America’s equivalent to Fidel Castro.
Posted by: unimperator | Oct 1 2025 14:17 utc | 1
 
—
 
Hegseth doesn’t rate as a pimple on Castro’s ass.

Posted by: too scents | Oct 1 2025 14:27 utc | 3

Testing
the line break
 
Thing
again

Posted by: S Brennan | Oct 1 2025 14:46 utc | 5

Testing
 
the line break
 
Thing
 
again

Posted by: S Brennan | Oct 1 2025 14:49 utc | 7

So, WYSIWYG is not an accurate preview of your comment
 

Suggestion; how about

a linebreak button?

Posted by: S Brennan | Oct 1 2025 15:00 utc | 9

Nato’s so called Drone Wall – against Russia,  is a PR stunt, that cannot be orchestrated to do anything meaningful.
 
“The EU’s plan to set up a so-called “drone wall” to counter potential Russian incursions is largely a symbolic gesture, as any real framework would face multiple hurdles, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Western officials have recently reported several instances of drones violating EU airspace. While the bloc’s members mostly refrained from direct accusations, speculation was abundant in the media that Russia was behind the intrusions – a claim Moscow has denied.
According to Bloomberg, the instances triggered a rush in Brussels to explore countermeasures, including what officials called a “drone wall” – a coordinated bloc-wide system aimed at detecting and intercepting UAVs.
However, one unnamed official told the agency that the idea looks like “a PR label,” which “mask[s] a complex reality.” One obstacle would be to create a drone barrier in airspace crowded with passenger and freight traffic, risking collateral damage.”

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Oct 1 2025 15:47 utc | 11

I am unclear why the DoW wants to implement physical fitness requirements 
Polli | Oct 1 2025 14:38 utc | 3
To get rid of women and blacks.

Posted by: Markw | Oct 1 2025 15:49 utc | 13

’m curious about the demographics of readers here and how people are using generative AI in their daily lives or work. Would anyone be open to sharing a bit about that? I think it could be interesting to see the range of backgrounds and use cases represented in this space.

Posted by: Cable Guy | Oct 1 2025 15:53 utc | 15

What are bank reserves ?
 
Answer:
 
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GFp2XFwGBWs
 
 
Bank reserve changes and their effects on markets.
 
 
 
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9mJl6V7X16g
 
 
Government spending increases bank reserves, then they sell treasuries ( what morons call government borrowing using Orwellian language) to reduce bank reserves. Government borrowing is nothing but a reserve drain. So that the FED can hit its overnight interest rate AND so the commercial banks don’t go bankrupt. Meet their capital requirements under the leverage ratio regulations.
 
 
 
Does government spending crowd out private investment?
 
Answer-
 
 

Posted by: Clouds Of Alabama | Oct 1 2025 15:56 utc | 17

The USS Gerald R. Ford has entered the Mediterranean Sea.

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Oct 1 2025 16:05 utc | 19

There must be something big in it for the Yanks ,mind you Trump has habit of reneging on deals.
 
 “President Trump signed a presidential order on Monday dramatically upgrading U.S. security commitments to Qatar, marking the first agreement of its kind between Washington and an Arab country, according to Axios. According to the order, the U.S. will regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or vital infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States. It further states the U.S. will respond with all appropriate and lawful measures, including diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military action, to defend the interests of the United States and the State of Qatar and to restore peace and stability. “

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Oct 1 2025 16:09 utc | 21

@Polli #3
Drones are no different than war aircraft: you don’t win until 17 year olds with a rifles are sitting on your objectives.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 1 2025 16:25 utc | 23

FED overnight repurchase agreements spike to $5B on government shutdown.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RPONTSYD#moreTrendingSeries

Posted by: too scents | Oct 1 2025 16:28 utc | 25

Ornot,
Hamas long ago recognized Israel on the 242 lines. The big change in the Peking Declaration is a shift to the 181 lines and emphasis on reparations as per 194/2334

Posted by: Exile | Oct 1 2025 16:29 utc | 27

Suddenly the FED is buying a lot of overnight mortgage backed securities.  The most since the GFC.
 
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RPONMBSD

Posted by: too scents | Oct 1 2025 16:37 utc | 29

@too scents #28
Uh not even remotely close.
You clearly did not even expand to the 10 year window – where you can see the ~$17T repo purchases in the late 2019 era, much less the ~$15T of the 2008 era.
This compared to the $1T you are panicking about.
There is definitely a structural Treasury rollover problem for the US now, but the shutdown has nothing to do with that.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 1 2025 16:44 utc | 31

Posted by: too scents | Oct 1 2025 16:37 utc | 28

Stealth QE, soon to follow yield-curve-control are here. That’s probably what gold, silver, platinum, palladium, soon base metals and other soft commodities are sniffing out.

Posted by: unimperator | Oct 1 2025 16:52 utc | 33

A couple of interesting points from this Doomberg talk on youtube
Doomberg on youtube
The first is Doomberg echoes what I have been saying for years: LCOE for solar PV and wind is nonsense because of backup costs (due to intermittency) as well as lack of baseload reliability (also due to intermittency, in the form of storage as well as alternate sources).
The UN Secretary General just said the same thing: that every dollar of solar PV or wind must be accompanied by $1 of grid investment (including storage) instead of the $0.60 now. This shows that LCOE is underestimating actual costs of solar PV/wind by 50%.
Doomberg offers a very interesting classification system based on baseload and dispatchability (this is the ability to turn off/on at will). Under this system:
nuclear: baseload, not dispatchable. Because nuclear plants don’t like being turned on/off rapidly.
coal: baseload, not dispatchable. I disagree with this – coal plants are exactly as dispatchable as gas plants, probably more so because modern combined cycle gas plants have lots of loops and dependencies meaning they also don’t like being turned on/off quickly. Coal plants also don’t have a systemic supply problem: there are recent examples where very cold fronts caused natural gas demand to exceed both transport and storage capacities in the NE by factors of 4 or more. Coal plants can trivially store extra coal in piles on the ground.
gas: baseload, dispatchable
solar PV/wind: not baseload, not dispatchable
battery storage: not baseload, dispatchable
This culminates in what Doomberg hypothesizes as the limits of alternative energy: the percentage of alternative energy on a grid cannot exceed the dispatchable percentage. So the maximum theoretical solar PV/wind on a grid is 50% minus baseload generation… and which costs 200% of name plate generation capacity due to storage/transmission costs.
The second major item of note from this talk is Doomberg talking about the US Treasury rollover conundrum.
His hypothesis here is that Trump is pushing for a crypto bubble, which in turn will pump up the stablecoin market size. This benefits the Treasury rollover because the stablecoins buy Treasuries with their float. The 2nd phase is to then change laws such that the stablecoin Treasury holders will only be able to buy “lower than market” special types of Treasuries – thus converting a debt service problem into an income source for some (presumably significant) portion of the US debt.
The US has something like $9.3 trillion of Treasuries maturing from April 2025 to March 2026, according to the Google AI summary.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 1 2025 17:07 utc | 35

@too scents #31
I have been talking for months how there is a commercial real estate/CMBS apocalypse unfolding in the big cities – mostly blue.
COVID WFH policies have resulted in Kastle utilization rates still being in the 50% range (54.1% right now) in the top 10, mostly deep blue, cities meaning even leased commercial real estate is being utilized at a fraction of capacity. Which does not bode well for renewals.
Couple this with the interest only loans that the newer commercial real estate “owners” have taken, where ZIRP era loans have to be refinanced into 5% prime rate loans, on top of the lower valuations – I am expecting a wave of medium size bank failures prompted by a wave of CMBS jingle mail, to be bailed out by the Fed, any day now.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 1 2025 17:12 utc | 37

Oh no, more of SoA’s annoyingly-spaced posts that fly in the face of everything we intuitively grasp to be happening.
 
He is, absolutely, 100%, deep state bureautard.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 1 2025 17:20 utc | 39

@32 unimperator
 
Yes, stealth QE and bailouts and ins indeed. 
 
We have already bailed out Argentina. 
 
The GFC TARP was the pilot program, like the Patriot Act, that has become the norm where no one gives it a second thought. “Wait, you mean we shouldn’t bail-put investors and corporations that have been “buying-back” and juicing their stock price on terrible data and poor, real-economy metrics like growth and hiring?”
 
Can we all agree that we will be much better off to just let the ugly Fed tower collapse at this point? But they can’t and won’t because that means no more easy money and the deep state’s children will have to get real jobs. I, too, don’t want to see Bambi and Rupert have to vacuum shit outta porta-potties at the soup-line, but they gotta do something real. It’ll be good for them in the long run.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 1 2025 17:28 utc | 41

I know B may be intersested.. Emmanuel Todd just drop that on is substack , quickly googletranslated , it show the big picture as follow : 

Dislocation of the West: The Threats Emmanuel Todd Oct 01, 2025
 
Trump’s perversity is unfolding in the Middle East, NATO’s warmongering in Europe. I have just written, at the request of my Slovenian publisher, a new preface to The Defeat of the West, which I feel must be published on Substack immediately. The threat of a worsening of all conflicts is becoming clearer. This text provides a schematic and provisional, yet updated, interpretation of the development of the crisis we are experiencing. This text is in fact the conclusion of my last interview with Diane Lagrange on Fréquence Populaire: “Victory for Russia, Enclosure and Fracture of France and the West.” 
 Preface to the Slovenian Edition From Defeat to Disintegration Less than two years after the French publication of The Defeat of the West, in January 2024, the book’s main predictions have been confirmed. Russia has held its own militarily and economically. The American military industry is exhausted. European economies and societies are on the verge of implosion. Even before the collapse of the Ukrainian army, the next stage of the disintegration of the West has been reached. I have always been hostile to the Russophobic policies of the United States and Europe, but as a Westerner committed to liberal democracy, a Frenchman trained as a researcher in England, and the child of a mother who took refuge in the United States during the Second World War, I am devastated by the consequences for us Westerners of the mindless war waged against Russia. We are only at the beginning of the catastrophe. A tipping point is approaching, beyond which the ultimate consequences of the defeat will unfold. The “Rest of the World” (or Global South, or Global Majority), which had been content to support Russia by refusing to boycott its economy, is now openly displaying its support for Vladimir Putin. The BRICS are expanding by accepting new members, increasing their cohesion. Forced by the United States to choose sides, India has chosen independence: the photos of Putin, Xi, and Modi gathered at the August 2025 meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will remain the symbol of this key moment. Yet Western media outlets continue to portray Putin as a monster and Russians as serfs. These media outlets were already incapable of imagining that the Rest of the World sees them as a leader and ordinary human beings, bearers of a specific Russian culture and a desire for sovereignty. I now fear that our media are compounding our blindness by being unable to imagine Russia’s renewed prestige in the Rest of the World, economically exploited and treated with arrogance by the West for centuries. The Russians dared. They challenged the Empire, and they won. The irony of history is that the Russians, a white, European, Slavic-speaking people, became the military shield of the Rest of the World because the West refused to integrate them after the fall of communism. I imagine the Slovenes are particularly well-placed culturally to appreciate this irony, even though I know well, as an anthropologist of family and religion, that, despite its Slavic language, Slovenia is much closer socially and ideologically to Switzerland than to Russia. I can sketch here a model of the dislocation of the West, despite the inconsistencies of the policies of Donald Trump, the American president of defeat. These inconsistencies do not, I believe, result from an unstable, and undoubtedly perverse, personality, but from an insoluble dilemma for the United States. On the one hand, its leaders, at the Pentagon as well as in the White House, know that the war is lost and that Ukraine must be abandoned. Common sense therefore leads them to want to get out of the war. But on the other hand, the same common sense leads them to sense that the withdrawal from Ukraine will have dramatic consequences for the Empire that those in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan did not have. This is indeed the first American strategic defeat on a global scale, in a context of massive deindustrialization in the United States and difficult reindustrialization. China has become the world’s workshop; its very low fertility rate, certainly, will prevent it from replacing the United States, but it is already too late to compete with it industrially. The de-dollarization of the global economy has begun. Trump and his advisors cannot accept this because it would mean the end of the Empire. A post-imperial age, however, should be the goal of the MAGA project, Make America Great Again, which seeks a return of the American nation-state. But for an America whose productive capacity in real goods is today very low (see Chapter 9 on the true nature of the American economy), it is impossible to give up living on credit as it does by producing dollars. Such an imperial-monetary withdrawal would imply a sharp drop in its standard of living, including for Trump’s working-class voters. The first budget of the second Trump presidency, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” therefore remains imperial despite the tariff protections that embody the protectionist project or dream. The OBBBA boosts military spending and the deficit. A budget deficit in the United States inevitably means dollar production and a trade deficit. Imperial dynamics, or rather imperial inertia, continue to undermine the dream of a return to the productive nation-state. In Europe, the military defeat remains poorly understood by leaders. They did not direct the operations. It was the Pentagon that developed the plans for the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023 (during which I wrote The Defeat of the West). The American military, even though it had its Ukrainian proxy lead the war, knows that it was defeated by Russian defense—because it couldn’t produce enough weapons and because the Russian military was smarter than it. European leaders only supplied weapons systems, and not the most important ones. Unaware of the extent of the military defeat, they know, however, that their own economies have been paralyzed by the sanctions policy, especially by the disruption of their supply of cheap Russian energy. Cutting the European continent in two economically was an act of suicidal madness. The German economy is stagnating. Throughout the West, poverty and inequality are increasing. The United Kingdom is on the brink of collapse. France is close behind. Societies and political systems are blocked. A negative economic and social dynamic predated the war and was already putting the West under pressure. It was visible, to varying degrees, throughout Western Europe. Free trade is undermining its industrial base. Immigration is developing an identity syndrome, particularly among the working classes deprived of secure and well-paid jobs. More profoundly, the negative dynamic of fragmentation is cultural: mass higher education creates stratified societies in which the highly educated—20%, 30%, 40% of the population—begin to live among themselves, to consider themselves superior, to despise working-class communities, and to reject manual labor and industry. Universal primary education (universal literacy) had nurtured democracy, creating a homogeneous society with an egalitarian subconscious. Higher education has spawned oligarchies, and sometimes plutocracies, stratified societies pervaded by an unequal subconscious. The ultimate paradox: the development of higher education has ultimately produced a decline in intellectual level in these oligarchies or plutocracies! I described this sequence more than a quarter of a century ago in The Economic Illusion, published in 1997. Western industry has moved to the rest of the world and also, of course, to the former people’s democracies of Eastern Europe, which, freed from their subjugation to Soviet Russia, have now regained their centuries-old status as a periphery dominated by Western Europe. I discuss in detail in Chapter 3 this kind of internal China, where industrial workers remain numerous. Throughout Europe, however, the elitism of the highly educated has engendered “populism.” The war has escalated European tensions. It has impoverished the continent. But above all, as a major strategic failure, it has delegitimized leaders incapable of leading their countries to victory. The development of conservative grassroots movements (usually referred to by journalistic elites by terms like “populist,” “far-right,” or “nationalist”) is accelerating. Reform UK in the United Kingdom. AfD in Germany, National Rally in France… Irony still: the economic sanctions that NATO expected to bring about “regime change” in Russia are about to bring a cascade of “regime change” to Western Europe. The Western ruling classes are being delegitimized by defeat at the very moment that Russian authoritarian democracy is being relegitimized by victory—or rather, overlegitimized, since Russia’s return to stability under Putin initially ensured its uncontested legitimacy. This is our world as we approach 2026. The dislocation of the West is taking the form of a “hierarchical fracturing.” The United States is relinquishing control of Russia, and, I increasingly believe, of China. Under Chinese blockade for their imports of samarium, this rare earth essential for military aeronautics, the United States cannot no longer dream of confronting China militarily. The rest of the world—India, Brazil, the Arab world, Africa—benefits from this and escapes them. But the United States is vigorously turning against its European and East Asian “allies,” in a last-ditch effort at super-exploitation, and also, it must be admitted, out of pure and simple spite. To escape their humiliation, to hide their weakness from the world and from themselves, they are punishing Europe. The Empire is devouring itself. This is the meaning of the tariffs and forced investments imposed by Trump on Europeans, who have become colonial subjects in a shrunken empire rather than partners. The time for supportive liberal democracies is over. Trumpism is a “white popular conservatism.” What is emerging in the West is not a solidarity of popular conservatisms but a breakdown of internal solidarities. The rage resulting from defeat leads each country, to mop up its resentment, to turn against those weaker than itself. The United States is turning against Europe and Japan. France is reigniting its conflict with Algeria, a former colony. There is no doubt that Germany, which, from Scholz to Merz, agreed to obey the United States, will turn its humiliation against its weaker European partners. My own country, France, seems to me to be the most threatened. One of the fundamental concepts of the West’s defeat is nihilism. I explain how the “zero state” of the Protestant religion—secularization having reached its conclusion—does not only explain the American educational and industrial collapse. The zero state also opens a metaphysical void. I am not personally a believer, and I do not advocate for any return of religion (I don’t believe it is possible), but I must, as a historian, note that the disappearance of social values ​​of religious origin leads to a moral crisis, to an impulse to destroy things and people (war), and ultimately to an attempt to abolish reality (the transgender phenomenon for American Democrats and the denial of global warming for Republicans, for example). The crisis exists in all completely secularized countries, but it is worse in those whose religion was Protestantism or Judaism, absolutist in their search for the transcendent, rather than Catholicism, more open to the beauty of the world and earthly life. It is indeed in the United States and Israel that we are seeing the development of parodic forms of traditional religions, parodies of a nihilistic nature, in my opinion. This irrational dimension is at the heart of the defeat. This is therefore not only a “technical” loss of power but also a moral exhaustion, a lack of positive existential purpose that leads to nihilism. This nihilism is behind the desire of European leaders, particularly on the Protestant shores of the Baltic, to expand the war against Russia through incessant provocations. This nihilism is also behind the American destabilization of the Middle East, the ultimate forum for expressing the rage resulting from the American defeat against Russia. Above all, let us not give in to the all-too-easy assumption that the Netanyahu regime is enjoying warlike autonomy in Israel, in the Gaza genocide or in the attack on Iran. Zero Protestantism and zero Judaism certainly tragically combine their nihilistic effects in these outbursts of violence. But throughout the Middle East, it is the United States, by supplying the weapons and sometimes by attacking itself, which is ultimately the driving force behind the chaos. They are pushing Israel into action just as they pushed the Ukrainians. The first Trump presidency established the United States Embassy in Jerusalem, and it was Trump who first envisioned Gaza transformed into a seaside resort. I realize that it would take a book to demonstrate this thesis, a book that would dismantle the interactions between the actors one by one. But, as a historian by profession, and having been involved in geopolitics for half a century, I sense that, like NATO-backed Europe, Israel has ceased to be an independent state. The West’s problem is indeed the programmed death of the nation-state. The Empire is vast and it is disintegrating amidst sound and fury. This Empire is already polycentric, divided over its goals, schizophrenic. But none of its parts are independent at all. Trump is its current “center”; It is also its best ideological and practical expression, in that it combines a rational desire to withdraw into its immediate sphere of domination (Europe and Israel) with nihilistic impulses favoring war. These tendencies—withdrawal and violence—are also expressed within the American heart of the Empire, where the principle of hierarchical fracturing operates internally. An increasing number of Anglo-American authors are suggesting the coming of a civil war. The American plutocracy is pluralistic. There’s that of the financiers, that of the oil companies, that of Silicon Valley. Trumpist plutocrats, whether Texan oilmen or recent Silicon Valley converts, despise the educated Democratic elites of the East Coast, who themselves despise the Trumpist white heartland gentry, who themselves despise Black Democrats, etc. One of the interesting peculiarities of America today is that its leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between internal and external, despite the MAGA attempt to block immigration from the South with a wall. The army fires on boats leaving Venezuela, it bombs Iran, it enters the center of Democratic cities in the United States, it sponsors the Israeli air force for an attack on Qatar, where a huge American base is located. Any science fiction reader will recognize in this disturbing list the beginnings of a dystopian journey, that is, a negative world where power, fragmentation, hierarchy, violence, poverty, and perversity are intertwined. So let us remain ourselves, outside of America. Let us maintain our perception of the inner and the outer, our sense of proportion, our contact with reality, our conception of what is just and beautiful. Nor let us allow ourselves to be drawn into a warlike headlong rush by our own European leaders, those privileged people lost in history, desperate at having been defeated, terrified at the idea of ​​one day being judged by their people. And above all, above all, let us continue to reflect on the meaning of things.
 
Paris, September 28, 2025

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Posted by: malamatias | Oct 1 2025 17:33 utc | 43

Posted by: too scents | Oct 1 2025 16:37 utc | 28
 
Mortgage backed securities are safe not like pre 2008. When They wrapped them in those time bomb false AAA credit swaps.
 
What is probably happening is a lot of refinancing now that rates are coming down.
 
Follow this guy when it comes to housing.
 
https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2025/10/mbamortgage-applications-decrease-in.html?m=1
 
 
 
 

Posted by: Clouds Of Alabama | Oct 1 2025 17:50 utc | 45

Cloud—
How’s your Gold prediction going? I think it has gone up another 150 to 200 bucks since you proclaimed it about to cut itself in half.

Posted by: arby | Oct 1 2025 17:56 utc | 47

@exile #40
Right? Keep in mind that 2019 is the reference point = 100%.
But again: I guarantee you that the Fed will bail out these banks.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 1 2025 18:09 utc | 49

@Clouds Of Alabama #45
You clearly don’t know what you are talking about.
MBS is a wide category. 2008 GFC was because of residential mortgages, including NINJA loans.
There are also MBS based on commercial loans. These are CMBS, but are still MBS (mortgage backed securities).
The lie in 2008 was that you could take garbage and convert 70% of it to gold – ie AAA bonds – but the scam was executed on many levels ranging from the mortgage issues like Countrywide, to the securitizers like the banks, to the ratings agencies.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 1 2025 18:16 utc | 51

The Commie era was not even a century long.  
 
Posted by: lester | Oct 1 2025 17:56 utc | 46
 
—
 
The Commie era is not even a century long. FTFY.
 
Contrary to Western models, Chinese state capitalism is a means to an end, a necessary evil and a temporary solution, not an end in itself.

Posted by: Nobody | Oct 1 2025 18:21 utc | 53

Follow this guy when it comes to housing.
 
Posted by: Clouds Of Alabama | Oct 1 2025 17:50 utc | 45
 
—
 
Bill McBride? Just NO!
 
It was the late great Tanta that made Calculated Risk worth reading.
 
https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/p/doris-tanta-dungey.html

Posted by: too scents | Oct 1 2025 18:29 utc | 55

I have no issues with formatting 
🙂 

Posted by: Exile | Oct 1 2025 18:42 utc | 57

@too scents #56

They’re gonna try, but what can’t be done won’t be done.

It is shocking to me that anyone could think that, given the double digit trillions used to bail out big banks in 2008.

Just look at Argentina for where things are going.

Argentina’s problem has nothing to do with anything they say publicly. Their real problem is that the elites in Argentina have enslaved that society via dollar denominated, high interest rate bonds sold by the Argentinean government.
Once you understand that, everything makes sense.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 1 2025 18:55 utc | 59

Of course it concerns the globe, “Super Imperialism Abridged for Today’s Realities,” is from a Hudson chat two weeks ago that informs one and all why dedollarization is an excellent weapon and why Team Trump won’t come clean with the truth about his Trade War–perhaps because they’re too dumb to know. Abridged means it’s a short read.
 

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 1 2025 18:59 utc | 61

divide et impera still works 😛
and never question china and usa working together on biological warfare – in a chines mil lab ^^

Posted by: Hodes | Oct 1 2025 19:04 utc | 63

@50 c1ue
 
Well, I don’t agree with you either. 
 
New money entering the system, according to Cantillon theory, always is utilized by the elite to entrench their financial position, exacerbating the fundamental problem in the U.S.: wealth distribution and growing inequality. 
 
It makes no difference how the government injects liquidity; if it does so, new money entering results in wealth entenchment, although certainly in varying degrees.
 
I asked chatgpt for an example of monetary injection that has not resulted in wealth entenchment and it replied:
 
That’s a sharp question — and the honest answer is: almost all historical examples of monetary injections have resulted in some degree of wealth entrenchment, but the extent and form of that entrenchment vary dramatically, depending on:

• Who receives the new money first
• How quickly it diffuses through the economy
• The structure of the economy at the time
• Whether the injection was accompanied by other redistributive policies

Once again, chatgpt is unreliable for its schizo answers, but it does affirm at the beginning that injection of liquidity has never NOT resulted in wealth entenchment.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 1 2025 19:06 utc | 65

@fnord #58

The use of women in combat roles, especially in positions such as sniping, sapping, and combat engineering (but also in mechanized roles), is and has been a strength of left-wing armed forces, especially guerillas. In the age of drone warfare, women are smaller targets, and also women rate just as good as men (and frequently better) at such relevant skills as skeet shooting.

Laughable bullshit.
Let’s start with sniping: an M82 Barrett weighs 32.7 pounds empty – or not a lot less than an M240 machine gun. Add in ammo, water, miscellaneous supplies, the camo etc etc – any woman who can pack all that, AND shoot is more than welcome to the job.
But the reality is that the vast, vast majority of women can not.
Sapping: even worse. A sapper combat load is 80 pounds up to 120 pounds because you need demo, tools, maybe a robot, etc etc. Given that the average American woman weighs 170 pounds – most of which is NOT muscle – that’s pretty damn impressive load to weight ratio.
Again, if they can do it, more power to them. But the vast, vast majority of women can not do it.
Combat engineering: Combat engineers are soldiers with extra skills. So we’re talking 60 to 100 pound load – between armor, weapon, ammo, supplies etc etc. They aren’t just people driving tractors, yo.
Again, some few women can handle it  – the vast, vast majority cannot.
Guerillas have much lighter loads – but guerrillas aren’t soldiers. You do understand the difference?
As for the drone comments: idiotic beyond words. Drones kill with explosives – being lighter is actually bad because explosions do damage via delta-V energy transmission. Which is to say: higher mass targets take less damage from the same explosion, as lower mass targets.
Skeet shooting? WTF? Do Skeet shoot back? Do Skeet hide behind cover? Do Skeet have artillery? Do Skeet conveniently wait for the shooter to yell “Pull” before showing up? Moronic beyond words.
But these are all operational issues.
The biggest tactical issue is that women in combat formations cause all sorts of problems ranging from discriminatory practices by higher ups (both positive and negative) to discriminatory practices by their fellow soldiers – also both positive and negative, to all manner of bad things which can happen in combat. For example: militaries that have tried females – it did not go well. In retreat situations – units would show up with no female survivors (ie they get left behind) more than 80% of the time. Wounded women soldiers are also fantastic for luring soldiers out from behind cover ie used as bait.
And note that when I say positive and negative – I don’t mean good or bad. Positive discrimination is actually not as bad as negative discrimination – where women get better treatment than their fellows hence undermine the otherwise supposed equality between soldiers in a small unit like a squad or a fire team.
One way to fix that is all-women units – but then you get entire units which are materially less capable than the rest of the military. Is this a good thing?

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 1 2025 19:14 utc | 67

I am unclear why the DoW wants to implement physical fitness requirements Polli | Oct 1 2025 14:38 utc | 3To get rid of women and blacks.Posted by: Markw | Oct 1 2025 15:49 utc | 13Blacks, really?  Trump must be even dumber than he looks.  Seriously though, let’s not stretch like Dems to find racism.  That’s a bourgeois instinct.  
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Oct 1 2025 19:05 utc | 64–
Sorry folks. The racism goes against white elder fat male.
 

Posted by: MorePain4Cakes | Oct 1 2025 19:17 utc | 69

any kirk news? besides FBI telling us BS

Posted by: Hodes | Oct 1 2025 19:20 utc | 71

@ c1ue | Oct 1 2025 19:20 utc | 72
 
Again.  There is absolutely nothing special about Argentinean usury.   Their system works the same way everywhere.

Posted by: too scents | Oct 1 2025 19:27 utc | 73

@too scents #73
You reveal yet again, the very short limits of your understanding by your failure to understand the ramifications of what is happening in Argentina.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 1 2025 19:30 utc | 75

From Tucker’s address at the Kirk memorial:

And it actually reminds me of my favorite story ever. So it’s about 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem, and Jesus shows up, and he starts talking about the people in power, and he starts doing the worst thing that you can do, which is telling the truth about people, and they hate it. And they just go bonkers. They hate it. And they become obsessed with making him stop. “This guy’s got to stop talking. We’ve got to shut this guy up.”
And I can just sort of picture the scene in a lamplit room with a bunch of guys sitting around eating hummus, thinking about what do we do about this guy telling the truth about us? “We must make him stop talking.” And there’s always one guy with a bright idea, and I can just hear him say, “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we just kill him? That’ll shut him up. That’ll fix the problem.”

https://singjupost.com/transcript-tucker-carlson-remarks-at-charlie-kirk-memorial/
 
Worth reviewing in full. With the video version, you get the additional delight of Tucker’s giggle, or cackle — whatever you call it, I think it adds to the impression TC creates of authenticity. You can hear the same TC giggles in an interview wherein Glenn Greenwald asks TC about the Israel-first crowd going bonkers over the two paragraphs above. OMG, I hear: Is Tucker repeating the ancient blood libel that Jews killed Christ? I know: the one about who killed Christ isn’t the customary blood libel about exsanguinating Christian kids on special occasions, but whatever.
 
Is Tucker not-so-subtly implying to attendees and viewers of this great spectacle that “Israel” killed Charlie, just as the Jews killed Christ? Glenn Greenwald nearly poses this question, allowing the two of them to laugh off such an implication as utterly ridiculous. Jews can be so darned paranoid! They think everyone hates “the Jewish State” only because everyone innately hates Jews. They think antisemitism is what Goyim obsessively nurture in their savage hearts.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Oct 1 2025 19:31 utc | 77

@too scents #78
Yet another example of your fundamental lack of understanding.
This has nothing to do with fiat.
It has everything to do with the wide range of unforeseen consequences and negative incentives with the practice in question.
For that matter, anyone pushing hard money is a fool – at best an unwitting pawn of the existing very wealthy.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 1 2025 19:38 utc | 79

Sorry folks. The racism goes against white elder fat male. 
Posted by: MorePain4Cakes | Oct 1 2025 19:17 utc | 69
Oh we know, young Democrat.  Too bad you guys led the genocide of brown skinned women and children for years!  Nobody will ever buy your bullshit again….

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Oct 1 2025 19:42 utc | 81

Posted by: Dogon priest | Oct 1 2025 16:53 utc | 34 From the article:

The Jewish people have a right to live in their native homeland. They would have peace with all their neighbors, but their neighbors wouldn’t let them have it. They wanted peace with Gaza, but instead of recognizing that Jewish people also have a historical right to live there, the people of Gaza elected Hamas in an attempt to massacre all the Jews, and so the Israelis are forced to control Gaza to some degree for their own protection. I assure you, Israelis don’t want to have to do that. They, as most folks, want to live in peace. People with morality don’t behave like the Gazans did on 10/7, even under oppression. Tibetans don’t do that to Chinese civilians. If Coates says he’d do the same thing, it says a lot about his moral compass.

Are you sure about this? Anyone?

Posted by: Digby | Oct 1 2025 19:51 utc | 83

Israelonazis spraying gas – who knows what, Zyklon B – on Sumud flotilla.
https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/1973479387833180636

Posted by: unimperator | Oct 1 2025 20:08 utc | 85

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 1 2025 18:56 utc | 60
 
All fine and good butt WTC was never blown up simply to “justify” invading Iraq. You’re smarter than that, but obviously Kiriakow isn’t.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Oct 1 2025 20:19 utc | 87

@Posted by: c1ue | Oct 1 2025 19:14 utc | 67
Some of the greatest Soviet snipers were women, for example Lyudmila Pavlichenko had 309 credited kills. Then there are Roza Shanina, Nina Lokobskaya and any more. The Soviet Army included a lot of women and smashed the Nazi assholes all the way back to Berlin. In the below list of famous WW2 Soviet snipers you will find many women’s names:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipers_of_the_Soviet_Union
Maybe do some actual research? Many drone pilots are women, they don’t have to be anywhere near the front. And a drone explosive will take you out no matter what size you are, the bigger ones may just die more slowly.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Oct 1 2025 20:32 utc | 89

@ 83 digby
 
regarding the quote you share – total myth bullshit that a particular fanatical group believe in “religiouly” while others see it for the fairy tale it is…. and that unfortunately is how the world works..  one group believing in made up stories, while the rest want to pay attention of how we delude ourselves with such fantasy..  
maybe there is a reason there are a disproportionate number of these myth / fantasy believers living and working in hollywood..

Posted by: james | Oct 1 2025 20:48 utc | 91

c1ue and other women doubters…  way way back in my younger days I could life 200 pounds and jog with it.   All day every day.   I weighed 120 pounds 5’6” tall.  20-15 vision.   Never did have much interest in sniping etc  but certainly could easily have done so if I had wanted to.      But, IMHO this discussion of details of who can and who can’t deviates from the central issue:   Does the US military, or any military for that matter, swear to defend the Constitution or are they just a bunch of thugs, fat thin or otherwise.

Posted by: Formerly Miss Lacy | Oct 1 2025 20:50 utc | 93

Come on, y’all … The point is not that there shouldn’t be women soldiers … the point is that there shouldn’t be different physical and mental criteria (or a needless dropping of legitimate criteria) applied as to who qualifies for being a soldier in a modern army. 
So if a person of whatever sex can meet the legitimate criteria, they can serve. If not, not. If, when you apply this, a vanishingly small number of females qualify, then one may want to think of the benefits of going single-sex in the interest of economic considerations. 
Soviet and other considerations don’t apply to a modern volunteer army. Those were existential, whole of society wars that had people from 12 to 75 serving … I’m sure y’all don’t want to allow children to serve, right? 

Posted by: Caliman | Oct 1 2025 21:12 utc | 95

Here I am laughing imagining a little waif of a girl running around 24X7 with me riding piggyback!
 
Humorous visual indeed!
 
I’ve never come across a woman who could do that. Well, my mom old when I was a toddler, but I mean in my more adult years.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 1 2025 21:18 utc | 97

Posted by: james | Oct 1 2025 20:48 utc | 91
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Oct 1 2025 20:49 utc | 92
Just as I thought. Now I need ‘Dogon priest’ to comment on that…

Posted by: Digby | Oct 1 2025 21:28 utc | 99