“People Know Nothing About Economics”
Economics is a “science” like poker is a “sport.”
Economy is not wasting one sinew of the buffalo that so much effort was spent to bring down…Squeezing the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube.
“THE Economy” is a created false god that those of us enthralled by the television believed to be of paramount importance.
I attended the 1964 World’s Fair in NYC as a very small child. The future depicted there was centered on peace and abundance. The utopia depicted did NOT include tiny screens glued to everyone’s face. More of a jet-pack freedom and joy thing, tied in nicely with the hippie movement.
One more old man disgruntled with the future that never became present.
There is NO “THEM!” Only Us.

Posted by: zendeviant | Mar 20 2025 12:48 utc | 4

It’s open season on the future German taxpayer!
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/ghost-bundestag-votes-to-dismantle
Need to think big things, projects, ideas to sell for Germany’s new money from debt before they go Weimar!
Think Grüne and defense (very broadly defined, so also Grüne) but also anything remotely connected to infrastructure, the new morons in the federal state will give away money like there is no tomorrow. Think big, if your project can be done with a mere 100 million, double it, triple it, a windfall is coming at the expense of German young generations.
And all because of Russia, their threat to our democracy and values and shit! Need to defend ourselves from Russia. Spasibo Putin. Predators are always hungry.

Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Mar 20 2025 13:46 utc | 6

<"To Sun of Alabama @12:36 utc > ” When an individual is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he does become inferior. –Simone de Beauvoir”

Posted by: Ben Trovata | Mar 20 2025 14:24 utc | 8

@ Passerby | Mar 19 2025 15:56 utc | 24
thanks for your post on the readout from estonia, and the other baltic lapdogs.. they are really nuts!

Posted by: james | Mar 20 2025 15:27 utc | 10

This could just as well go into the Palestine thread, but the real point here (our second high-profile academic arrest, after Mahmood Khalil) is the total demolition of higher education. Georgetown is a premiere law school, but what use is law school anymore? Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!

Dr. Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow in peace and conflict studies at Georgetown University was detained by Department of Homeland Security agents on his way home from teaching an evening class on March 17. Suri, an Indian citizen, is a fellow at the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, an interfaith research center housed at the school’s D.C. campus. Around 8PM that day, he was approached by a group of individuals wearing face coverings who identified themselves as DHS agents, according to court filings. The agents, who detained him near his home in Arlington, Virginia, informed him that the U.S. government had revoked his J-1 visa—a non-immigrant visa for foreign nationals participating in educational and cultural exchange programs.
After being taken into custody, Suri was transferred to an ICE detention facility in Virginia, where he was briefly able to call his family, before he was transferred again to a facility in Louisiana, where he is currently being held. Since then, neither his family nor his lawyers have been able to speak with Suri.

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/georgetown-postdoc-the-latest-to

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Mar 20 2025 15:37 utc | 12

Dear dudes and dudettes,
What’s the name of this song please?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xFBlH9tOiw&t=877s

Posted by: North Forrest | Mar 20 2025 16:48 utc | 14

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Mar 20 2025 12:36 utc | 3 Don’t see much point to abusing the masses, they aren’t running things. The common belief that foreign aid is breaking the budget is insane, as in, a break with reality. Military aid is an investment in national power, not charity. Skimmed the comments, saw enough references to Reform to lead me to the party website. https://www.reformparty.uk/

Wages are stagnant, we have a housing crisis, our young people struggle to get on the property ladder, we have rising crime, energy bills are some of the highest in Europe, the NHS isn’t working, both legal and illegal immigration are at record levels and woke ideology has captured our public institutions and schools…
Only Reform will stand up for British culture, identity and values. We will freeze immigration and stop the boats. Restore law and order. Repair our broken public services. Cut taxes to make work pay. End government waste. Slash energy bills. Unlock real economic growth.

The property ladder is designed so that only some people get to climb it. A party that wants to burn the property ladder is the people’s party, not this crew, as they inadvertently confess right here. It’s not even certain that crime is rising, not when media want to panic monger. The probability is that woke ideology hasn’t captured much of anything, given the propensity of media to rage bait. So far as I know the NHS has been underfunded for decades, especially by Tories, which means blaming Labour now is a swindle, especially if Reform is re-painted Tories.
Cutting taxes means not restoring government services. And this is even more true when you pretend the problem is government waste. Rich people think government services for other people are a waste. Military spending can be argued to be the number one waste, but this program avoids stating this obvious truth. Self-contradiction is a sign of a political swindle. Slashing energy bills is a matter of foreign trade/balance of payments/the world market and not just an act of will. This is an empty promise, until they say how they intend to do this. And what is so-called real economic growth? Higher wages I would say, which means unions. Again, avoiding the obvious truth is a sign of a political swindler. As to standing up for British (Scottish? Welsh?) values and similar non-observables, quite aside from no one really knowing what they are, this is like a preacher standing up and saying Christians have to stop living their lives as Christians and get out of the churches and into state power to somehow force other people to live like Christians. A culture is a way of life, time will inevitably change it: Get used to the idea, it’s reality which doesn’t go away when you stop believing in it. You stand up for your values by living them, showing people they’re actually better.
No wonder a Vance seems to like a Farage.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 20 2025 15:31 utc | 11 I am not a believer in MMT myself, but it’s just not Magical Money Tree. That’s just a lying misrepresentation. (Admittedly you may well not have originated the lie yourself, just copied it.) Worse for you, the reasons for not accepting MMT apply to whatever carefully unspecified magic solution you favor too. People should care about how the internal combustion engine, especially if they’re claiming it’s not getting them where they want to go. They have to know whether it’s the engine, or who’s driving the car.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Mar 20 2025 16:55 utc | 16

@Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Mar 20 2025 12:36 utc | 3
That is GB News, the equivalent of Fox News in the UK. The viewership is all right-wing true believers. What else would you expect? The really clever propaganda is on places like Novara Media and other “alternative” sites.
In the US last year both Powell (Federal Reserve) and Yellen (US Treasury Secretary) were lying through their teeth about “deflationary” policies, while the Fed was operating a back-door reflation (running down the US$2 trillion reverse repo book) and Yellen went to short-term funding of the deficit to free up bank reserves (shorter dated instruments need less capital backing than long dated ones). Now the reverse repo book is down to near zero and all those Treasury notes have to be funded again this year, in addition to this years deficit and other maturing government bonds – about US$6 trillion. All the while we still have Quantitative Tightening (QT).
That’s why the Fed reduced QT this week, by reducing the government bond runoff from US$25 billion to US$5 billion, while keeping the MBS/ABS runoff at US$35 billion. By summer QT will be ended and we will be back with QE, especially with foreigners now not so amenable to buying US government debt with their offshore dollars. I detailed the Powell/Yellen hidden reflation to help the Democrats win in 2024 (and don’t forget that 0.5% rate cut months before the election!) in this piece
The Dangerous Political Game Powell & Yellen Played In 2024
The Fed and the Treasury have both switched from reflation to deflation, just as the tariffs are hitting and Trump’s antics are ruining business confidence. Not a good mix. By summer we will either get a new regional banking crisis and/or the Fed switches back to QE and monetization.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Mar 20 2025 17:02 utc | 18

@Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 20 2025 16:17 utc | 13
“First they came for the communists …” is how the famous poem is actually worded. Because the communists, understanding political economy understand that a capitalist nation is run by a capitalist ruling class and “democracy” is an absolute sham. And that the Nazis were just another form of capitalist domination and exploitation. As it has been from the very start of the United States with the “Framer’s Coup”. 1935-1975 was the compromise that a dominant section of that ruling class accepted as being better than outright fascism (the other ruling class option).
It worked very, very well for the development of the productive forces of the nation and the employment of the majority of society (not the Black population). After WW2 it was mixed with widespread propagandist brain washing (the McCarthy Era, Red Scare propaganda and widespread pro “free market” propaganda, CIA funded journalism and academic journals) and also widespread spying on the population and direct intervention in political movements (e.g. COINTELPRO). But full employment raised wages as a share of national output, and profits started to fall in the 1970s. It also allowed young people especially to focus on the nature of society and become anti-corporate and the Black movement wanting more than just votes (why the Black movement was to all intents and purposes beheaded through murder and incarceration from 1965 to 1975).
So the ruling class got together and worked out a new plan, and called it neoliberalism. All the gains of the New Deal were to be reversed and the US put back to about 1890 with respect to how the society and economy run. The final piece of that is Project 2025. The voters / people never had a say, especially when their representative groups such as the unions were destroyed and the Democratic Party turned over to corporate donors. And of course the multiple SCOTUS rulings making money equal to free speech, giving the rich even more votes than the average person.
The US has always been run by a ruling oligarchy, one that was the purest bourgeois capitalist oligarchy in the world after the defeat of the South in the Civil War. Blaming “the people” or the “voters” for allowing anything to happen is just falling for the liberal myths. The “elected representatives” only represent their donor class. As with Biden, who was owned by the Du Pont family who dominate the rotten borough of Delaware.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Mar 20 2025 17:26 utc | 20

@Posted by: Fool Me Twice | Mar 20 2025 17:22 utc | 19
Carney is a very faithful instrument of the capitalist ruling class, especially the financial part of it. He would never have been allowed to be the Central Banker for both Canada and the UK otherwise. Look how warmly he was greeted by the oligarch tool Starmer and the British King. He is no friend of the people of Canada, only a friend of its ruling class and capital in general. He is Bilderberg, member of the Group of Thirty and WEF and a full on supporter of the Ukrainian fascist regime (also the godfather of Freeland’s son, another servant of the capitalist ruling class). He also did not save Canada “from the US housing disaster” that was the regulator who pushed back against Carney’s plans to bring in all those risky mortgage loan products. Carney also did very much rescue the banks through massive injections of liquidity (they were also rescued by the Federal Reserve rescue of their failed counter parties) which should have lead to banks being charged for this lovely government service that reduces their costs of borrowing and rescues them from their own greed.
It was the Liberals in the 1990s who did not reject NAFTA and the highly regressive GST as they had promised, and then rather than sacking the ideological tool central banker who kept interest rates way too high (and the exchange rate) and was multiplying government debt they slashed government spending – especially that of federal health spending. And deregulated the financial markets and allowed for the massive consolidation of banks and brokerages. And started the ramp up in immigration. They were the Canadian equivalent of the Clintons. It was also a Liberal PM in the 1970s who stopped the very successful Central Bank funding of government investment programs. The Liberals are not your friends, they are just the slicker face of the capitalist ruling class. To believe different is just falling for the usual propaganda.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Mar 20 2025 17:42 utc | 22

@1
Do you understand what an absolute turn off your arrogance is?
I hate MMT even more every time you get on here and say the world is proceeding nicely, thank you very much.
Me, or your lying eyes?
…
The chicanery in MMT is not unlike the journey of Amazon and before that, Sears.
It was a journey of cornering every available alternative and rendering that alternative moot or outdated.
It really is the pathway of evolving technicity and our failure to properly orient ourselves to the question of unlimited money.
How does Amazon stay at the top? It does so using every means available to it to stymie the population’s questioning of why? that invariably leads to how?
Amazon is one of the greatest silencers of the debate on domestic manufacturing, and I would venture a guess and say that Amazon throws more money at silencing the “Manufacturing Country of Origin” labeling than any other company in the world.
Why? Because over 70% of its products listed on Amazon are made in China. That’s a lot of pimping our so-called greatest foe’s wares, donchathink?
Bozos giving to Trump and Trump talking tough to China. Something does not compute there and I would say there is a lot of Kabuki going on with Trump’s so-called aggressive stance towards China.
…
But back to MMT. Like Amazon, people gorge themselves on its product, but somewhere there is a little voice crying out, “how is this possible?”
Cheap money, like cheap goods, is only possible by a grand effort in marketing. But that marketing force runs up against “facts on the ground,” the same way “Russia getting its butt kicked” runs up against Russia’s consistent gains in Ukraine.
America is in disrepair. Drugs, inflation, health deterioration, homelessness. The oft-cited over 50% of households do not have an emergency fund of $500.
MMT is coming up roses, eh?
Facts on the ground.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Mar 20 2025 17:51 utc | 24

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Mar 20 2025 17:02 utc | 18 Higher interest rates and QT are deflationary, so it is campaigning against Biden to call Powell a liar pursuing a stimulus program (even if you call it reflation for some reason.) That’s why the interest rate cut—too late to have material effects!—in September is cited as proof of Powell’s alleged pro-Democratic Party scheme. I suppose we are to either forget that the Fed cut interest twice more after election, or that they were still campaigning for Biden, having forgotten the election was over?
The talk about a version of the Plaza Accords, aimed at Europe and Japan, to manage world currency, meaning the US dollar’s role, suggests that it’s a little to soon to talk about what Treasury is doing?
I was tempted to comment at the website on the article, but as a Marxist sympathizer I don’t speak even the same language. It would simply be annoying someone to no point. So let it be enough to repeat, campaigning against Biden (in the persons of Powell and Yellen) is diversionary.
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Mar 20 2025 17:26 utc | 20 There was no fascism in 1788. The alternative to a federal republic was monarchy. In that regard, the Framers were no more counterrevolutionaries than the Thermidorian/later the Directory were. They were decidedly not Jacobins, no more than the Framers were the democratic element in the American Revolution. But they weren’t monarchists, not even Bonapartists (yet, for some) much less Bourbons.
The review of the post-war period forgets that the New Deal was very early replaced by the Fair Deal and Taft-Hartley (not done by the same person, to be sure,) and the McCarthy era (as its traditionally called) was very much about purging the unions. And key institutions like the IMF and World Bank were already founded as early as 1944. Anti-Communism was a thing well before McCarthy, with for example movies like Red Salute, Comrade X and Ninotchka made for a reason. Pro-capitalist propaganda was spread as a counter to the New Deal. The open repudiation of Keynesianism and the determination to roll back the New Deal started with the New Deal. The role of the Seventies stagflation was as a step towards its victory, culminating in one sense in the Reagan era. It was the Great Society that the outlier. The project of doing away with Social Security and Medicare is not yet complete, but on the agenda.
If I recall correctly, it was Aristotle who noted that even in democracies, there was an oligarchy that preserved its property. I maintain that the essential meaning of bourgeois democracy (or its relative, the republic,) is to ensure that the ruling class must make concessions to the lower classes, partly to maintain itself without costly apparatus of oppression and partly to resolve conflicts within itself without resort to violence against each other, by legitimating itself with some mass support. It is a kind of class collaboration where the lion collaborates with the other animals, taking his share. In dictatorships or fascist regimes, the lion lies down with the lamb.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Mar 20 2025 19:38 utc | 26

@Posted by: juliania | Mar 20 2025 17:42 utc | 23
FDR saved US capitalism by facilitating a deal between the oligarchy and the working people, which immediately started to be reversed with the reversal of the Wagner Act in the immediate post-war period with the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. The recession of 1937 was also very explicitly caused by state action, some see it as disciplining the workers after the mass unionization stemming from the Wagner Act. He stopped a possible revolution, which would have been met with a fascist state.
He also worked hard to get Japan to go to war with Japan while being re-elected on a promise of peace. He had also very explicitly taken the side of the British against Germany, including protecting British arms convoys. The war spending, that facilitated massive US capitalist profiteering while labour was increasingly disciplined through war regulations, was what fully pulled the US out of depression. Suddenly there were no constraints on state spending!

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Mar 20 2025 19:42 utc | 28

Secretary of the Russian Security Council (R[S]C) Mr. Sergei Kuzhugetovich Shoigu (SKS) [1955] highlighted that the Russia Federation and the People’s Republic of China conduct joint strategic air patrols in the Asia-Pacific region and regularly hold naval exercises together.
This cooperation is purely strategic in nature.
SKS also identified space exploration and nuclear energy as promising areas for future cooperation between the two nations.

Posted by: pepe | Mar 20 2025 19:49 utc | 30

Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
This is actually an extraordinary admission to make for a US Vice President https://x.com/OopsGuess/status/1902396228404674853/video/1
Vance explains that “the idea of globalization was that rich countries would move further up the value chain while the poor countries made the simpler things.”
But he laments that it didn’t quite work out this way: as he explains it turns out that poor countries (mostly China) didn’t want to just remain cheap labor forever and started moving up the value chain themselves. Which is why, according to him, globalization was a failure.
Meaning that the objective of globalization wasn’t to reduce global inequalities but very much to maintain them, to institute a system of permanent economic hierarchy where rich countries would maintain their hold over the most profitable sectors while relegating poor countries to perpetual subordination in lower-value production.
This is basically all you need to know to explain 90% of U.S. foreign policy these past few years: colonial thinking is alive and well, and America’s shift of strategy in recent years – away from the previous “Washington Consensus” of “free” markets towards a much more overt attempt to contain and restrict China’s development – stems precisely from this mindset.
From semiconductor export controls to investment restrictions, these policies aren’t about ‘national security’ in any genuine sense – they’re about trying to preserve a global economic order where, simply put, poorer nations know their assigned place and stay there. At the very core, that’s the “China threat”: a China that stepped out of the economic lane assigned to it by the West.
It’s deeply ironic when you think of it: a global game allegedly designed to “spread market principles” worldwide is being abandoned precisely because it worked too well. When China succeeded better than expected, the response wasn’t to celebrate the validation of the game’s effectiveness but to change its rules. Precisely because the real unspoken game – but now clearly stated by the U.S. Vice President – was to maintain global inequality, not eliminate it.
All in all, in case they hadn’t yet gotten the memo, this sends a very clear message to the developing world: economic development will require challenging a U.S.-dominated economic order that views their advancement as a threat rather than a success. Which incidentally is why Vance’s words might actually help accelerate the very redistribution of global economic power he laments, pushing more nations to recognize that genuine development requires strategic independence from a system intended to keep them in their place.
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1902528428643168632

Posted by: Menz | Mar 20 2025 20:14 utc | 32

@ North Forrest | Mar 20 2025 16:48 utc | 14
What’s the name of this song please?
Look here:
https://babysongs.ru/pesni/irina-tsareva-pela-garmoshka

Posted by: Kate | Mar 20 2025 20:26 utc | 34

“The terrible thing about FDR’s case is that he is one of the causes of the Second World War and he was (1,2,3) right.”
Posted by: Simon | Mar 20 2025 20:15 utc | 33
FDR’s seizure of Japanese assets in July 19,1941 (1)and the sanctioning of Indonesian oil from exporting to Japan were the policies that dragged the US into WW2.
1.https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/July-26/united-states-freezes-japanese-assets

Posted by: canuck | Mar 20 2025 20:55 utc | 36

The Georgetown Post-Doc handcuffed and dragged off to a Lousiana Assembly Prison ( aka Concentration Camp ) for thought crimes
Should be absolutely terrifying to all of us.

Posted by: Exile | Mar 20 2025 21:18 utc | 38

UK today –
Protesters disrupted proceedings in the House of Lords today to demand the abolition of the unelected chamber.
They threw leaflets, shouted and sang from the public gallery during the demonstration at noon.
The House was adjourned for a short time as the demonstrators were escorted out.
Protester Lucy Porter, 50, a primary school teacher from Leeds, said she was “campaigning for a house of the people.”
On the Lords, she said: “It’s a symbol of everything that’s outdated.
“We don’t have a functioning democracy in this country.”
The leaflets, apparently modelled on an album by the Sex Pistols punk band, had written on them: “Never mind the Lords here’s the House of People.”
On the other side it stated: “Aristocrats and oligarchs: Out. Posties, mums, nurses and neighbours: In.
“Replace the House of Lords to save the UK.”
Full article : https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/protesters-disrupted-house-lords-demand-unelected-chamber-abolished

Posted by: Red Star | Mar 20 2025 21:51 utc | 40

@Posted by: S | Mar 20 2025 20:10 utc | 31
YouTube is a visual media and I much prefer the depth allowed with the written word, hence my substack. Also, its a lot of work to produce videos and YouTube is open to a lot of censorship (substack does seem to be a lot freer with respect to speech rights). IRL video discussions with small groups can be useful.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Mar 20 2025 22:22 utc | 42

Posted by: canuck | Mar 20 2025 20:55 utc | 36
Yep, dragged the US population into it. Of course a long and hefty dose of propaganda from the yellow media was helpful as well, but I find credible the historians who argue that the US and allies had cracked the Japanese codes, were intentionally withholding intel from the Navy brass in the Pacific, and had a pretty specific idea of when and how Pearl Harbor would be attacked. Carefully stage managed to provoke the Japanese into providing an “excuse” to enter the war.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 20 2025 22:33 utc | 44

Richard L 21
In Aus. The Feds used LRAD weapons on huge demo in Canberra during covid.
Very peaceful demo ,no excuse for the use of these weapons.

Posted by: Q-lander | Mar 20 2025 23:13 utc | 46

the greatest war crime of the 21st century.
fyi,
https://x.com/Kahlissee/status/1902796534128734639
Khalissee @Kahlissee
The US and UK illegally invaded Iraq 22 years ago today.
This is what British soldiers did to Iraqi children after their illegal invasion in 2003
Don’t ever let them lecture you about human rights or international law
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/22/how-many-millions-of-people-have-been-killed-in-americas-post-9-11-wars-part-one-iraq/
How Many Millions of People Have Been Killed in America’s Post-9/11 Wars? – Part One: Iraq
March 22, 2018
The numbers of casualties of U.S. wars since Sept. 11, 2001 have largely gone uncounted, but coming to terms with the true scale of the crimes committed remains an urgent moral, political and legal imperative, argues Nicolas J.S. Davies.
….IBC has now updated its death count for the period up to June 2006 to 52,209, reducing its ratio to violent deaths in the 2006 Lancet study to 11.5:1. If we apply the method of JFP’s Iraqi Death Estimator from July 2007 to the present using that updated ratio, and add it to ORB’s estimate of 1.03 million killed by June 2007, we can arrive at a current estimate of the total number of Iraqis killed since 2003. This cannot possibly be as accurate as a comprehensive new mortality study.But, in my judgment, this is the most accurate estimate we can make based on what we do know.
That gives us an estimate of 2.38 million Iraqis killed since 2003, as a result of the criminal American and British invasion of Iraq…..
….Adding these figures to the minimums and maximums we calculated for the period up to June 2007 gives us total minimum and maximum figures for the entire period since the U.S.-U.K. invasion of Iraq in 2003. We can estimate that the number of Iraqis killed as a consequence of the illegal invasion of their country must be somewhere between 1.5 million and 3.4 million. As is generally the case with such statistical ranges, the actual number of people killed is likely to be closer to our main estimate of 2.38 million than to either the minimum or maximum end of this range…..

Posted by: michaelj72 | Mar 20 2025 23:43 utc | 48

According to one of my favorite sources, China has developed microchips made of Bismuth rather than silicon, and they perform at unimagined levels.
As Americans were so happy to get TSMC in the States, China is already advancing to the next generation.
Like China or not, they have much better industrial, scientific, and social approaches than the rent-seeking West.
Not that he should surrender but Trump confronting China will not end well.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 21 2025 0:14 utc | 50

The Entire Caribbean Rejects Rubio’s Attack
https://www.blackagendareport.com/entire-carribean-rejects-rubios-attack
“In the latest escalation of the blockade on Cuba, Marco Rubio announced an attack on Cuba’s medical missions and, by extension, the healthcare of the entire region.
Say no to this new US attack on our sovereignty!
Caribbean Network for Solidarity with Cuba

Posted by: John Gilberts | Mar 21 2025 0:26 utc | 52

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 21 2025 0:21 utc | 51
###########
The Chinese are using a bunch of light-based methods to build quantum technologies.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 21 2025 1:05 utc | 54

You can’t make this shit up.

Dan Bongino, the newly confirmed Deputy FBI Director, similarly said on Wednesday in an X post: “Our teams are actively working on the Tesla incidents … to keep the Homeland safe.”

Do Teslas now qualify for lower insurance payments?
https://x.com/FBIDDBongino/status/1902531589143224441

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 21 2025 1:38 utc | 56

@ karlof1 | Mar 20 2025 22:42 utc | 45
From your substack Karlof1:
“Rent Seeking, which is a non-productive action that constitutes roughly 60% of what’s called the GDP…”
—
This is a stand-out statistic, if true.
What is your source? I know Dr. Hudson has repeatedly called for a sincere winnowing of productive GDP from parasitical rentier contributions to GDP but have not yet heard him announce a definitive study on the matter — as per the relative contributions to the wealth of USA society based on the labor theory of value described by classical economics.
And which contemporary neoliberals (there are less polite terms that could be employed) do not subscribe to — until they meet up with reality. Then —now, they seek to prevail with a form of post-1700 technofeudalism, i.e bloc politics of monopolies and serfs. Let us not be serfs. Freedom reign.

Posted by: suzan | Mar 21 2025 2:00 utc | 58

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 20 2025 22:42 utc | 45
Thank you, karlof1! I just watched Alex Krainer – he feels as much at sea as I do on Trump and company, especially as far as Israel is concerned; indeed they are sadly proving to be not listening to us. But Michael Hudson seemed to be enjoying himself with Nima- that was fun to see. I will go enjoy your post now, thanks for that also! (I tried to read a biography of Musk- it didn’t help.)
Well,, when Orthodoxy was back in for Russia at first, it had been away so long that when some icon painters came to Santa Fe, they thought Easter only lasted one night. They happened to be in New Mexico on the very last Sunday of the Easter season, so when I went up to them I gave the Easter greeting — but they just looked at me blankly. When I asked, why didn’t you respond ?(I’d said it in Slavonic after all) they said ‘We only do that on Easter night!’. Maybe that’s still the case there– but in our little Russian church, we were more used to the greeting for the entire stretch, as our priest(who was born in Constantinople) had taught it that way.
Just saying that perhaps, not having been able to talk with Americans for so long, the Russians are a bit rusty — we certainly are. Hopefully we’ll be able to disagree without losing the way it’s all meant to go, and they can feel free to be honest about it eventually. And tell us when we’re getting diplomacy wrong! There are still some bad habits we need to correct.
Thank you for your link! Going there now.

Posted by: juliania | Mar 21 2025 2:16 utc | 60

🚨🇷🇺🇻🇪 BREAKING: RUSSIA just signed a Strategic Partnership & Cooperation Deal with VENEZUELA
https://x.com/LegitTargets/status/1902744443091894377
#####
The Global South keeps rising.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 21 2025 4:31 utc | 62

oLD timers can skip,
Predictive Programming…

Dont say we never warn you !

[xtian end world fundies believed as long as they ‘warn’ their victims beforehand, they wont have to account for it on the judgement day !]
Exhibit SARS 1.0
1997
William Cohen warned us about ‘some other countries working on weather warfare, quake warfare, biowarfare which’s race specific’
[Any barfly worth his salt knows this is as good as a confession from the perps themsevles !]
Dont take my word for it.
Cohen’s mates at the PNAC highlighted race specific bioweapon in their to do list in the same year !
Scores of suicided virobiologists later [DNA sequencing specialsits] , SARS hit China in 2003

Let us end this part of the discussion with an examination of a global map depicting the countries battling SARS right now. As you can easily see, only Asian countries or countries with Asian populations, have suffered deaths from SARS! When I saw this map, reality reached up and smacked me in the face! The distribution of SARS cases certainly seemed to indicate that it was a genetic disease targeting only Asians.

https://tinyurl.com/sn2ap6jc
https://tinyurl.com/56je3r3u
https://tinyurl.com/mu5wvfp3
https://tinyurl.com/y3u9unhv

Posted by: denk | Mar 21 2025 5:17 utc | 64

Posted by: Nick | Mar 21 2025 5:11 utc | 63
————-
Canada is a de facto member of the 8NA, er, sorry the G7 !
Group of 7 unites against China
Taipei Times
https://www.taipeitimes.com › archives › 2025/03/19
19 hours ago — Canada’s initiative on maritime security … On the Indo-Pacific region, six paragraphs articulated serious concerns about the East and South China seas.
————–
G7 slams China’s ‘dangerous’ moves in South China Sea …
South China Morning Post
https://www.scmp.com › News › China
5 days ago — Statement by foreign ministers gathered in Canada also highlights importance of ‘maintaining peace and stability’ across Taiwan Strait.
—————-
Tough G-7 statement drops ‘one China’ reference from …
The Straits Times
https://www.straitstimes.com › asia › east-asia › tough-g…
5 days ago — A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored a February Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” towards Taiwan, language that heartened Taipei
————–

Posted by: denk | Mar 21 2025 5:35 utc | 66

As I get older, propaganda gets more and more obvious.
The Canadian government complaining that the Chinese put 4 people with Canadian passports (dual passport holders) to death for drug trafficking is so stupid.
In these older countries, particularly China, illicit drug tolerance is ZERO.
Just because you can be degenerate in Canada or America, that stuff doesn’t fly in Russia or China.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 21 2025 5:47 utc | 68

site filter acting up !
thats all folks !

Posted by: denk | Mar 21 2025 5:55 utc | 70

From Xinhuanet [about drone usage]
Hong Kong launches regulatory sandbox pilot projects to foster low-altitude economy
https://english.news.cn/20250320/48e1e8af73b74a668e349b660336e9fe/c.html
quote

The HKSAR government received regulatory sandbox pilot project proposals from 72 applicants, and after review by the Working Group on Developing LAE, 38 of them are among the first batch of pilot projects to be rolled out. The projects cover a wide range of fields and application scenarios, including emergency and rescue, logistics and distribution, inspection and safety maintenance, surveillance and low-altitude infrastructure.

I continue to be impressed by how much China is willing to try out new things

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 21 2025 5:58 utc | 72

@ too scents | Mar 21 2025 6:30 utc | 72 with the dismissive response…I do encourage you to go read the posting and see that only one of the “sandbox” pilot projects looks likely to use winged aircraft.
I agree with you that the chance for mishaps is probably significant but think about China’s approach with this new technology compared to how e-bikes are being “integrated” into the US…..very poorly, I believe.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 21 2025 6:42 utc | 74

I agree with psychohistorian # 73 perspective on China’s LOE experiment.
I just asked Jewgle to define China’s Low Altitude Economy. Here’s the briefest and most lucid definition from the long list of search results:
——
“Low-altitude economy refers to the economic activities and industries centered around manned and unmanned aerial vehicles operating in the airspace usually within 1,000 meters above the ground. China’s low-altitude economy is taking off with impressive speed.”

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 21 2025 7:40 utc | 76

London’s Heathrow airport has been closed due to a fire at an energy object. Additionally, 16000 people in surrounding areas are without power.
https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/1902991364578484672

Posted by: unimperator | Mar 21 2025 8:02 utc | 78

Posted by: Barrel Brown | Mar 21 2025 8:56 utc | 78
If Starmer stripped the airport maintenance budget and sent it for Ukraine, technically in double Orwell speak he could blame Russia. But dug in more deeply, the root cause is Starmer’s own obsession with the war, that has caused him to send Heathrow airport maintenance budget for Ukraine.

Posted by: unimperator | Mar 21 2025 9:01 utc | 80

With link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTExhNpLNgY

Posted by: Tom | Mar 21 2025 9:40 utc | 82

German, and with that average EU interest payments of GDP set to multiply within four years.

Good Morning from #Germany, where the landmark spending bill has cleared its final hurdle in the Bundesrat, the chamber representing the country’s 16 federal states. The bill passed with 53 votes in favor, well above the required two-thirds majority of 46 needed to amend the constitution’s debt brake.
This decision will lead to a significant rise in Germany’s debt—and with it, higher interest costs. However, compared to other countries, Germany’s interest burden remains relatively low. In 2024, net interest payments as a share of government revenue are estimated at 1.6%, far below France (4.0%), the United Kingdom (5.7%), and the United States (13.2%), acc to rating agency Scope.
Looking ahead, this ratio could rise to 3.7% by 2029 under Germany’s new debt trajectory. If bond yields increase by an additional 1 percentage point and stay elevated, net interest payments could climb further to 4.4%.

https://x.com/Schuldensuehner/status/1903034286518817024

Posted by: unimperator | Mar 21 2025 10:48 utc | 84

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Mar 20 2025 12:36 utc | 3
“That’s the UK today folks a congregation of insanity.”
“brainwashed out of their tiny little minds by the spoon fed propaganda they devour on a daily basis.”
I have been saying it for several years now, that’s why I gave watching the TeeVee and newspapers and most radio except radio6 on digital in the afternoon …
It is jus another example as posted above regarding the Heathrow shut down. (Btw I always find it a bit hard to believe that a major London airport gets shut down without having had a major aircrash! Like Gatwick a few years ago was … it feels like they are using it for some secret pantomime to convince someone…)
Why are you surprised? The modern concept of ‘Propaganda’ and it’s paradigms were developed and perfected for the mass media world by the British Crown’s unelected supremos and their brilliant academic and fictional writers. Can’t blame the Nazi German masterminds Himmler and co for that! They just ran with the ball handed to them by our perfidious usual suspects.
‘”The first victim of war is the truth”
Arthur Ponsonby
The Ten Principles of War Propaganda
1. We don’t want war
2. The enemy camp bears the sole Blame for the war
3. The enemy has demonic traits
4. We fight for a good cause and not for Self-interested goals
5. The enemy commits atrocities on purpose. If we make mistakes, then only accidentally
6. The enemy uses unauthorized weapons
7. Our losses are small, but those of the opponent enormous
8. Our cause is supported by artists and intellectuals
9. Our mission is sacred
10. Anyone who doubts our reporting is a traitor’
So as we can see there is nothing that new under our Sun, Star or Guardian.
Nor the BBC, C4, or the newfangled Times and GB broadcast media’s.
Or indeed on the interweb, bloggers and the troll sock puppet army selling their Red-Brown bridging for full spectrum shepherding. Whether as Marxist/left or Libertarian/right and all stops in between.
As we all see daily here on MoA even. Ahem!

Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 21 2025 11:16 utc | 86

It is jus another example as posted above regarding the Heathrow shut down. (Btw I always find it a bit hard to believe that a major London airport gets shut down without having had a major aircrash! Like Gatwick a few years ago was … it feels like they are using it for some secret pantomime to convince someone…)
Posted by: DunGroanin | Mar 21 2025 11:16 utc | 85
Ahhh, but you’re forgetting the idiots are in charge.
Apparently, the back-up generators were removed to make Heathrow NET ZERO 😀
Seriously, the west keeps self-crippling.
No energy because of net zero
No spares because of just-in-time
No production because of global-supply-chains
No minerals because pollution laws
No soldiers because pansy men are mandatory
I could go on but you get the gist of it.
And they want to go to war with RF? I guess it could/should be considered euthanasia/ assisted suicide (which is also a priority)

Posted by: Newbie | Mar 21 2025 13:41 utc | 88

compared to how e-bikes are being “integrated” into the US…..very poorly, I believe.
psychohistorian | Fri, 21 Mar 2025 06:42:00 GMT | 73

That’s a topic I would like to discuss: e-bikes. I’ve been getting by for of all my life without owning a motor vehicle, so I know well that short to mid distance commute is not dependent on an enclosed metal cage with windows and a big engine. But when I drove a (borrowed) Bianchi racing bike across the city, the experience was rather stark. Suddenly all space compressed down to mere minutes. I found myself riding 3km down to the river just for a smoke. Sheer speed on the stretches between stop/go, and blending in with the cars on large intersections were the main time savers, very unlike the experience with a lesser bike, where it’s about weaseling your way through when you want to be quick. The racer also goes just fine very slow, which is nice among pedestrians.
The tires are brutal, of course. But even for an older person less interested in the joys of physical performance, such a thing does 30km back and forth with car speeds easily when outfitted with an electric drive, unless you’re crossing a salt lake perhaps. You can have a canopy, or a three-wheeler if you’re not focused on time-to-distance. These things absolutely rule in the city.
Germany has them tied down by law, maxing out at 25kmph. That’s legalities to do with driving license, on one hand, and on the other it’s of course about the heavy vehicles around, which makes you a total victim in any collision. But just imagine the other drivers go light, too. Bus and lorries could go AI-assisted driverless, pertaining there’s infrastructure installed I guess, as don’t believe in fully autonomous drive with current tech. They could crawl slowly, but mostly undisturbed across town and link up with more express trains. A next step would be to give up ownership of a personal bike, so you can just grab a new one once you emerge from the subway and continue your way. Rental bikes and e-scooters are already ubiquitous, but still a long way from their true potential.
I can envision a time where Volkswagen will do fine making mostly Currywurst. /s

Posted by: persiflo | Mar 21 2025 14:13 utc | 90

2022: The UK government donates 850 generators to Ukraine, enough to power 8,000 homes.
2025: Heathrow airport lacks back-up power, and a small fire leaves 200,000 passengers stranded.

Posted by: Passerby | Mar 21 2025 14:27 utc | 92

Re: Pedal Assist Bikes
I bought a (used) 25kmh Pedal assist bike during the COVID lockdowns. It’s transformed my mobility. All the errands are possible with the little boost of Pedal Assist. My errand radius is a little over 10km. I live in a rural area some 60km from the Big City. Decent Train Service to Big City.,
Living car free is liberating.
Loving Car Free for the last 5 years. Never every going back. Can not imagine how anyone accepts the hassle, inconvenience, and frustration of car dependency.

Posted by: Exile | Mar 21 2025 14:41 utc | 94

Newbie@1341 March 21
By some metrics your “pansy men” would include the likes of Achilles, Alexander the Great, Caesar, Hadrian, Richard the Lionhearted and Friedrich the Great…all of whom were to some degree same-sexers. Today’s strait soyboys usually do not meet the military physical testing regimen.

Posted by: aristodemos | Mar 21 2025 14:49 utc | 96

Gotta love MAGAs.
Blowing up Teslas is terrorism but blowing up Palestinian children is not.
It must take a lot of effort to exist with so much dissonance.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 21 2025 14:53 utc | 98

Posted by: juliania | Mar 20 2025 17:42 utc | 23
Your sentiment is appreciated, however, what really made people prosperous and happy was the freedom from government intrusion into their daily lives. I lived it. In the 1980’s USG was a lot smaller and let the states run their day to day governing. I watched helplessly while the Federal government inserted itself in business by heaping tons of extra taxes and regulations onto the citizenry. Slowly, creeping in everywhere. This disincentivized many people from doing their best. Knowing that if you are successful the .gov would just take it all from you anyway, deterred a lot of creative ideas. And God forbid you tried to sell an invention of yours .gov did not approve of. They kill you for that. So “bless your heart” but it is actually the opposite, .gov needs to leave everyone alone and stop being a “control freak”. Then we will be prosperous and happy because for once we can keep what we do from theft by .gov. People need to understand that .gov is your greatest enemy. Why would you want people’s worst enemy to “help” them? “It’s the gov and we are here to help”. Hahaha

Posted by: CeaClearly | Mar 21 2025 15:19 utc | 100