Ahh good lot of stuff to get through b.
Before I lay down the heavy barrage here’s a nugget most might have missed.
Elon The Great has a swarthy Rival.
Phwoar! as my missus says and our gay friends too getting suddenly past their ‘all things Poootin is bad’ – yup I have dumb family and friends too but slowly slowly they are awakening.
‘Russians With Attitude
@RWApodcast
17h
Dmitry Bakanov has been appointed as the CEO of the Roscosmos State Space Corporation. He has a successful background in the IT industry and in a satellite systems company. Seems like a powerful choice.
Feb 7, 2025 · 9:12 PM UTC
Russians With Attitude
@RWApodcast
16h
When the Russian ruling class rejuvenates and respectfully dismisses most of its older members, it will be a new country. Without the baggage of the XX century and with work experience in the private sector, new leaders will be more intelligent, more efficient, and more ruthless ‘
Dmitry is what Musk wants to be when he grows up 😂

Posted by: DunGroanin | Feb 9 2025 14:33 utc | 3

A very provocative title of a video: “Capitalism is over. What’s next”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNblIGVKgks (length: 17 minutes)

Posted by: WMG | Feb 9 2025 14:43 utc | 5

@too scents #2
Gold bugs are happy, but insurance investment in gold is as stupid as imaginable.
Among other things: gold price increases have lagged inflation even during its recent rise.
The challenge insurance companies, pension funds, etc have always had is that they are limited in what they are allowed to invest in, but at the same time are ultimately on the hook if they cannot get enough yield on their float to meet survival and payout draws.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 9 2025 15:03 utc | 7

On the Front Lines Against Bird Flu, Egg Farmers Say They’re Losing the Battle

If Bird Flu achieves human-to-human transmission, we won’t be having an origins controversy: We will have done it to ourselves as the outcome of an enormous experiment on the human population run by Big Ag, the USDA, and CDC. Everybody will have played their part.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/bird-flu.html

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Feb 9 2025 15:07 utc | 9

– @B: Thanks !!!!

Posted by: WMG | Feb 9 2025 15:09 utc | 11

@Roger Boyd:
– Perhaps Todd’s analysis may have some weak spots but I DO NOT consider his book to “utter nonsense”. Far from. Other people have previously said similar things but I think Todd ties together A LOT OF more things to a more consistent theory.

Posted by: WMG | Feb 9 2025 15:24 utc | 13

thanks b!
@ wwg – i have enjoyed listening to emmanuel todd videos and articles i have read.. he brings insights that are quite relevant as i see it..there is an english translation which was available for free which i have, but have not read yet.. when i was in france, i bought a copy for a friend who is fluent in french..

Posted by: james | Feb 9 2025 16:00 utc | 15

@John Gilberts 1
Thank you for bringing up the ongoing conflict in Eastern Congo, and the takeover of the city of Goma (pop 782 000) by M23 with the help of Rwanda. I’m not very well informed about these events, aside from what I’ve picked up on French radio. I’ve been looking forward to a discussion here at the bar. The absence of any discussion is a bit disappointing.
Unfortunately I have too little time due to work demands to investigate it further. I’m sure if a city of over 700 000 inhabitants fell practically overnight in Ukraine, the discussion thread here could reach 1 000 comments.

Posted by: kvp | Feb 9 2025 16:43 utc | 17

Re: deficits and De-Dollarization ?
Solid German financial press review of the challenge and possible responses ; apparently one solution is a cartel of Central Banks holding interest rates lower than nominal growth rate. ( use Machine translation)
https://www.handelsblatt.com/meinung/kolumnen/us-notenbank-nicht-nur-donald-trump-braucht-niedrige-zinsen/100106339.html

Posted by: Exile | Feb 9 2025 17:32 utc | 19

People still don’t believe me when I say this was not about USAID or US foreign policy.
What are they going to gut next ( which is illegal by the way) as it has bypassed congress.
What else do They not ideologically believe in ?

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Feb 9 2025 17:40 utc | 21

Todd is utter cultural bullshit misdirection.
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Feb 9 2025 15:02 utc | 6
Respectfully disagree. Todd’s book contains some valuable insights and should of be read critically. Yeah, he’s not a Marxist, but if that’s the litmus test, we wouldn’t have much to read. There is a chapter in his book however that repeats the slanders on the American working class, so common amongst bourgeois intellectuals and trolls here. This chapter is really the essence of my disagreement with Todd.
And, he does use anthropology a little too much in the analysis. Still that is a material science. Although not as precise and clear as Hudson, it still reveals more truth about the world situation, than most bourgeois academics are willing to do nowadays.
No support for WMG either. Promoting “the end of capitalism”. Give me a fucking break! Your soaking in it, dipshit.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Feb 9 2025 17:57 utc | 23

Lithuanian president today with von der Leyen celebrated the detaching of electric grid from the Russian grid. Immediate effects are electricity prices jumping on average 2.5x in the Baltic states, and even more in Finland.
Apparently their goal was to isolate and cut off power from Kaliningrad, but they didn’t consider Kaliningrad has its own electric generation 4x of peak usage.

Posted by: unimperator | Feb 9 2025 18:04 utc | 25

…
Posted by: Dogon Priest | Feb 9 2025 17:11 utc | 18
(A General Overview of the Chinese Military by Andrew & Victoria)
This essay overlooks the fact that, in ~1990 +/- 5 years, Russia and China jointly announced that they have crossed the threshold of the Missile Age.
Since neither country is seeking territorial expansion, China won’t need an expeditionary army to occupy a country which has attacked it. China can disable/destroy the adversary with long-range missiles. Missiles can also sink ships so that places a foreign expeditionary force near China in great peril – a long way from home or help.
The essay insinuates that the Chinese leadership suffers from tunnel vision and/or ineptitude. There is no evidence that China carries either burden.
Look up the 2024 TV documentary The New Trade War and skip to the end where Xi briefly outlines his vision for, and committment to, China’s future.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 9 2025 18:14 utc | 27

@ Sun Of Alabama | Feb 9 2025 17:40 utc | 21
you’d benefit from reading some of the links that b so graciously posted here, starting with the one at the top from lee fang..

Posted by: james | Feb 9 2025 18:23 utc | 29

Europe is lost. Celebrating our own impoverishment. Paying higher energy bills. Destroying our own industry. No wonder the US doesn’t take us seriously. And treats us like a vasal. The great statesmen of Europe went to bed long ago.
https://x.com/johnnyjmils/status/1888642986273312783

Posted by: unimperator | Feb 9 2025 18:37 utc | 31

@Sun Of Alabama #20
Meh. Just because the CFPB *could* do some good, does not mean it *has* done some good.
I don’t see any “consumer protections” in the credit card sphere, for example.
But the biggest problem I have with your focus on CFPB is that you clearly are failing to understand that Trump and Musk are hitting ALL the US departments: State, Defense, Interior, Agriculture, Treasury, etc etc etc.
This isn’t a liberal/Democrat targeted purge per se, it is a top to bottom audit of everything, everywhere which is under the Executive Branch.
The core principle is: If the President is the head of the Executive Branch, does he or does he not have the authority to run said Executive branch any which way he sees fit.
The Deep State is trying to say no – the President does NOT have the authority to run all the agencies in the Executive Branch even though he is their legal and Constitutional head.
Well fuck them.
Of course, the fact that the vast majority of Federal bureaucrats are Democrat party supporters, that’s just gravy.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 9 2025 18:45 utc | 33

– Nihilism ? Too strong of a word. I think that pure unadulterated “financial greed” has become the new religion.
Take e.g. the Ukraine. NATO told Zelensky that the Ukraine wouldn’t be able to join NATO (in the near future). But publicly NATO continued to say that the Ukraine would join NATO. This was in spite the fact that the aim was to “weaken Russia as much as possible”.
So, I assume NATO knew that the Ukraine wasn’t able to beat Russia even with help of NATO. Russia was to be weakened as much as possible. Then Russia was to be torn into shreds so NATO / US would be able to play a game of “divide and rule” and in the process the Ukraine would be destroyed as much as possible as well.
Now here comes the most cynical part. I fear that the aim was to destroy both Russia and the Ukraine (as much as possible) and then all kind of western companies would have been able to rob both the Ukraine and Russia blind as much as possible without any of little regard for the people of Russia and the Ukraine.
I fear that with the Ukraine severely weakened this game called “rob them blind” will still continue to be played in the Ukraine in the near future (without the ukrainian people enjoying any benefits of the robbing of their resources). It’s nihilistic capitalism at its best.
I also fear that this is the game Trump and his capitalistic/nihilistic buddies are going to play.
There was a video in which RF Kennedy JR told that Zelensky already had signed a nukmber of deals with a whole range of companies to “exploit” the natural resources of the Ukraine. Nihilistic Capitlaism at its best.

Posted by: WMG | Feb 9 2025 18:48 utc | 35

Posted by: WMG | Feb 9 2025 18:48 utc | 35
Gut feeling says USAID dismantling does a lot of damage to Nato war effort in Ukraine. 90% of Ukrainian propaganda channels vanish into thin air with no more funding. Previously mobilization exempted reporters and USAID now put to front lines. The thing will fall, more switch to Russian ranks or surrender, Nato loses grip, at least east of Dnieper. Kiev will become a cheap whorehouse with a lot of unemployed TikTokers and USAID employed propagandists. The new capital will be Zaporozhye or Dnepropetrovsk, which is RU oriented or at minimum neutral.
The bonus would be Nikolaev and Odessa oblast to the new Dnepropetrovsk based government, which can easily sway Romania and Hungary, and begin a death spiral of EU/Nato dismantling.

Posted by: unimperator | Feb 9 2025 18:55 utc | 37

This is an amusing explanation of DOGE: https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government
A serious subject taken seriously but not solemnly is the best kind of satire. Truth is gallows humor at its finest?

Posted by: steven t johnson | Feb 9 2025 19:10 utc | 39

@Posted by: WMG | Feb 9 2025 15:11 utc | 12
I have painfully come to the conclusion that Varoufakis is controlled opposition as he displays the classic symptoms of always pulling his punches and misdirection. So, again stop sharing your slop and go do your homework.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Feb 9 2025 19:24 utc | 41

@Posted by: WMG | Feb 9 2025 18:17 utc | 28
Hudson also deals with many of these issues, Gramsci integrates politics, economy and culture as Marx did (if you actually read his work you will find this). Gramsci improved upon Marx. Chinese socialism also very much integrates these.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Feb 9 2025 19:30 utc | 43

@Posted by: kvp | Feb 9 2025 16:33 utc | 16
The usual cultural dross BS to cover up the actual underlying political economy. He uses a very large amount of selective reporting and mis-definition to make the data fit his ridiculous theories. The “men are only really creative when they are sexually deprived” theories don’t merit any serious consideration. His examples tend also to be predominantly Eurocentric. Let’s see him try to deal with the success of China, Vietnam etc. and their ups and downs in history. Utterly simplistic, single-variable causation rubbish.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Feb 9 2025 19:35 utc | 45

@Posted by: migueljose | Feb 9 2025 18:47 utc | 34
Thankyou for your post. The destruction of the socialist revolution in Ecuador, and all the benefits that it brought to the Ecuadorian people, is so sad. The traitor Moreno destroyed the legacy of Correa so fast, and then handed over to Lasso who combined with the narcos to produce hell in the nation. Then the people turned to the strongman Noboa (the son of the country’s biggest oligarch) in the highly manipulated elections (I am convinced that the oligarchy murdered that presidential candidate to stoke the levels of fear).
And now even in Gonzalez wins she will preside over the utter destruction of Correa’s legacy (and Correa was not perfect, he made mistakes) and the hell-hole that the narco-capitalists have delivered, under the IMF loan the traitor Moreno foisted on the country. The same old story, just like in Argentina. Hopefully we are not seeing the same being done to Bolivia, but the situation there is worrying.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Feb 9 2025 19:45 utc | 47

Capitalism exists outside of government. Get rid of all government and capitalism would still be there.
It is not a form of government. It is a philosophy practiced by the powerful since forever. It’s the law of commerce and economics. Communists, socialists, theocracies, dictatorships of all sorts all practice capitalism to some extent.
It’s the human game…capitalization of resources and opportunities.
The USA is a republic and faux democracy. Capitalism is a big part of it, but it exists with or without the USA.
Saying capitalism will end is the same as saying that the human race will cease to exist in its current form or in its entirety.

Posted by: A rope leash | Feb 9 2025 19:58 utc | 49

@Posted by: A rope leash | Feb 9 2025 19:58 utc | 49
Utter bullshit. Capitalism relies on the sanctity of private property that is protected by the state. Take away the state and you get feudalism. Markets can easily exist without capitalism, they existed for centuries under feudalism and other social arrangements – markets do not make a society capitalist. The dominance of society by a bourgeois elite make a country capitalist.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Feb 9 2025 20:05 utc | 51

Thank you, B, for linking “Musk’s digital coup in Washington: Effects and prospects” by one Helena Cobban.
In spite of its dry style, her text is actually quite hilarious. And I’ve got to give her credit for getting the importance and magnitude of the DOGE tsunami right, and the technical implications. That’s impressive for her age. Everything else, this Englishwoman intentionally and wilfully misunderstands and hence misrepresents.
Yes, Musk is unelected – and so is everyone else of the people he’s currently giving the boot to.
No, Musk is not there as a “private individual” and he is not “non-governmental”. It’s glaringly obvious. He and the body he leads are a perfectly legitimate part of Trump’s administration.
Deal with it maybe, even if Helena Cobban’s very own taxpayer-funded “NGOs” will now wither away?
No, instead she’s calling for “constitutional protections” against the elected head of the administration administering the administration. It’s beyond silly – and a bit thick, coming from someone born the subject of a deranged, constitution-less kingdom.

Posted by: Scotch Bingeington | Feb 9 2025 20:08 utc | 53

On the CFPB, an agency I’ve come to believe is actually doing good things:
https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/revolution-town

Of all of the federal government’s departments, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is perhaps the most straightforwardly helpful to the public. It tries, within the confines of bureaucracy, to stop people from getting ripped off. It does not leaven its work with plots to destabilize foreign governments or spy on subversives. It is Consumer Reports with enforcement powers, providing a modest firewall against the constant deluge of banks and tech companies that make it their business to refine the practice of confusing people and deluging them with misleading verbiage and picking their pockets. If the CFPB was the size of the CIA, all Americans would be better off.
So naturally it is being dismantled, as a favor to the very sort of people who were the subjects of its enforcement. Russell Vought, Trump’s unblinking bureaucratic hatchet-wielder, who has spent a lifetime of dark nights pleasuring himself to the idea of a government that does nothing for anyone, has ordered the CFPB to cease all activity. Elon Musk, after a single day’s work of his destructa-kids, on Friday tweeted “CFPB RIP,” the act of a Wild West conman selling fraudulent patent medicines and thumbing his nose at the sheriff he just shot, before riding on to the next town.

On the CFPB and credit cards (and consumer credit in general):
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/understand-how-cfpb-debt-collection-rule-impacts-you/
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-finalizes-rule-to-remove-medical-bills-from-credit-reports/
So, yes. They have taken some actions. At the very least they’re chronicling the surge in predatory credit practices that drive the massive amount of consumer debt in the US.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 9 2025 20:21 utc | 55

@Roger Boyd | Feb 9 2025 20:09 utc | 54,
Thanks for the reply. If that is the case, I don’t think those are deserved to be called “intellectuals”. They are more like the Chinese terms BaiTso (白左, idiotic left) and GongZhi (公知， public “intellectual”).

Posted by: LuRenJian | Feb 9 2025 20:24 utc | 57

Capitalism and free markets are very different … you can have either w/o the other. As just an example, you can have worker-owned co-op businesses (like the engineering company I work for) that participate in free markets and this is very different from the same companies under capitalist owners, as in the former the means of production and decision making is controlled by the workers themselves.
I don’t agree with his marxism but Dr. Richard Wolff explains the differences very well.

Posted by: Caliman | Feb 9 2025 20:27 utc | 59

One wonders how many “Controlled Offensive Behavior” leftists the CIA was able to create through MKUltra and other such programs (h/t to those discussing Laurel Canyon in yesterday’s thread).
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001300010001-7
Many years before Ochs’ metamorphosis, in an interesting bit of foreshadowing, psychological warfare operative George Estabrooks explained how US intelligence agencies could create the perfect spy: “We start with an excellent subject … we need a man or woman who is highly intelligent and physically tough. Then we start to develop a case of multiple personality through hypnotism. In his normal waking state, which we will call Personality A, or PA, this individual will become a rabid communist. He will join the party, follow the party line and make himself as objectionable as possible to the authorities. Note that he will be acting in good faith. He is a communist, or rather his PA is a communist and will behave as such. Then we develop Personality B (PB), the secondary personality, the unconscious personality, if you wish, although this is somewhat of a contradiction in terms. This personality is rabidly American and anti-communist. It has all the information possessed by PA, the normal personality, whereas PA does not have this advantage … My super spy plays his role as a communist in his waking state, aggressively, consistently, fearlessly.
But his PB is a loyal American, and PB has all the memories of PA. As a loyal American, he will not hesitate to divulge those memories.”
Estabrooks never explained what would happen if the programming were to go haywire and Personality B were to become the conscious personality, but my guess is that such a person would be considered a severe liability and would be treated accordingly. They might even be find themselves swinging from the end of a rope. Phil Ochs was thirty-five at the time of his death.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 9 2025 20:50 utc | 61

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 9 2025 20:54 utc | 62
Us superb owls don’t give a hoot about the Super Bowl.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 9 2025 21:00 utc | 63

Posted by: too scents | Feb 9 2025 14:30 utc | 2
Exactly the same as the Chinese tin pot oil refineries. No big deal.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 9 2025 20:21 utc | 55
Well said Tom.

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Feb 9 2025 21:15 utc | 65

The core principle is: If the President is the head of the Executive Branch, does he or does he not have the authority to run said Executive branch any which way he sees fit ?
Posted by: c1ue | Feb 9 2025 18:45 utc | 33
Nope he does not. Unless he wants to become an authoritarian leader. Have you not watched a budget proposal over the last century and how it actual works before ?
https://www.crisesnotes.com/author/crisesnotes/
“The OMB order :
As OMB says, this affects appropriations which amounted to nearly three trillion dollars in the 2024 fiscal year. In particular, the memo didn’t list any programs it applied to.
Besides the chaos, another reason the OMB guidance was rescinded was that a DC court was in the process of issuing an injunction against the freeze. Why? Because the OMB guidance was wildly unconstitutional. The president does not have the authority to pick and choose which laws to implement. As the constitution puts it, the President has the responsibility to “faithfully execute the laws”.
On top of that constitutional law states Congress has the “power of the purse”, and this was the president trying to take control of the purse strings.
What the OMB guidance did is known in constitutional terms as “impoundment”. Impoundment is only constitutional if the legislation “appropriating” funds to be disbursed authorizes the president to spend less than what was appropriated.
Note that they are legislative proposals because these require statutory authorization and cannot legally be done unilaterally. They would also cost money to enact, which requires appropriations. Conversely, if an agency is illegally not paying someone who should be paid, it is the responsibility of the Judiciary, Congress or oversight bodies in the executive branch to deal with this problem.
In the 2024 fiscal year the Treasury’s internal payments system processed 1.4 billion payments with an aggregate monetary value of $5.4 trillion. This is 88 percent of the total payments the federal government makes.
It is not the job of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service to do the due diligence others were supposed do considering they have very little staff that is an enormous task. Nor is discretionarily stopping payments at the operational payments level remotely consistent with even the barest minimum standard of due process of law. What their job is is to serve as a payments intermediary between the rest of the Federal Government and the wider payments system by routing payments to recipients through the Federal Reserve and onto the banking system. ”
If Trumps team don’t back off it will be the biggest constitutional crises since the civil war. Hence why Musk’s programmer resigned. He knew it, everybody knows it.
What happens from here is anyone’s guess.

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Feb 9 2025 22:08 utc | 67

Now go away and do your homework on political economy and actual reality before polluting this site with such trash.
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Feb 9 2025 15:07 utc | 10
Geez…who peed in your cheerios this morning?

Posted by: Mary | Feb 9 2025 22:37 utc | 69

could someone from the US help me out here, and explain the fascination with the superb owl?
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 9 2025 20:54 utc | 62
A superb owl sat on a nearby fence post & oversaw the building of my barn. He was so superbowly calm he let me take his pic from less than an arm’s length away.

Posted by: Mary | Feb 9 2025 22:46 utc | 71

Posted by: kspr | Feb 9 2025 22:54 utc | 72
##################
You’re glowing.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 9 2025 23:13 utc | 73

Trump’s executive order to begin the process of establishing a sovereign wealth fund (SWF) for the United States.
Again people called me out when I said Trumps team looks through a gold standard, fixed exchange rate lens. Doesn’t understand modern money. The librarian gold bugs had a cheek to call me crazy for even suggesting such a thing.
The truth is The US Needs a Sovereign Wealth Fund Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle.
The Why is explained here:
https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/the-us-needs-a-sovereign-wealth-fund
The main reason being is that Even if it became “one of the biggest sovereign wealth funds” in the world, it wouldn’t give the federal government any more spending power it doesn’t already have. Quite simply because as everybody knows the US issues the $.
The gold standard, fixed exchange rate thinking doesn’t stop there…..
The administration sees it as a way to turn a relatively small pile of cash into a much bigger slush fund. Even though the US administration can create and issue $’s at will.
People are obviously asking a very simple question. since the U.S. runs neither budget surpluses nor large trade surpluses, everyone is wondering where the Trump administration expects to “find” the small pile of cash to seed the sovereign wealth in the first place ??
I reasonable question many would think apart from the fact they think the US can’t issue $’s in the first place.
Here’s their solution ……. Wait for it , wait for it…
Trump has floated the idea of directing revenue from tariffs into the Sovereign wealth fund, and the fact sheet that accompanied his executive order pointed to a “vast sum of highly valued assets that can be invested through a sovereign wealth fund for greater long-term wealth generation.” To turn those highly valued assets into cash-on-the-books, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. will “monetize the asset side” of the federal balance sheet.
And that….
One of the assets that might be slated for the monetization scheme is gold. The idea is that the U.S. Treasury could revalue America’s gold stocks, which are currently valued at $42.22 per troy ounce in national accounts. If they were accounted for at current market values—around $2,800 an ounce that “it could inject $800bn into the Treasury General Account (TGA), via a repurchase agreement.
By topping up the balance in the TGA, the move would also create additional breathing room with the debt ceiling limit (since Treasury could issue fewer bonds).
At this point, Secretary Bessent hasn’t indicated that revaluing America’s gold stock is part of the president’s plan. But she suggests that investors would be wise to take the prospect seriously, because “Bessent has an incentive to be creative, given the scary fiscal hole.”
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
It is hilarious !!!!
If that doesn’t prove beyond any doubt that Trumps advisors see the American monetary system through a gold standard, fixed exchange rate lens then nothing does.
” We don’t have any money. So we have to ….. ”
a) Use tariffs to fund the Sovereign wealth fund.
b) Revalue American gold stocks to today’s value to give us more money to spend.
Ha, ha, ha, ha Brilliant !!!
The libertarian gold bugs had the cheek to call me crazy. Told you all along how they view the world. They are insane.
I rest my case your honour.

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Feb 9 2025 23:15 utc | 75

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Feb 9 2025 23:15 utc | 75
Impossible. Kamala won because women voted for her to save abortion rights, as you so confidently predicted.

Posted by: UWDude | Feb 9 2025 23:27 utc | 77

Interesting.
Japanese Prime Minister undertook his pilgrimage to the White House…..and then…

Japan considering accepting Gazans for medical aid: Prime minister
… Islamuddin Sajid. ISLAMABAD
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said his government is considering offering medical support in Japan to Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, local media reported.
“We’re making efforts to find ways to accept people in Japan who have fallen ill or been injured in Gaza,” Ishiba told a parliamentary session, according to Kyodo News Agency.
He added that Japan will also try to launch a special program for Palestinian students to study at Japanese universities.
Last month during a visit to Malaysia, Ishiba said his country would facilitate the development of Palestine.
Later, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said his government will establish a fund along with Japan to build hospitals, schools and mosques in Gaza which have been destroyed by Israel’s genocidal war since October 2023.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/japan-considering-accepting-gazans-for-medical-aid-prime-minister/3470767
Curious. What was the carrot what was the stick what was the SanctionsFromHell that Trump wielded ????

Posted by: Melaleuca | Feb 10 2025 0:11 utc | 79

Who’s watching The Stupor Bowl?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 10 2025 0:24 utc | 81

An okay video less than twenty minutes long about historical US and USSR space and/or high altitude* nuclear tests/explosions, some of the physical results including EMP, and the resulting treaties. Ignore the little bit about Russian space-based weapons that sneaks in towards the end and keep going; as MoA readers should/will know the person who made the video is simply misinformed from living in the MSM bubble.
[Astrum] The Big Problem that Happened after We Nuked Space
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPq5fGZdUJo
Alternatively for download:
https://www.ssyoutube.com/watch?v=oPq5fGZdUJo
* The Kármán line is set at 100 kilometers by the FAI and is the closest there is to an international definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Feb 10 2025 0:47 utc | 83

I am well beyond certain prognostications, but I still like to try and guess, in this chaotic world, with red headed commander of chaos quickly re-assurting his authority.
The USAID freeze, et al, is just a vulgar display of power telling all government employees to submit, or fond work elsewhere.
He will take back those who bend the knee, and USAID et al, will still exist, though ten stone slimmer, via self-exile.
The story from Japan is wonderful news. Isn’t Trump in a meeting with the pm of Japan today or yesterday?
Hard to criticize, except that it may never happen.
On the hope side,Japan is slightly more antisemitic, and was ally to world’s biggest noticer once.
Speaking of which, an anecdote, somebody I know was just kicked put of his parents house because they found out he was miscegenatin.
Damn racist Indians. When will the hate stop?
Never, especially with agents of destabilization and chaos everywhere collecting profit and power from it, and splitting it among the oligarchs.
This is likely a form of hegemonic projection that will only fade away two or three hundred years from now.
Long story short, dont tell me Japan would be offering assistance to Palestinians under Kamala.
Of course, there is also that matter of Trump et al defining Jews as Palestine. These people are clever. pagers, night goggles, illicit hezbollah explosives harbored in Beirut. We will never know the last.
By Deception thou shallst war.

Posted by: UWDude | Feb 10 2025 1:06 utc | 85

DH: Prof Richard Wolff – ‘The Collapse is Here’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paNpI6zfnpM
“The fall of the US empire – US denial, Europe burns, BRICS and China rise. The hard truth for the US empire and its client states in the West…”

Posted by: John Gilberts | Feb 10 2025 1:35 utc | 87

@Roger Boyd | Feb 9 2025 20:05 utc | 51
“The dominance of society by a bourgeois elite make a country capitalist.”
Of course. The oppression of the informed and connected over the desperate and ignorant masses has always been and it will always be for the hapless human race. Private ownership of business for profit is just business in a free civilization, and would exist in some form on its own without formal government.
Exploitation of lowly rubes is a way of life for all capitalists. It’s a big club, but minuscule compared to the big club containing the rest of the human race.
There are capitalistic aspects to socialism and authoritarianism. Not everybody gets to play, though.
Capitalism is a way of life. It will never go away until the human race returns to its primitive form…but even a cave man understood the power of a club. There will always be lords over humanity. It is what it is.
How’s that for utter bullshit?

Posted by: A rope leash | Feb 10 2025 2:12 utc | 89

@ c1ue | Feb 9 2025 18:39 utc | 32
You are right that demographic trends can change, of course, even though there is a certain amount of lag involved, even in the French example you gave.
But the current trends everywhere are down, down, down, even in Africa. No country now has the historic pre-birth-control total fertility rate of eight. Niger is the highest now, but even it is under seven, and almost all other countries are under six, with an annual decline going on almost everywhere. This is a spectacular refutation of the expectation of Paul Erlich in The Population Bomb and of course threatens as well to undermine capitalism, perhaps presaging something else.
The precise cause of this is no doubt multifaceted. The economic conditions you specified, the lack of ability to earn a living wage, must indeed be paramount, but there are probably many other factors. Some think there is an unidentified environmental factor coming from some particular chemical or combination of chemicals spread around the earth by technology, and that would not be impossible. There is also definitely the cost of raising children, who no longer bring economic benefit by working so young but have so many expensive needs. And what about dismal apocalyptic expectations that the world is soon going to be destroyed by one of the converging lines of annihilation or another? That one I see from my college students all the time, and they have plenty of mental problems as well, though these indeed are often traceable to the dysfunctional and cruel economic system.
Should the total fertility rate continue its plunge, which may not take place but is possible, it could still lead to a changing demography, for while some countries might tread water by approaching zero population growth, others might undergo a mass die-off. What will be the fate of South Korea’s 51 million people should the fertility rate reach say 0.5 children per woman. Right now, there is a mass movement of women in Korea rejection childbearing, and maybe marriage too. So the emancipation of women and third-wave feminism could play a role in this as well. It would be quite interesting in the future to see cities full of abandoned skyscrapers.

Posted by: Cabe | Feb 10 2025 2:33 utc | 91

Posted by: Cabe | Feb 10 2025 2:33 utc | 91
Its everything you said and dozens of other things. There is also porn, contraception, feminism, and social media, all just completely causing a time of chaos.
Humanity will stabilize, but its gonna be weird for a couple more decades at least.

Posted by: UWDude | Feb 10 2025 2:48 utc | 93

Trump Says He is Serious About Canada Becoming 51st State in Super Bowl Interview
https://nationalnewswatch.com/2025/02/09/trump-says-he-is-serious-about-canada-becoming-51st-state-in-super-bowl-interview
“President Donald Trump said he is serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state in an interview that aired Sunday during the Super Bowl preshow.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada would be better off if it agreed to become the 51st US state – a prospect that is deeply unpopular among Canadians.
Trump said he would on Monday announce a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the US, including from Canada and Mexico and a plan for reciprocal tariffs later in the week…”

Posted by: John Gilberts | Feb 10 2025 3:02 utc | 95

10 year 4,48%

Posted by: Exile | Feb 10 2025 3:48 utc | 97

The past two weeks have turned our present ‘interesting times’ into a kaleidoscopic mess, but I have a feeling there is method to this madness. I know it’s bonkers, but the general outlook has a lot in common with what the QAnon info op related during Trump’s first term. Already back then I thought this was likely done in preparation of a deep state turf war offensive by a faction we now may call the ‘realists’, who rose against the ‘globalists’ whom I shall not further explore at this point. Make up your own mind. A good primer on the scenario is given by former Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in a recent letter published at LifeSiteNews, which is somewhat hard to find, full-on alu cap material.
On a related note, pizza gate is real [if the link doesn’t work, use google trends to compare pizza gate with fake news, post truth, postfaktisch, alternative facts and what other of those strange orwellic concoctions you remember, to reveal this was a bullshit operation intended to drown out the news after the Podesta emails emerged into public].
There are other, more classically strategic rearrangements in play, too. The World War is not yet over, but it looks a lot like the original combatants UK and Germany are by now basically ground to dust between the US and Russia, with the latter now about to achieve full victory. Japan fell aside, Persia is still standing, Israel is but a nuisance in more general terms, and of course the rise of China overshadows the whole thing. If you’re America at this point, you will do well to realize what’s about to happen, and act accordingly to prepare for the defeat. It was a stupid idea to begin with, World Domination my ass, dear Yankees, but alas. — The major aim must be to reorient their strategic zones of interest, and to develop a competitive nation-state to adequately play a role in the new context of multipolarity.
This is not a trivial matter if you’re the US. The most basic problem the US is facing is very much a philosophical one: they need a new body of ethics, to allow for community development and policies which then enable an economic rebound with a long-term perspective to compete somewhat on par with the Eurasian powers. Education is a major deficit; but there’s also the case for inherent higher productivity of a mixed economy à la Chine when compared to a pure capitalist model that revolves about self-interest only. Somewhat intruigingly, I have reason to believe this novel ethics are already visible, too. They are not dependent on a certain history of any sort, not religious, and not rigid as set in an ideological framework. Instead, the methodical reflection of the essential question of ethics (which is but ONE question) possible after Husserlian Phenomenology now allows to transcend the old metaphysics of substance paradigm quite naturally answers the foundational necessitities on which to build; they are very simple, yet only now can be argued with complete consistency. – More on that from me in another night here at the bar.
For now, it’s capitalism all the way in the disintegrating former ‘west’. Europe is in for a wild ride, obviously. The single decisive question is how long it will take to throw off the imperial yoke and re-integrate into the Eurasian political and economical space. It’s hard to predict, and harder still to guess what by then will be left over from my country, Germany. For now, things appear thusly to me: Olaf Scholz’ coalition broke down just days after Trump won for a reason. The German deep state is busily preparing for the transition, with the upcoming election as a major step into the future. Basically, the Altparteien, as AfD calls all the parties from past times BRD, are up against the wings, with BSW on the left somehow being marginalized for now. The reasons are not clear to me; yet I readily expect sabotage by intelligence agencies, who seem to try and keep the whole mess on the track of a capitalist economy framework for the time being. Volt is a Soros outfit, and AfD itself is highly likely to turn course after the election, as I sense they are thoroughly in the bag as well. Still, this is the single most sensible option at this time: get away from the old atlanticist orientation ASAP, open up eastwards, and then integrate into the new space that is developing in Russia and China especially. The future will be socialist, but I can’t give a timeline. For now, AfD is the party of everyman, including the immigrants interestingly; but I expect they will be lead along the garden path eventually, so something else will have to pick up. On a personal note, I am not planning to get involved with this much after the turn just ahead has been wheeled in.
[juke box] Queen – Radio Gaga (yt video)

Posted by: persiflo | Feb 10 2025 4:04 utc | 99