Fourth Time The Pentagon Is Faking The Books For Ukraine
For a fourth time the Pentagon is 'finding money' outside of the budget that can be spend on Ukraine.
I had previously noticed three occasions in which the Pentagon, on order of the Biden administration, used some or 'accounting error' gimmicks to 'find' more money for Ukraine.
Pentagon Again Applies Budget Lies To Deliver More Weapons To Ukraine - Jul 26 2024, MoA
The piece referred to three relevant news reports:
Exclusive: Pentagon accounting error overvalued Ukraine weapons aid by $3 billion - May 19 2023, Reuters
Pentagon accounting error provides extra $6.2 billion for Ukraine military aid - June 20 2023, AP
Pentagon finds another $2 billion of accounting errors for Ukraine aid - July 14 2024, Reuters
From the last link:
The Pentagon has found $2 billion worth of additional errors in its calculations for ammunition, missiles and other equipment sent to Ukraine, increasing the improperly valued material to a total of $8.2 billion, a U.S. government report revealed on Thursday.
Here is now another, the fourth, incident of creative budget accounting in favor of money for war in Ukraine:
All reports previously indicated that there was $4.3 billion left in the Presidential Drawdown Authority account, which reimburses the U.S. armed forces for munitions and equipment sent to Ukraine.Turns out, the number is actually $7.1 billion, thanks to some revised accounting the Pentagon has done, DOD officials tell your anchor. That extra $2.8 billion isn’t just found money. The way things work is that the Pentagon calculates how much buying replacement goods for what it sends Ukraine will cost. The number crunchers at the Pentagon ran through the lists and discovered that replacement for some items cost less than anticipated.
The plan is for the administration to spend down that whole $7.1 billion by Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 ...
Luckily, not all of the money will reach Ukraine:
[Spending the money] is a pretty tall order given the cadence of aid packages being announced roughly every two weeks work between $200 million and $500 million. Those numbers are going to have to go way up, but even then deliveries of that equipment would continue well into the Trump administration, which could turn off the spigot at any time.
I bet that the lower 'replacements costs' the Pentagon has found to spend more on Ukraine, will themselves turn out to be 'accounting errors'. The replacements will - unfortunately they will say - later require much higher outlays than anticipated today.
Creative accounting like this, i.e. faking the books, is a no-no for commercial entity as it might well end with time spent in jail.
I'll repeat myself:
Any commercial company doing what the Pentagon is doing here would be asking for serious trouble.One wonder if and when Congress will wake up to this.
Posted by b on November 15, 2024 at 6:56 UTC | Permalink
next page »I'll repeat myself:
Any commercial company doing what the Pentagon is doing here would be asking for serious trouble.
One wonder if and when Congress will wake up to this.
Posted by b on November 15, 2024 at 6:56 UTC | Permalink
And I’ll say it happens all the time when the CEO makes it known to the accountant (of course there are no written instructions) that something should be something else.
What is indeed bizarre is that things like those end when the company goes under and the CEO loses his power.
This happening means one thing.
Those below think it’s business as usual (and Biden administration or trump is the same)
Either that or a foolish enough to fall on the sword for the cause…
Posted by: Newbie | Nov 15 2024 8:07 utc | 3
I wonder where did these accountants got their qualifications. "Missing" 2 billion is not something any accountant should be able to justify.
Posted by: Feamantur | Nov 15 2024 8:12 utc | 4
'America has made a big show about ground-based systems like ATACMS and HIMARS (launchers) in Ukraine, but HIMARS is a 1990s system and ATACMS are discontinued. What we're witnessing is actually a going out of business sale from the American military, not a resurgence.
The Americans are dumping old junk on Ukraine in an accounting fraud with no hope of winning at all. For themselves, America has replaced ATACMS with PrSM, which is also a non-killing joke. Those missiles cost $1,666 million apiece, and they produced 30 of them in 2021. As of 2024, production is up to 54 missiles a year. What are we even talking about?
Looking at America's supplies, it's no great surprise the type of violence they sow. Their entire military model since World War II has been firebombing cities, from Dresden to Tokyo to entire regions like Southeast Asia and the Middle East. In Gaza and Lebanon they've just slapped new tails on the same bombs (JDAMs) to commit fresh massacres. These fighter jets still have to be quite close to the targets and can't travel very far without refueling. The Americans are also wasting these munitions (and what's left of their reputation) bombing hospitals and refugee camps with no military value. America is winning the genocide and losing the war. All of their vaunted military spending is really a measure of corruption and fraud, not force projection at all.'
https://indi.ca/how-america-is-losing-the-rocket-wars/
Posted by: Don Firineach | Nov 15 2024 8:27 utc | 5
All of this is obvious once you realise that the numbers don't matter. They are just there for recording purposes.
Money appropriated for Ukraine doesn't go to Ukraine. It goes to the US military complex. It's a basic income for bomb producers.
Ultimately the US is a constitutional state and the constitution says "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law". It is for the Treasury to check that whoever is placing the order has an appropriation head to charge it against and space in that appropriation head, and for the GAO to confirm Treasury has done that job. If there are unconstitutional payments, they can be recovered.
For those who think 'printing money' is a problem, time to understand that taxation 'shreds money', and financial savings, whether bonds or bank accounts, is 'money in a drawer'. That dollar collapse you fantasise about ain't going to happen. The US dollar is an elastic currency zone that grows and shrinks as required to enable all US dollar transactions that can complete to complete.
It can't be modelled as little gold coins in a bag. Those belong solely in the realm of fantasy.
Posted by: The Accountant | Nov 15 2024 8:30 utc | 6
"Turns out, we're just REALLY REALLY bad with money." -The Pentagon
Posted by: MaryPeck | Nov 15 2024 8:49 utc | 7
The Pentagon reporting should be subject to the Security and Exchange commission rules; the Security acts..
THIS IS SOMETHING MUSK could work to make happen with both houses and the President being Republicans.. With Gatez as Attorney General its could be a no holds bar possibility to require the government and all of its agencies to report to the people the government governs on the same basis that the government requires the private sector to report to the government.
Domestically I think Trump is going to try to fix things, on the international scale Trump seems to be siding with the deep state. We shall see. To get his domestic side appointees through the Senate he might have to accept the international team he has been told to adopt. very interesting ..
Posted by: snake | Nov 15 2024 8:55 utc | 8
So much for the notion that the generals are the "adults in the room" who understand how close this situation is to WWIII.
Posted by: flying dutchman | Nov 15 2024 9:08 utc | 9
The Pentagon reporting should be subject to the Security and Exchange commission rules; the Security acts..
THIS IS SOMETHING MUSK could work to make happen
Posted by: snake | Nov 15 2024 8:55 utc | 8
I'd be in a corner laughing when the auditors asked for an "arm's leght" evaluation of military assets...
Seriously, if it often leads to short term distortions in regular companies in the military it would be the mother of all shit shows
Posted by: Newbie | Nov 15 2024 9:30 utc | 11
https://x.com/ggreenwald/status/1857116505239855439
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald
Voters: I'm angry that we can't buy food, have no health insurance, our communities are crumbling, our neighbors are dying of overdose, we can't afford prescriptions, and we have no jobs that pay a living wage.
The Biden administration:
https://x.com/Breaking911/status/1857089671391576481
Breaking911 @Breaking911
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announces "every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed [to Ukraine] between now and January 20th" when Trump takes office.
Via @EricLDaugh
Posted by: michaelj72 | Nov 15 2024 9:47 utc | 12
Looks as though another Boeing jet might have to be sent straight into the auditing office of the Pentagon to destroy more incriminating documents again soon.
Posted by: Refinnejenna | Nov 15 2024 9:49 utc | 13
And that's just for the "weapons packages" part , wait till they audited the "financial aid" part. Did you knew than prior 2022 , IMF loans were managed by PrivatBank ? (The same PrivatBank that hold the record of the biggest money laundering scheme trial estimated $470B.) And after that all that money was send via a shell company part of Blackrock ?
What does these two have in common ? Well, both are managed by people tied to a very specific sect ...
Posted by: Savonarole | Nov 15 2024 10:01 utc | 14
In the big picture the ~$3 billions error doesn't amount to a pimple on an elephant's ass.
Here is the Treasury budget statement for the month of Oct'24 ==> https://fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/mts/mts1024.pdf
Note that in October alone $103 billions went for "defense".
Also note that the sortfall for Oct'24 was $257 billions.
The US government spends ~$8.3 billion/day more than it takes in.
The country as a whole, including non-government, had an additional balance of trade deficit of ~$63 billions for Oct'24.
The total USA overdraft for Oct'24 was $320 billions.
Posted by: too scents | Nov 15 2024 10:16 utc | 15
Excellent b)
It is all just propaganda. The same type of propaganda used during the rest of the SMO.
They just credit it into the account like giving a card player points during a card game. What was a 2 is now a 7.
It saves them passing a budget on the hill that could be voted against. There's no accounting error or new money found they are just giving them it. By passing a vote. Then lying about it.
government spending automatically stops when it runs out of things to buy. Creating money is only helpful if there is something available to buy with it.
And if you ‘fire up the printing press’, you automatically ‘fire up the shredding machine’ ( taxes ) to the same extent.
As your spending is someone's else's income and vice versa. As long as everybody spends everything they earn this is what happens.
If you give somebody £100, they spend it which is taxed at 20%, leaving the next person with £80 as income. They then spend that £80 which is taxed at 20%, leaving the next person with £64 as income. And so on until the entire £100 disappears and creates £100 of extra tax. All without changing the tax rate one single percent.
Spending = Taxes collected each and everytime.
The result is lots of extra sales and income for people down the spending chain they wouldn't otherwise have received. It's a straightforward geometric progression.
There is no reason to raise taxes if there is significant unemployment. In fact if there is unemployment then by definition we are overtaxed for the size of government we have and we should be looking at cutting taxes, not raising them.
However, if you add saving into the mix. People save some of their income this happens.
If you give somebody £100, they spend £70 which is taxed at 20%, leaving the next person with £56 as income. They then spend £30 which is taxed at 20%, leaving the next person with £24 as income. And so on until the entire £100 disappears.
That's what creates the budget deficit. Money is saved by people in the chain and thus can't be taxed back. Until they start spending their savings.
The national debt is just those private sector savings that people swap for a government bond. To earn more interest in their savings.
Notice how taxes can't be paid or bonds bought by the private sector without the spending happening first.
Yet, we are told from the age of 5 we fund the government.
Implications Matter:
Here:
https://new-wayland.com/blog/implications-matter/
When you ask chatGPT the right question response is illuminating.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 15 2024 10:49 utc | 17
The USA can endlessly print money.
That is their strength.
The middle classes around the world trust and adore the USA.
This war is the war between money printers and producers of real material stuff.
Money printers would turn Ukraine into terrorist state, armed with nuclear weapons.
Posted by: vargas | Nov 15 2024 10:52 utc | 18
Was just reading somewhere about how Trump will be taking over a lot of cooked books next year.
Posted by: gT | Nov 15 2024 11:00 utc | 19
Posted by: too scents | Nov 15 2024 10:16 utc | 15
It all balances or they have to stay behind until they find their error.
Balance sheets balance - When you run a trade deficit the government budget deficit = The non government sector surplus to the penny.
HERE:
https://new-wayland.com/blog/uk-sectoral-balances/
I remember when the office of national statistics in the UK posted it out of whack one day. All hell broke loose until they found their error.
The Pentagon doesn't need to find their error because there isn't one they were simply credited the money using an index finger and computer keyboard.
The Pentagon balance shows up on the other side of the ledger within the government budget deficit.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 15 2024 11:03 utc | 20
Posted by: Refinnejenna | Nov 15 2024 9:49 utc | 13
They better use airbus this time. Boeing jets have a habit of not making it to their destination these days.
Posted by: Badjoke | Nov 15 2024 11:11 utc | 22
Ukraine Weekly Update, 15th November 2024: May be useful to some: https://robcampbell.substack.com/p/ukraine-weekly-update-1f7
Posted by: Dr. Rob Campbell | Nov 15 2024 11:13 utc | 23
"If you give somebody £100, they spend £70 which is taxed at 20%, leaving the next person with £56 as income. They then spend £30 which is taxed at 20%, leaving the next person with £24 as income. And so on until the entire £100 disappears.
That's what creates the budget deficit. Money is saved by people in the chain and thus can't be taxed back. Until they start spending their savings."
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 15 2024 10:49 utc | 17
No, you redundant, arrogant moron: the budget deficit by a Sovereign is very easy to define:
The Sovereign spends more then it takes in from tax revenues. One must also add the interest it pays on its bonds to the deficit..
It's that simple.
Whether the Sovereigns print the money, or borrow it, makes absolutely no difference.
On the Donald’s Half-Assed Economics and the Payback Ahead
By David Stockman
Posted by: Exile | Nov 15 2024 11:19 utc | 25
"For those who think 'printing money' is a problem, time to understand that taxation 'shreds money', and financial savings, whether bonds or bank accounts, is 'money in a drawer'. That dollar collapse you fantasise about ain't going to happen. The US dollar is an elastic currency zone that grows and shrinks as required to enable all US dollar transactions that can complete to complete.
It can't be modelled as little gold coins in a bag. Those belong solely in the realm of fantasy."
Posted by: The Accountant | Nov 15 2024 8:30 utc | 6
Total blarney.
The US dollar is 'collapsing' and has been for 53 years since 1971 when Nixon shut the gold window.
Gold then was $35 an ounce ; today gold is about $2,600-hence, the value of the dollars has decreased substantially.
Measuring the dollars' value against other 'fiat' currencies is a Fool's Errand.
No, you redundant, arrogant moron: the budget deficit by a Sovereign is very easy to define:
The Sovereign spends more then it takes in from tax revenues. One must also add the interest it pays on its bonds to the deficit..
It's that simple.
Whether the Sovereigns print the money, or borrow it, makes absolutely no difference.
Posted by: canuck | Nov 15 2024 11:15 utc | 24
That's very rude Canuck considering you pull up other people for being so rude.
"The Sovereign spends more then it takes in from tax revenues"
I've just clearly shown why it spends more than it collects back.
Please don't tell me you think it collects then spends what it has collected ?
1. No accounting exists to allow that to happen.
2. If you are taxing for inflation purposes why on earth would you want to put it back in ?
3. How will they collect anything if people are not given it in the first place ? It has to be issued before it can be collected.
Imagine yourself going to a concert or football match. They issue the tickets first then collect. It would be absurd to do it the other way around.
One must also add the interest it pays on its bonds to the deficit..
Simply not true in all cases what happens if you spend the interest you received on your bond that has now matured ?
As per usual time and time again you simply don't understand what we have.
SAVINGS ! Cause the deficit and debt.
Sure if they save the interest they receive on the bond they now hold instead of cash. Don't spend the interest then it will add to the deficit.
If they spend it, it goes down the chain and taxed as someone else's income. We come back to ..
If you give somebody £100.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 15 2024 11:33 utc | 27
I refuse to be rude to you. This will be fun...
Canuck ?
Why do you think government's spend more than they collect back in taxes ?
Why is it wgen they spend £100 do they sometimes only collect back £30 ?
What do you think happens ?
:)
This is going be like there is nobody to buy the bonds, banks lend out other people's money like George Baily in a wonderful life etc etc
Just watch none of what he says to explain it will make any sense. As he lives in the Eurozone.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 15 2024 11:40 utc | 28
Posted by: The Accountant | Nov 15 2024 8:30 utc | 6
That dollar collapse you fantasise about ain't going to happen.
We hope lots of people with good assets hold this assumption and keep the faith.
Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Nov 15 2024 11:47 utc | 29
Do you really think a few hundred million or even a billion makes any difference to the US or Pentagon budgets? The Pentagon has FAILED every AUDIT, and they are still in business. Just before the 9/11 'attacks' they couldn't account for TRILLIONS.
As long as America can print money, nothing matters. Not even the national debt.
Posted by: bored | Nov 15 2024 11:54 utc | 30
@snake | Nov 15 2024 8:55 utc | 8
The Pentagon reporting should be subject to the Security and Exchange commission rules; the Security acts..Nobody sees the irony in the fact that in order to make the US Government more "efficient" and less bureaucratic, they let Musk create a whole new Government Department.... ?
THIS IS SOMETHING MUSK could work to make happen
Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 15 2024 11:57 utc | 31
Canuck ?
How can households and businesses and foreigners who net export to the US.
Save $'s ?
If the government doesn't put more $'s into the economy that it taxes out ?
The government has to meet the savings desires of all 3. The only way it can do that is by putting more $'s into the economy than it takes out as taxes.
I know as a gold bug you adore bank lending want to replace the government with banks.
But seriously man, households don't take a bank loan out so they can save. Meet their savings desires. That would be absurd.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 15 2024 11:57 utc | 32
@Refinnejenna | Nov 15 2024 9:49 utc | 13
Looks as though another Boeing jet might have to be sent straight into the auditing office of the Pentagon to destroy more incriminating documents again soon.You must mean another cruise missile.
Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 15 2024 11:59 utc | 33
Natostan does not even pretend to audit some of its components. Whenever people repeat regime “budget” numbers, they implicitly trust the biggest liars on the planet. Even antiwar writers often start their analysis by accepting the numbers provided.
We do not know how much is spent and stolen. Is it double? How would anyone know?
Posted by: I forgot | Nov 15 2024 12:15 utc | 34
Given how diligent the Pentagon's accountants were in the initial valuation and the quality of their review processes, I find it hard to believe the agency never passed an audit...
I do not think Jesus Trump will be able to rehabilitate the MIC though. I could go on endlessly about incompetence, intransigence and mendacity that seems part of the military bureaucratic mind. It's not like we were warned.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." D. D. Eisenhower
Posted by: whocanibenow | Nov 15 2024 12:19 utc | 35
Posted by: whocanibenow | Nov 15 2024 12:19 utc | 35
And what did Dwight do about it? Clue, he never missed a golf game!
Posted by: qparker | Nov 15 2024 12:25 utc | 36
This is obviously corrupt but it's not like the previous accounting stages in the process of production and acquisition have any kind of legitimacy either.
Political will is the real currency here, dollar value is irrelevant. If the Ukraine lobby actually believe this is going to be the final flurry of spending you can guarantee it will be stolen at a higher ratio than any previous package.
Posted by: SB | Nov 15 2024 12:30 utc | 37
This is obviously corrupt but it's not like the previous accounting stages in the process of production and acquisition have any kind of legitimacy either.
Political will is the real currency here, dollar value is irrelevant. If the Ukraine lobby actually believe this is going to be the final flurry of spending you can guarantee it will be stolen at a higher ratio than any previous package.
Posted by: SB | Nov 15 2024 12:30 utc | 38
There’s a clip of Hegseth on Dan Bongino’s podcast saying women have no place in front line combat.
Which reminded me. I haven’t seen trenches of dead young female Ukrainian soldiers for a while. [for which I am thankful, as I found it extremely distressing. ]
There was a lot of tictok and Instagram about their training and deployment.
And quite soon, pics of their bloody demise.
Artillery and drones really don’t discriminate.
Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 15 2024 12:33 utc | 39
The national debt is all the $'s that have been created that have not been taxed back yet.
It really is that simple. Regardless what the monetary silencing propaganda says since you walked through the school gates.
The $ is nothing more than a tax credit. You use it to pay your tax liability to the government "eventually."
Death and taxes.
The $ in your pocket is a debt an IOU. It is written clearly on the front of it. A tax credit.
Once you spend it and it ends up as somebody else's income we come back to ...
If you give somebody £100.... The chain starts again.
HERE: The balance sheets.
https://www.crisesnotes.com/purchase-and-sale-policy-monetarypolicy101/
Overtime they all get shredded.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 15 2024 12:37 utc | 40
>… FLASHBACK: Pete Hegseth—Trump's Defense Secretary Choice—Slams Elena Kagan At Confirmation Hearing
… At a 2010 Senate Judiciary Committee Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Elena Kagan, anti-Kagan witness Pete Hegseth, now President-elect Trump's choice for Secretary of Defense, was questioned by then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). [*Sessions*. Lol]
https://www.youtube.com/live/9rhU7feKaxg
Seems Hegseth has been hunting the Kagan Nuland turds for more than a decade.
Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 15 2024 12:41 utc | 41
Arghh b ! You have let the magik money tree can of worms loose now!
Och well it is Friday and we could do with a bit of Punch and Judy light relief as the Tax and Spenders take on the Spend and Taxers.
The chicken and egg of Money Creation.
The ZioKings Greatest invention and religion.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Nov 15 2024 12:41 utc | 42
" That dollar collapse you fantasise about ain't going to happen."
.
.
Huh? If th4e people reject the dollar, it can collapse. Money printing would be a trigger for that, perhaps a process more than an event, but it can happen.
Trump told Mattis to audit the Pentagon back in the day. The strange little man told Trump basically to eff off. At least this one disgrace is being publicized.
Posted by: seer | Nov 15 2024 12:46 utc | 43
Nobody sees the irony in the fact that in order to make the US Government more "efficient" and less bureaucratic, they let Musk create a whole new Government Department.... ?
Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 15 2024 11:57 utc | 31
Over the past 10 days, Babylon Bee has had a few good ironic and quite humorous headlines regarding this political transition.
My own favorite irony is the juxtaposition of Biden’s Assistant Secretary for Health, trans-sexual (hormone dependent) Admiral Rachel Levine with Trump’s new Secretary for Health, hormone-dependent muscleman RFK Jr.
Posted by: Ciaran | Nov 15 2024 12:54 utc | 44
'One wonders if and when Congress will wake up to this.' -- b
With all due respect, b, that's hilarious.
Congress Clowns are IN ON IT, gleefully lining their pockets with 'defense' contractor kickbacks.
Their only complaint is, 'Why not find $71 BILLION, instead of a piddling $7.1 billion??'
As the US empire collapses, it is far more deeply corrupt than most observers realize.
MOAR FREE MONEY, cry the American helots and plebes.
Posted by: Jim H | Nov 15 2024 12:56 utc | 45
Volo and his corrupt Nazi, atheist regime in Kieve should enjoy the cash and ammo while they can......starting on 1/21/25 the gravy train stops and stops cold..........
DJT detests Volo and Vindman brothers with all his heart and soul......they attempted to remove him from the Presidency in the fake impeachment trial.........
Volo and his Nazi cohorts better have their bags packed and ready to go, their villas purchased with scammed US cash are awaiting in beautiful seaside Haifa (now under constant Hezbollah missile attack, so Volo should feel right at home), or Nassau or Miami Beach (ooppss maybe not Miami Beach, its doubtful DJT would welcome the exile Volo anywhere in the US) or Geneva (right next to his mentor Georgiev Soros) !!!
Posted by: Tobias Cole | Nov 15 2024 13:02 utc | 46
Helena Glass has a short article on Lew Rockwell this morning that the US comptroller is a life long bureaucrat with a BA degree from the 70s. Perfect for creative accounting. Putting an undergraduate arts major in charge of an economy of that size smacks of intention to conceal fraud. Even with an MBA, our 50 or so page tax filing is mostly Greek to me. Sure would be nice if we could simplify things a bit. Until then thank God for CPAs, a certification of which the comptroller of the freaking United States should at least hold!
Posted by: cc | Nov 15 2024 13:04 utc | 47
I don’t understand b, being upset. According to him Russia has already won the war against Ukraine. You would think he would be pleased with the empire throwing billions more into the that lost battle. I would think he would be glad that the US is throwing away resources that could/would go to strengthen US resistance elsewhere.
Posted by: Zargo | Nov 15 2024 13:05 utc | 48
Personally, I think that the discussion is misdirected, in the sense that it is believed, or chosen to believe, that there is something to discuss. The method of assigning the value of deliveries to third countries has no other objective than to restore the obsolete value of obsolete instruments to renewed values that allow the acquisition of renewed instruments. The fact of admitting errors in such absurd accounting means that, at the same time, a non-existent field of discussion is being created in which to expend the energies of anyone who might discuss the need to acquire new instruments, their real effectiveness, their real cost or price, their acquisition dynamics and their discretionary allocation. This, on the battlefield - and it must be acknowledged that it is a battlefield where a government agency is permanently fighting to obtain budget allocations, taking them from others, with total success - is called "diversion" and is necessary to hide the true background of the situation: The United States Army is at war against the population of the United States, and is certainly leading it to its total extinction.
Anyone in the central offices of the current government, or the next government, knows with absolute certainty that the slightest delay, delay or inconvenience in the increasing allocation of budget allocations to the resource collection scheme encompassed in the "Pentagon" concept, which extracts them from every real need of the population, would generate an accident due to lack of maintenance or surveillance, or even better, an unpredictable act of terrorism that would rectify the situation, in a more acute way than before. Anyone can see that there is only one nation in the world that consists of its entire slave population, four hundred million slaves, whose only consolation is to try to enslave the rest of the world, without success, to avoid any awareness of it.
The genocide in the USA is also real and permanent, and the figures are overwhelming. Nobody cares. The life and death of a slave is as insignificant and worthless as a piece of wood or a puddle on the road that is simply annoying and avoided.
"Creative accounting" is a dialectical invention intended to make us believe that there is real accounting, just as accusations of "electoral fraud" are a dialectical invention intended to make us believe that there is a possibility of real democracy.
When we learned to exchange our time and effort for colored pieces of paper, we forgot that time and effort were real.
https://textosandroides.blogspot.com/2012/02/lastre-objetivos-y-soluciones.html
America has elected clones of Bernie Made-off to Congress, appointed them judges, and selected the best Liars-in-Chief, and a piddling fraud like this surprises you? All the jostling is the boars pushing for the best slot at the trough.
Posted by: JM Hatch | Nov 15 2024 13:20 utc | 51
" starting on 1/21/25 the gravy train stops "
.
.
Doubt. Trump likely couldn't do it if he wanted to. This grift is long from over.
Posted by: S | Nov 15 2024 13:22 utc | 52
@ Zargo | Nov 15 2024 13:05 utc | 48
b cares about the lives expended in the continuation of the war, especially a war instigated and controlled by outsiders for outsider benefit at the expense of Ukrainians.
Posted by: I forgot | Nov 15 2024 13:23 utc | 53
@ Zargo | Nov 15 2024 13:05 utc | 48
b cares about the lives expended in the continuation of the war, especially a war instigated and controlled by outsiders for outsider benefit at the expense of Ukrainians.
Posted by: I forgot | Nov 15 2024 13:23 utc | 53
I would say most, if not all, here feel the same.
It's not fun for any of us to consider that every azov that is properly disposed of was padded with 2, 5, 10 or more reasonably innocent meat.
Or that all of that is taking place in a transvestite of nato support where they can't even choose if they want an indebted ukraine or a somewhat there ukraine.
And worst of all, the worst offenders (us and uk, looking at you) will pay nothing in blood unless everything goes to hell (and that is something we all would rather not happen)
Posted by: Newbie | Nov 15 2024 13:33 utc | 54
The war serves the domestic policies of all the ruling classes. It’s continuation ad infinitum benefits them, which is why all the players maintain maximalist objectives.
Posted by: Zargo | Nov 15 2024 13:47 utc | 55
The U.S. DoD has never had a clean financial audit.
One point of failure is military equipment valuation (MEV).
Because most pentagon equipment is not fully tested, the specifications put on buys are fiction. When received there are waivers and deviations. you pay the bill but you cannot say what you actually received, therefore, you can put any number as to the value in inventory.
Tip of the corruption iceberg
Posted by: paddy | Nov 15 2024 14:14 utc | 56
I've said this has been going on since day 1. It isn't really faking the books, since all the books are fake anyway. The weapons are worth, well, whatever the Pentagon says they are, there really isn't another source to accurately value it. So, when the US wants to send out a press release saying that it sent $20 billion to Ukraine, it values the weapons very high. When it starts hitting its budget caps, it revalues them much lower. This process will continue indefinitely.
Posted by: Bob | Nov 15 2024 14:41 utc | 57
Was anyone at the Pentagram (or CONgress, Senate, or wherever within the Swamp) ever held accountable for those 2,3 trillion USD that Rumsfeld claimed he "couldn't track" only a day before 9/11/01?
No? Well then...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMIyDf3gBoY
Posted by: ThirdWorldDude | Nov 15 2024 14:46 utc | 58
Santi @50: "When we learned to exchange our time and effort for colored pieces of paper, we forgot that time and effort were real."
The people expending the time and effort to create the value that money represents never forget. It is only the people getting more value in money than the time and effort they apply for it is worth who have the luxury of forgetting. That forgetfulness may be blissful, but it is also toxic as it represents the "alienation" Marx mentions; the disconnection of one's perceptions and mental state from objective reality.
Noodle that point around a bit and it becomes more obvious where the delusion that consumes the Empire's managers and their sycophants in media and academia comes from.
Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 15 2024 14:57 utc | 59
Is this war in Ukraine expensive for the west or is it peanuts?
How can we find the answer?
Posted by: vargas | Nov 15 2024 15:02 utc | 60
Germany's Scholz urges Putin in phone call to open talks with Ukraine
In a one-hour phone conversation, their first in almost two years, Scholz also demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and reaffirmed Germany's continued support for Ukraine, a German government spokesman said.
Posted by: Apollyon | Nov 15 2024 15:02 utc | 61
Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 15, 2024 2:57 PM UTC | 59
I really don't understand what your words mean... could you expand, clarify or simplify the concept?
5 or 10 Billion is cigarette money compared to the missing 20+ Trillion from the Audits extending 1998 to 2016. Just imagine how much the comptroller, main Auditor or IRS guys get under the table from LockHeed Martin every time they're audited - if ever eh?
Posted by: GMC | Nov 15 2024 15:17 utc | 63
Posted by: Bob | Nov 15 2024 14:41 utc | 57
Exactly bob,
Like b) says.
They are giving the money then lie about it. So it doesn't have to pass a vote on the hill that could reject it. Not pass the spending bill for Ukraine.
Smoke and mirrors.
Ben Bernanke:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U_bjDAZazWU&pp=ygUcQmVuIEJlcm5hbmtlIHRheCBwYXllciBtb25leQ%3D%3D
Greenspan:
Frank Newman, former Deputy Secretary of the US Treasury:
Michael Hudson:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ74wWIxe4E
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 15 2024 15:20 utc | 64
What could end the war?
Maybe only a sudden economic downturn with huge rise in unemployment could influence EU governments to reduce the war effort and curbe the huge enthusiasam to defeat Russia?
Posted by: vargas | Nov 15 2024 15:30 utc | 65
governments and their supporters prattle on and on about taxes don't matter, spending doesn't matter, budgets don't matter and the printing press can run forever as long as people accept the funny money and the pentagon is there to force the people to accept it with the threat of the bayonet. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what money is, money is not wealth, money is simple a method of exchange for goods. Those goods that are being exchanged are the "wealth". By destroying the ability of society as a whole to acquire / create wealth with excessive spending, excessive taxation and wealth redistribution for oligarchical concentration. the goods which that money is supposed to be acquired with, will simply not exist.
When people say the cost of living is too high, what they really mean is that cost of production needed to create wealth, within the legislative rules of society, is too high to be productive. Put another way, people create wealth, simply by living, creating/improving homes, planting a garden, making/repairing material objects, even cooking a meal for your family is an act of wealth creation (imagine how expensive it would be if you bought breakfast every day for your whole family at a restaurant). When the cost of wealth production is made impossibly high by the destruction of the usability of the currency, people will leave the system and create markets outside of what the legislative "authorities" regard as legitimate. On the national level, people create black markets to operate on, on the international level, we'll see new trading systems and we can see an example of this in BRICS.
In a sense there is no choice here, if the cost of wealth production is too high to continue it will not continue and no wealth will be created regardless of whether the authorities try to ignore the situation within society (i.e work the slaves to death) or force society to continue as is (i.e. beat the slaves to death), people (and nations) will create new economic relationships (and rules) in order to survive. Prior to 2012 the US had tried to ignore the situation and that failed, since then the US has tried to force the situation to continue with increasingly violent and oppressive tactics, all of which have failed to reverse the overall trend of less wealth production. Eventually the tipping point will occur, at which point the US imposed economic international order will implode. At the national level, we'll see a replay of the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, a nominally dictatorial US government, but with no practical power to enforce its' will since its' policies will be disconnected from reality, everyone will be a "criminal" because it will be impossible to survive by operating within the rules. Alternative power centers will be created and they will supplant the old, ineffective one. This is not to glorify the new system, it will be a terrible time to be alive in the US and it will take 20 years or more for a new order to be established
Posted by: Kadath | Nov 15 2024 15:39 utc | 66
Send the money. Send all the 20-year-old women.
Send every weapon, send every idea.
The sooner the West gives everything to Ukraine, the sooner NATO collapses for good.
Faster! Faster!
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Nov 15 2024 15:40 utc | 67
Posted by: DunGroanin | Nov 15 2024 12:41 utc | 42
a) Tax and spend are the Eurozone. Who gave up issuing their own currency.
b) Spend then tax are the fully sovereign nation states that issue their own currency.
Otherwise their is no debate or can of worms or punch and Judy shows just facts. The balance sheets that prove it.
The HUGE problem is DunGroanin and it is really important. Is when you go through the school gates and enter university nowadays as they have been co - opted by big business. Everybody is taught that every country is a).
The reason Scott Ritter and colonel McGregor and the Judge believe everybody is a) is because that is what they were taught.
Beardsley Ruml New York Fed Chair In 1945 puts it:
‘Taxes For Revenue Are Obsolete’
So did Ben Bernake, so did Alan Greenspan, so did Frank numan head of the US Treasury and so does Michael Hudson.
But the right wing ideologues need the tax payer money myth to push through their reforms of extinguishing the state. Replacing it all with the banks.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 15 2024 15:42 utc | 68
The American taxpayer has been getting screwed over for decades now - their hard earned cash, is used for whatever agenda is on the cards, of whatever POTUS and party is in government at the time - this misuse of public funds has spread to Europe and the UK - I'm just surprised that the American taxpayer has put up with this for so long - no doubt, the UK and European taxpayer will put up with it as well.
Your hard earned cash is being used to fund wars, to regime change, and to grease the palms of those who help further big business interests - of which a section of politicians in the US/UK Europe etc get their slice of the pie.
The public purse is being robbed blind, and that's why public serves are on the wane.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Nov 15 2024 15:46 utc | 69
Well, it looks like Musk will have something to investigate as soon as he gets to the office after confirmation as this supposed accounting smacks of inefficiency. I also wonder how Trump will manage to get Congress to overturn the rule about keeping so many aircraft carriers on hand, which is a massive hole into which billions are poured annually for an obsolete weapons system.
Seeing as the Pentagon has never been audited, it won't matter a bit
Posted by: Scottindallas | Nov 15 2024 15:57 utc | 71
The Americans are dumping old junk on Ukraine in an accounting fraud with no hope of winning at all. For themselves, America has replaced ATACMS with PrSM, which is also a non-killing joke. Those missiles cost $1,666 million apiece, and they produced 30 of them in 2021. As of 2024, production is up to 54 missiles a year. What are we even talking about?
https://indi.ca/how-america-is-losing-the-rocket-wars/
Posted by: Don Firineach | Nov 15 2024 8:27 utc | 5
There's a typo there--there is no way that each missile costs anywhere near $1.5 billion
Posted by: Creative Accountant | Nov 15 2024 15:58 utc | 72
BRICS report and the Kazan Declaration.
"governments and their supporters prattle on and on about taxes don't matter, spending doesn't matter, budgets don't matter and the printing press can run forever as long as people accept the funny money."
Posted by: Kadath | Nov 15 2024 15:39 utc | 66
Nobody, not one person, on the planet has ever said such nonsense. It is pure garbage. A figment of your immigination.
You are creating a straw man that you can easily knock down. What's new ? That has always been the tactic rather than debating the issues that really matter Kadath.
If you did debate it properly Kadath you know you would lose.
Here:
https://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
Why BRICS ignored your advice completely. Not just in the BRICS report but also in the Kazan Declaration.
You've already lost the debate for decades now. It is time to move on, lick your wounds and deal with the defeat like a man. Support BRICS!
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Nov 15 2024 15:59 utc | 73
The Pentagon is no more a business than the federal government is a household. The commodities supposedly sold by the Pentagon are not exchanged on a free market, nor are the public accounts relevant to the price of Pentagon stocks. Casting this as business fraud is absurd.
As to the larger point maybe implied, the US should not be giving weapons to fascist Ukraine? I agree.
An even larger point our host could have made is, the US is a highly militaristic nation. But as a Trumper, our host probably doesn't want to admit either that Trump is a militarist promising "peace through strength" or that the Pentagon is the Deep State, the swamp and Trump was never an enemy of either.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 15 2024 16:05 utc | 74
The postmodern educated infesting the US bureaucracies have led to the American flourish on игра враньо:
The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying but they keep lying anyway, and we keep pretending to believe them.
Posted by: frithguild | Nov 15 2024 16:05 utc | 75
Maleuca 41, that's the wrong Kagan. Trump doesn't know who the neocons are. He's that stupid
Posted by: Scottindallas | Nov 15 2024 16:16 utc | 76
Vargas. The war in Ukraine is costing the leaders in the West not a dime. It's expensive for the taxpaying constituents, not for those in on the graft
Posted by: Scottindallas | Nov 15 2024 16:25 utc | 77
GMC, the Pentagon wasn't budgeted 20 trillion in those 18 years, for much of those years the budget was closer to $500 Trillion. You might discount those sources that can't do 4 th grade math
Posted by: Scottindallas | Nov 15 2024 16:28 utc | 78
It's not the "defense" industry...stoopid. It's the "WarDefense Industry", the last standing major industry right across the fruited plain. That's sposta be a big secret. The bank$ters and hedge funds will bribe, blackmail, lie, assassinate and steal to keep the public tfrom coming to that simple realization.
Costs of production keep jacking upwards. Dirty deals like Lockheed-Martin's trillion dollar plus F-35 Flying Turkey are all about profitable returns for their shareholders. Many folks have been so deliberately dumbed down that they have no concept of the difference between those ownership shareholders and gambling stockholders. Shareholders are inevitably mega billionaires and even trillionaires...the latter being carefully cosseted to where that actuality is hidden amidst a plethora of fake accounting processes, including foundations and even major universities and colleges with their investment portfolios.
Corruption is U.$.
Posted by: aristodemos | Nov 15 2024 16:30 utc | 79
Pentagon fails sixth audit
WASHINGTON - Nov 16, 2023 — For the sixth year in a row, the Pentagon failed its annual audit.
The result is not a surprise. The Department of Defense’s assets are vast and decentralized, amounting to $3.8 trillion alongside $4 trillion in liabilities. These are located in all 50 states and more than 4,500 sites around the world. . .here
Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 15 2024 16:42 utc | 80
Maybe somebody upstream has already put this out...in which case, apologies
In any event, Larry writes of his suspicion of the FBI's confabulation..er..ah..story: "Iran is going to kill 'ya Trump, so like we're your buddies now...don't come after us even though we repeatedly framed you".
I have thought, since I first read this FBI "report" that it was/is a concoction meant to beguile Trump/Trump-people into trusting an agency that tried to put Trump in prison and more than likely aided/looked-the-other-way in the efforts to have Trump murdered.
I add, for those too young to remember, we know for a fact that the FBI cooperated fully in the JFK-assassination cover-up so, this is right up there ally. While lower level FBI agents are dedicated guys we also know that for senior level management FBI stands for Frame Before Investigation.
Posted by: S Brennan | Nov 15 2024 17:18 utc | 81
@ Creative Accountant | Nov 15 2024 15:58 utc | 72
Possibly European number formatting, meant to confuse us in North America who invented maff.
@ Sun of
> Taxes For Revenue Are Obsolete’
OMG. Stop.
If I didn’t have to pay taxes in USD, I wouldn’t hold any USD. (You go right ahead.). Neither would many. Then the value of newly created USD borrowed and spent by USG would fall and fall as USG employees and contractors demand more to make up for lost purchasing power.
I’m flabbergasted.
From your article:
> “The corporation income tax,” Ruml declared, “is an evil tax and it should be abolished.”
Ah, so, that’s what he really wanted: less tax on assets held primarily by the wealthy. The “we don’t need no stinking taxes” was rhetoric for the rubes.
Anyway…WOW. It really amazes me to see smart educated people say such things, unless in jest. For the love of gawd, start adding the sarc tag.
Posted by: I forgot | Nov 15 2024 17:20 utc | 82
The American taxpayer has been getting screwed over for decades now
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Nov 15 2024 15:46 utc | 69
###########
For the umpteenth time, the money is not real. There are still people in the world with no shoes and everyone in America has shoes. There are people in the world starving to death, and in America, there is an obesity epidemic.
The money is a delusion. They move numbers around on computers. That money is created and destroyed on a whim.
Also, it is the Global South that has been getting screwed over and murdered for decades to keep the "Garden (the Golden Billion)" fat and happy.
An Eloi/Morlock dichotomy. Class and Race analysts will understand that reference.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Nov 15 2024 17:29 utc | 83
Marat’s latest about the short cycle and non replacement of air recon assets makes me wonder if someone will sell the us Recon As Service…
Fits the current business model…
https://maratkhairullin.substack.com/p/american-intelligence-has-decided
Posted by: Newbie | Nov 15 2024 17:43 utc | 84
Unrealized losses - quite widespread practice these days. Of course not for you or for me.
Posted by: MorePain4Cakes | Nov 15 2024 17:58 utc | 86
For those who think 'printing money' is a problem, time to understand that taxation 'shreds money', and financial savings, whether bonds or bank accounts, is 'money in a drawer'. That dollar collapse you fantasise about ain't going to happen. The US dollar is an elastic currency zone that grows and shrinks as required to enable all US dollar transactions that can complete to complete.
It can't be modeled as little gold coins in a bag. Those belong solely in the realm of fantasy.
Posted by: The Accountant | Nov 15 2024 8:30 utc | 6
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you, Mr. / Mrs. Accountant. So, now the U.S. and the G7 can stop fucking with the BRICS nations and let them go on with their own business: No harm, no foul? The Empire is safe!
Posted by: Ed | Nov 15 2024 18:04 utc | 87
German Chancellor Scholz also stressed "Germany's unwavering determination to support Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression for as long as necessary".
Exactly 100 days from now it's elections in Germany, and Scholz is history.
Posted by: Passerby | Nov 15 2024 18:07 utc | 88
Some of the russians have noted that Trumps apointments involve several with connections to India.
Other voices on the web seem to believe Trump may be attempting to isolate Russia. If so I dont think that would succeed, but I hope the US instead is able to prepare for a change towards win-win generally.
Posted by: petergrfstrm | Nov 15 2024 18:12 utc | 89
I personally think the CIA pulls funds out of a covert black hole account to do their dirty tricks. As I have always understood, this account is large and can not be audited.
Posted by: Ed | Nov 15 2024 18:15 utc | 90
"Ukraine’s military is retreating from the city of Kurakhovo in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and a number of nearby villages due to a severe lack of personnel, ammunition, and plummeting morale, a Russian gunner from the crew of a BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system revealed.
Desperate attempts by the enemy to resupply ammunition, manpower, and equipment are being crushed with relentless firepower, the soldier from Russia's fierce Battlegroup Yug added."
There they go. Time to resurrect the old Beatles meme of 'helter-skelter'.
The collapse is coming.
Posted by: Jams O'Donnell | Nov 15 2024 18:17 utc | 91
Ed@1815
There will be a number of posters...and lurkers...here who are unaware that the original Moneypot for the Agency was the smuggling of heroin from the Golden Triangle region of Laos, Burma and remaining Nationalist strongholds in southern China. During the Vietnam invasion, it has been reported that the same agents were responsible for smuggling packets of heroin into the States in the body cavities of KIA American soldiers. When the NVA ultimately reunited their country in the mid 70's, that particular "ratline" was abruptly terminated.
Fast forward to the U$$A invasion of Afghanistan. One of the primary reasons for that invasion was that the Taliban had outlawed poppy cultivation in that battered land. Utilizing the usual tactics of blackmail, bribery and occasional assassinations; the perps engineered that incursion...in order to RESTORE their heroin "black money" source. Sure enough, American occupation of many sectors in Afghanistan; the poppy fields and the "cooking" system quickly reappeared and thus, the Agency was back in the black money game.
Was Trump's statements about cleaning up the FeeBees and the Agency nothing but campaign rhetoric? Maybe not, if Tulsi Gabbard is not taken down in House and Senate hearings by "compromised lawmakers". She may not have the balls, being female, but she is not only highly intelligent and wise to the games...but also has a strong heart and a sense of dedication.
All the best for that brave woman from Hawaii. The FBI must be eliminated, due to a long history of corruption, reaching clear back to J. Edna Hoover, the self-hating drag-queen who hoovered up all the dirt heshe could get the agents to dig up. The old game of bribery and blackmail has long been the criminal FeeBee's M.O. The Agency, particularly the operations sector will be a tough set of nuts to crack. Could be Tulsi has the indomitable tits to pull off that feat.
Posted by: aristodemos | Nov 15 2024 18:45 utc | 92
Posted by: Newbie | Nov 15 2024 17:43 utc | 83
I read that Marat piece; was astonished to read about the U-2 “comeback tour”.
Any Pentagon auditors could claim they still haven’t found what they’re looking for...
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Nov 15 2024 18:47 utc | 93
> Fourth Time The Pentagon Is Faking The Books For Ukraine
no, not "FOR ukraine"
BY Ukraine maybe
it is not cashing out, it merely is domestic money laundering, using Ukraine as a politically correct (yet) pretext, cover.
> Luckily, not all of the money will reach Ukraine
or, most probably, no money at all
Pentagon would look over their landfills again, would assemble a token package of rusty ancient hadrware, useless even if it was newly mader, but actionally it would again be partly cannibalized and partly broken, then slap the absurd pricetag pulled out of thin air, and draw real money from US budget in exchange for this garbage that is not worth even it's own weight in scrap metal.
Remember the price of USArmy WCs in Afghanistan? Ukraine would mostly get useless terminally broken cars for $100M a piece, just to create this "money for Ukraine" pretense. The money would be just pocketed in US.
It is just the final thieving rush hour, before Trump takes the control and "turns the spigot" on DEM thief, because he has his own "friends with benefits" to share US budget with
Posted by: Arioch | Nov 15 2024 18:54 utc | 94
The whole US Government is one decades old accounting error...why anyone would buy its longterm bonds escapes me..
Posted by: Pyrrhus | Nov 15 2024 19:05 utc | 95
LoveDonbass (82).
Created on a computer - or not, its effect are 100% real; yes I realise that many in the Global South are suffering greatly often due to imperialism, colonialism, global corporations actions, regime changes - and belligerent foreign polices - the last one with America in mind - is funded by the US taxpayer, and computer created funds, - they are paying to enrich the politicians - the IMC and the US corporations who benefit from US belligerent foreign policies.
Whilst back in the States many folk are sleeping in cardboard boxes the size of small towns - dotted across the states known as Obamavilles - many Americans have no or can't afford medical insurance - and US infrastructure is in serious decline - and the police, dress more like front line special forces with all the weapons and tec - whilst the NSA grows in numbers to suppress any likely uprising to address serious misgivings.
Europe and the UK have also moved in this direction - and this has been exposed by the Zionists genocide with many countries using strict authoritarian laws (nwely introduced) to shut people up - to arrest them - or investigate them with virtually no evidence laid out against them - its almost becoming Stasi like
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Nov 15 2024 19:09 utc | 96
Posted by: ThirdWorldDude | Nov 15 2024 14:46 utc | 58
Of course it is bound to be a coincidence (lol) that on 9/11 the investigators into those missing trillion$ were blown up by the "plane" that supposedly hit the pentagon. Not a surprise that no one since has cared to investigate the missing trillion$ that keep accumulating.
Posted by: Snowleopard | Nov 15 2024 19:29 utc | 97
Melakeuca @ 41:
As far as I can tell, the judge Elena Kagan (born 1960) is not related to Victoria Nuland or her in-laws. At the same time, Victoria Nuland does have a daughter called Elena Kagan. One has to remember these Elenas are two separate people.
Kagan is a form of the name Cohen. As a surname, Cohen and all surnames derived from it (others include Kaganovich, Kahan and possibly Kahn) are very common among Ashkenazic Jews.
Posted by: Refinnejenna | Nov 15 2024 19:32 utc | 98
Amazing that an entity so murky and unwieldy that it cannot be audited effectively can “find” billions of dollars whenever it wants.
Posted by: Sick and tired | Nov 15 2024 19:45 utc | 99
The USA can endlessly print money.
That is their strength.
The middle classes around the world trust and adore the USA.
This war is the war between money printers and producers of real material stuff.
Money printers would turn Ukraine into terrorist state, armed with nuclear weapons.
Posted by: vargas | Nov 15 2024 10:52 utc | 18
Artful Ignorance. Printing money faster than the growth of the economy, including the non-economy of churning stocks and gambling assets, results in rising prices. Often unevenly.
It is not endless, although to the ignorant observer it may seem so.
An economy rich in varied real resources can always find a way to fund itself, internally, externally or both.
But a money printing machines cannot, of itself, create a real economy. If that were so, Ukraine wouldn't need Europe or the U.S.
Posted by: kupkee | Nov 15 2024 19:54 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
They are just printing money, that has been going on for years, for decades the national debt has been increasing until the sky is the limit.
It will still be a bitter pill for them if the dollar gets a serious correction, moreover that whole fake country cannot expect any support geopolitically.
Nobody, not a single ally will want to help America, and they won't be able to, once the dollar causes a crisis, it will be even worse elsewhere.
This is what Papa Biden's geopolitical defeat looks like, learn to live with it...
Posted by: Faraday | Nov 15 2024 7:39 utc | 1