Romanian businessman, Gabriel Popoviciu, wanted U.S. government agencies to probe a bribery investigation he was facing in his home country in the hopes that would end his legal trouble, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors say Hunter Biden agreed with his business associate to help Popoviciu fight the criminal charges against him. But prosecutors say they were concerned that “lobbying work might cause political ramifications” for Joe Biden, so the arrangement was structured in a way that “concealed the true nature of the work” for Popoviciu, prosecutors alleged…
In fact, Popoviciu and Hunter’s business associate agreed that they would be paid for their work to “attempt to influence U.S. government agencies to investigate the Romanian investigation,” prosecutors said. Hunter Biden’s business associate was paid more than $3 million, which was split with Hunter and another business partner, prosecutors say.

Ms. Richer also noted that Hunter Biden’s defense lawyers “slammed prosecutors for showcasing ‘these matters on the eve of Mr. Biden’s trial—when there is no mention of political influence in the 56-page Indictment.’ ” The A.P. story continued:
continues ==> https://www.wsj.com/opinion/what-did-the-biden-familys-foreign-clients-get-for-their-money-98593064

Posted by: too scents | Sep 8 2024 14:45 utc | 21

Does anyone share my fear that the United States will declare war (take your pick from the three “theatres”) and suspend the November elections? IMO, that is the last arrow they have in their quiver.

Posted by: Maracatu | Sep 8 2024 15:11 utc | 23

…
Lithium? Good Luck. Researchers are working feverishly to create better batteries that bypass this mineral.
Opening new mines tends to be a horrid investment in which huge sums get invested with losses for many years…
…
Posted by: Eighthman | Sep 8 2024 12:17 utc | 2
Researchers have already decided what they want to replace Lithium. It’s called Graphene, and its ‘promise’ is circa 100x the Energy Density of Li-ion batteries. Trouble is, at present they can only assemble sheets of Graphene atom by atom which is a bit slow for a mass-market commodity.
The price of Lithium has crashed recently. The Yankees are probably praying to Mammon that those pesky Chinese haven’t cracked the code for bulk Graphene synthesis.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 8 2024 15:31 utc | 25

Breaking News via DW…
AmeriKKKa’s fake Venezuela Govt has has done a midnight flit to Spain and is seeking asylum there.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 8 2024 17:14 utc | 27

Johan,
Thanks for number crunching.
What was the RF’s economic growth rate from 2014-21 ? And did it exceed US or EU growth rate ?

Posted by: Exile | Sep 8 2024 17:47 utc | 29

And the presidential election of 1864 was held in the midst of a civil war, when most secessionist states did not vote at all. (The two reconquered states of Louisiana and Tennessee did hold votes, but Congress did not count their electoral votes.)

Posted by: Lysias | Sep 8 2024 18:02 utc | 31

Posted by: Exile | Sep 8 2024 17:47 utc | 29
GDP growth rate YoY average 2014-2021
USA: 2.34%
EU: 1.38%
RF: 1.09%
2023
USA: 2.54%
EU: 0.45%
RF: 3.60%

Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Sep 8 2024 18:39 utc | 33

Posted by: Maracatu | Sep 8 2024 18:10 utc | 32
The US ruling class likes to extract profits from war, but the US citizens themselves do not feel very good about their country’s continued war.
Even in Trump’s first term, Trump use tactic of election campaign with his opposition to the war in Iraq and his pledge to withdraw US troops from conflicts in various parts of the country.
He won that way.
Recall Zelensky. Even he gained popularity by promising to ‘ceasefire with the Donbass region’ when he changed his job from a comedian.
Waging war itself never increases the popularity of a presidential candidate.
It only makes your country the villain.
In order to create a cause for war without damaging the popularity of the people, it is always necessary to give the reason that “the enemy attacked first, so you have no choice but to fight back.”.
President Roosevelt wanted to intervene in World War II for help Britain, but he had to wait for the Japanese to run amok at Pearl Harbour.
To get public opinion, someone had to attack the US first to stir up public anger.
If Biden and the other Democrats declare war on someone else on their own, it does not increase the popularity of the Democratic Party.
On the contrary, it only gives Trump the chance to say, ‘Look, all politicians are war mongers except me’.
There are actually not many options for declaring war.
Proxy wars are fine, but must avoid a situation where regular Chinese or Russian troops clash with US troops directly.
It is also difficult to use the situation in the Middle East. Because right now, normal US citizen (not Zionist), has a very low liking for Israhell.
If Biden declare war on Iran or any other ME country in this situation, any fool will realise that he did it to help the genocidal state Israel.
Would doing so increase the popularity of the Democrats?
Don’t you feel it would only increase Trump’s popularity?

Posted by: Nokaz | Sep 8 2024 19:07 utc | 35

Exodus is correct, the currency dominance percentages come from swift data.
Just like election numbers, pro west ‘institutions’ like the IMF, world bank or Basel bank all put out numbers that basically imply “things are CLOSE but USA is still on top”.
The truth is we won’t know when USA is eclipsed until its painfully obvious.
Don’t be naïve, all western institutions are the same thing as wikipedia.

Posted by: ryanggg | Sep 8 2024 21:14 utc | 37

I think this open question belongs in the open thread.
To what extent has Russian choices been made specifically in order to deliberately avoid what would seem obvious or the most likely?
Not at all? Somewhat? Completely?
Is it a significant element in decisions, plans, and internal debate?
Interested to hear what people think about this.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Sep 8 2024 21:56 utc | 39

It looks as though the NED’s chickens have come home to roost.
I noticed this article in the Lever this morning. *The Lever a ‘progressive’ apologist for the Dims does carry out good investigative reporting even though their editorial conclusions are a little suspect.
Headed This Election, Dark Money Is Blackmailing Lawmakers at one point the article spells out the sad truth of the corruption which has long infected amerikan politics from top to bottom, as now the pittance big corporations pay in state property taxes has been slashed in Colorado by a mixture of blackmail & bribery by someone the pols claim to have had no introduction to!
Of course some of the pols’ complaints need to be taken with salt as blaming faceless evil for yer own doing goes back to the earliest days of the leadership model of government.

“Colorado’s Democratic governor called the special session of the Democratic-controlled legislature. Nor was it a matter of out-of-control state taxes, as the state already boasts an extremely low property tax rate, and legislation passed this May further reduced taxes by $1.3 billion.
Instead, lawmakers say they were forced to cut property taxes further to keep measures introduced by a dark-money group and a Colorado tycoon off of the November ballot. If enacted, these measures would lead to far deeper property tax cuts of more than $2 billion per year.
It’s a warning for the rest of the country: In effect, legislators were engaging in negotiations with shadowy groups trying to hijack the state’s ballot process, with the state itself being held hostage. Representatives of the dark money groups weren’t in attendance at the capitol — meaning that lawmakers were negotiating with political operatives they couldn’t see, and who are bankrolled by donors who the law allows to hide their identity.”

This was inevitable, in fact it could be argued that the NED served merely as an agent of transfer, that what it did in fact was to transfer the methodology long employed at every level of government in amerika where the rich have always ruled the roost, overseas.
However that is overly simplistic as amerikans turned a blind eye to the excesses of business & government conditionally, that is to say as long as public education worked, roads were kept in good order and healthcare remained affordable for most families, they preferred to ignore the corrupt practices of their ‘betters’. “There but for a bit of bad luck, I would be going” and all that tosh.
That deal has been taken off the table in the 21st century, most likely because amerikan corporate capitalism is in its last stages. The need for corporate earnings to increase every year has resulted in the parasite having consumed & profited off of every available corner of the rest of the world, began eating itself.
However that is only partially true, as normally amerikan capitalists considered the obvious danger of destroying their foundation and found new corners ‘out there’ to misappropriate, then devour. The empire is fading, ‘new corners’ virtually impossible to locate let alone seize, so now amerika’s infrastructure both physical (roads, bridges) and its intellectual infrastructure (education, now focussed on profit making from overseas students) has entered a stage of disrepair that seems almost terminal.
Now billionaires are harvesting the basis upon which their society was built, there is no surer sign that these potentates plan on deserting their stomping grounds in the false belief, other parts of the planet who have lavished upon them as visitors (in return for healthy profit) will welcome them as citizens, when little could be further from the truth as people living mostly outside the 100% sympathetic to the wealthy coverage of these low lifes of amerika, won’t be so happy once their guests begin hanging around too long, like stale food demanding to be tossed out before it begins to stink.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Sep 8 2024 22:08 utc | 41

Sometimes I think we get lost in the near-term analysis and prediction making when it comes to ground wars in Europe and Eurasia. Don’t really want to leave a long rambling comment or open a huge can of worms, but I did want to remark on something that occurred to me recently and of which I was reminded reading Diesen’s piece on the increase in Ukrainian casualties. Just the picture of the graveyard alone caused me to ponder the not-too-near future in Ukraine, but also the rest of Eastern Europe and the vassal states in the West.
Future generations of Ukrainians will likely be subject to heavily US/UK underwritten propaganda, focusing on the sheer number of deaths sustained by Ukrainians after the SMO began. Whether Ukraine becomes a rump state or a member of NATO with a demilitarized zone to the east or whatever it becomes, I see the makings of a generation or more’s worth of fodder for Russophobic propaganda. In Ukrainian school books, in ‘official’ history narratives, in manufactured culture, to include festering ‘Banderism’ allowed to become the de-facto historical reality. Anti-Russian sentiments could be extremely hard, if impossible, to erase and this will lead to (and be used by CIA/NED/MI6, etc. to foment) perpetual militarism and hatred in the hearts of all Ukrainians remaining in whatever areas Russia doesn’t eventually annex.
Is there a cultural/narrative off-ramp for where this looks to be heading? If not, are we seeing merely the beginning of another generation or two of enmity and hot wars, or another “iron curtain” narrative that’ll break the world into two or more mostly manufactured blocs (insofar as what we know about the deeds of western “intelligence” during the first Cold War)? My own thoughts are muddled and I’m sure that comes forward in this comment. But I did want to see if anyone else has thought about this – not necessarily from the hard geopolitical boundaries that end up being drawn, but from the new histories and new astroturf culture (think: Holodomor) that are being midwifed by the US and her European (both east and west) lapdogs or aspiring vassals?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Sep 8 2024 22:26 utc | 43