I will start with the video of my interview last night on RT. It speaks for itself:
The following are the informed musings of a dear friend who also happens to be a financial advisor. He is troubled by the tsunami of propaganda that is sundering the worlds of politics and economics.
This resistance to accepting that propaganda is all around us reminds me of how investors resist the truth of the damage being done by the FED, which the FED needs to keep doing.
According to conventional economic policy, the FED needs to let doomed business models fail so that the collateral can be redeployed within the context of a capital structure that the assets can support.
The last sentence is critical to understand. Anyone familiar with bankruptcy restructuring understands this. In business bankruptcy, the production assets are either liquidated into the market place at extremely distressed prices, or the capital structure is replaced with a structure which the assets can support. The latter is a process of cancelling the existing equity, and replacing the existing debt with new debt and equity that can be supported by the collateral, e.g., improvements to the real estate and the plant and fixtures. This process often cancels jobs, which should never have created to begin with, but keeps labor structure intact, which is needed to operate the business efficiently and with employs folks with the appropriate skill sets.
This is an extraordinarily painful process for an entire nation to endure, but when complete, the nation, in theory, emerges as globally competitive.
If a family buys a home that stretches their ability to pay, but they do the deal because they got a very low interest rate, its only a matter of time before the family defaults. The house doesn’t go away, but the lender forecloses and sells it to a new owner, who can afford it and keeps it in good shape. The fate of the original family, who loses their home, is ignored.
Same process applies to an over-leveraged business model, which fails to support its debt and defaults.
The FED’s goal is get slow job creation so that demand for goods declines to a level that does not continue to push prices higher. You need equilibrium. You need a economy where people may need to pay through the nose to own a standard refrigerator, but back off from buying those very expensive luxury refrigerators, which you often see in the homes of politicians, such as Pelosi, Shumer, Nadler, Crist, Buchannan, etc.
Once purchasing power matches household income, the economy will be in more of an equilibrium state. Again, that is the theory. So, the demand curve slides a little more to the left, and takes the supply curve with it, and that is how prices reach equilibrium and stop rising. Granted, if you need to replace your compressor, you will pay the inflated price if you can get one, or you will reluctantly replace your refrigerator.
The FED will bring the FED Funds rate up to the intersection of the inflation rate, which is why, in the past, the FED raised rates slowly. AS the FED Funds rate rises, the inflation rate declines. Once they are at equilibrium, the FED can stand down and let the economy cure itself of inflationary expectations for wages, goods and services.
All of this is very clinical and sterile as long as we ignore the human cost. But the the human cost of this “adjustment” is devastating. People will die, children will go hungry and families who were middle class will find themselves staring at poverty. The pain can translate into political instability if the economic contagion spreads.
As a side comment, the Democrats have instituted policies at both national and state levels that discourage people from going to work, causing labor prices ro rise due to the appearance of labor shortages.
This year’s election could be the most important election in the 21st Century. If the Democrats keep both chambers, the American Republic, as a safe haven for capitalism and free market resource allocation, is doomed, permanently. The Democrats will shut down all domestic mining for resources in the ground, confiscate arms and private wealth, and incarcerate anyone who objects.
The longer Biden suppresses investment in oil and gas production, the more severe the energy shortages will be beginning in late 2023. We will see imbalances push demand for energy and prices up sharply in December of 2022 but watch out for December of 2023!
And this will cause chains of business debt default right here in the USA!
If the GOP takes control of both chambers, it faces a stark choice–act decisively to isolate Biden, Harris, Myorkas, etc and stop funding the war in UKraine or tread water with the business as usual nonsense and get the blame for the economic turmoil that is likely to roil America during the next two years. The big unknown is whether the Republican majority will repudiate Biden’s Ukraine policy. In any event, this election is more important than any. This election is the Pivot not just for the USA, but the world as a whole.
Great interview, Larry. I think the United States brass denigrates Russian weapons to not miss a “tremendous opportunity” to sell American weapons. I think Saudi dismissed American oil production pressure so easily, being now unafraid of being sanctioned by the USA and not getting American weapons. Saudi saw the performance of Russian weaponry on the battlefield and swapped American weapon orders for Russian weapons.
I agree. Too bad about the barely intelligible muttering interviewer (was that a Churchill imitation?). The huge promises of money to the Ukraine knowing they will not be delivered are handouts to political donors from the bloated arms industry. The point is to get those commitments on the books while the Ukraine is still seen as capable of defending themselves and before midterms. My guess is maybe 10% get to Europe and the rest of the pork is spread to the likes of Raytheon who are running a big con job like Pfizer.
Yeah, the interviewer was a bit wobbly to be sure. And, right on re the promises of money to the “donors from the bloated arms industry” before the MTerms and before it becomes obvious Ukraine can’t be defended. Here IMO it doesn’t matter whether they’re “Dumbs” or “Repugs” . . . the Neocons in both parties run foreign policy, and both parties are owned by monopoly corporations, Wall Street, and the MIComplex. Really, talking up nuclear war, doubling down on saving Ukraine and raising the Fed rate again, is the definition of absurdity. The country is literally rudderless . . . no captain, a clueless crew, and no way to set a rational course.
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”
— Ludwig von Mises
The FED does not set interest rates- the market does. Simply check a chart of the short term treasuries against the FED rates and you will see the FED follows the market.
It’s just a big hoax that the FED controls interest rates.
A man crying out in the wilderness! As it has been for my 67 years.
have another sip of coolade.UTURN
The Fed doesn’t set (most) interest rates. But the Fed controls the supply of money, which influences interest rates. Basic economic theory is that higher money supply means lower interest rates. So, in that regard, the Fed does control interest rates. It’s no hoax.
Uturn,
You might find this article relevant to your comment.
https://mises.org/wire/how-much-control-does-central-bank-have-over-interest-rates
Frank Shostak is one of my favorites.
The great weakness of a credit-based monetary system. The US is apparently paying some $500 million per day to a selected few banks! Personal credit levels are over-extended across the Western world. Once you reach your limits of credit under this system, money ceases to be created and the economy goes into recession, or depression. Under this system, the only path to growth is via credit, as it takes credit to create money. The bankers love this system.
And the malinvestments just keep piling up. Almost 20% of American corporations are zombie companies. It has to collapse at some point unless the money printing comes to a halt.
It will collapse whether or not the money printing comes to a halt. Those malinvestments must be eliminated and sold to investors who are more successful at using them. The crash will be worse if the money printing comes to a halt later rather than sooner.
These central bankers are filled with hubris. They think they can succeed in managing the economy with their fiat based monetary system. Reality proves they haven’t. Only a gold based money has succeeded in keeping a healthy economy going because the bankers can’t print paper willy nilly. Which is why they hate a gold standard. It forces people to live with in their means and loan money that they actually save from productive activity and which they don’t consume in the present. Fiat money is really counterfeit money made legal.
You’re right. Good comment.
Yes, a good comment. I dont know anything but this rings true.
Victor, I can’t find verification for 500 million per day going to certain banks. Could this be “interest” on the government debt? I’m not easily rattled but this is terrifying.
So sorry. My mistake. That $500 million was the total payment per day for government civil services – not interest on the national debt.
An interesting summary… Thanks, Larry.
If we are waiting for the Republicans to save us then we are rightly and truly screwed.
The Republicans taking it will only empower The Turtle, Chicken hawkish Graham, and Rubio et al will double down on Ukraine aid.
I fear the meme TINVOWOOT is what we are facing.
There Is No Voting Our Way Out Of This.
Since the Republicans have done pretty much nothing about the vote fraud the red wave probably is not going to happen. Blue states are handing out voting cards like Halloween candy to the illegals, the media is firmly in their court.
But they will push too far. That will be their undoing. There will be blood in the streets but not ours.
“Since the Republicans have done pretty much nothing about the vote fraud the red wave probably is not going to happen”.
This was my main concern for months now as talking heads in the alt-news crowed about how this election will be a blow-out for Republicans and against the Demoncrats. I’ve said otherwise. We saw what happened as soon as the Biden Regime was in office. It was nothing but wholesale repudiation of everything that could benefit America. Which is what they wanted.
Power once obtained is not likely to be handed over. If the Demoncrats stole the last election so brazenly, what they saw was a tepid response from Trump himself!
If you read the first-person account of Patrick Byrne of how Sidney Powell and Gen. Flynn and he met with Trump in December 2020, you can see how Trump could have stopped this fraud in its tracks with some very simple legal means.
https://www.deepcapture.com/2021/02/how-djt-lost-the-white-house-chapter-3-crashing-the-white-house-december-18/
Frankly I find myself wondering about Donald Trump. I voted for him twice and was a great supporter of him in the absence of anyone better. I cut him a lot of slack. But after two years reflecting on what happened, and seeing Trump push the vaccine and attack Putin, I have come to the conclusion that he is not what he seems to be.
Took you this long to see Trump was a fraud?
About all we can hope for at this point is a divided government, which at least slows down the carnage. Beyond that, I’m not optimistic.
I think “The Independent Republic of Florida” has a nice ring to it.
I read Byrne’s book. He sounded the alarm months ahead of the election and figured out pretty much exactly what they planned to do and where.
Trump did nothing, the team did nothing. Giuliani was more interested in staring at the bottom of a scotch bottle.
You have to hand it to the Dems. They had their plan and were determined to let nothing stop them from implementing it.
Trump funded vax for COVID and supported the vax but never agreed with mandatory mandates and kids out of school and masks etc.
So he had a personal view. He did not impose it.
He also called Putin a genius at start of the SMO. He has called for nehotiations. If elected I think he will continue trying to get peace in mid East and elsewhere sorted.
He irritated the hell out of me with his thin skin and tweets plus minor corruption re kushner dad but bottom line, unlike the machine bots in government he was still an ordinary human who wanted business not war. Rather that.
Trump is half a liberal Jesuit (Fordham University); so, he should be under the radar. Look at Liberation Theology and its Marxists relations attempting to destroy Capitalism as we have known it. Georgetown University is NOT conservative to say the least from a civil view; and I’ll leave it at that and not even discuss its damning theology/soteriology. Trump has played both sides. God only knows if he has been deceptively conscious to aid the Jesuit Agenda (Counter Reformation) which is also looking to unite conservatives under the banner of Christian Nationalism – conservative ecumenism. Simply, if the current “liberal” Union of Church & State with Biden and Pope Francis fails; then the far right could very well start advocating a false conservative Union of Church & State; of course, the question is: will there be doctrinal coercion like the Spanish Inquisition? So much for my two cents; but seriously, there are religious/ideologies trying to undermine and destroy the US Constitution. Unfortunately, Theo politics is rarely mentioned in the media.
They have already pushed too far. TINVOWOOT indeed, sir. I fear your last sentence is overly optimistic and actually, is not how it must happen. The blood of our forefathers who founded this nation ran in the streets, the woods, the fields. “The tree of liberty is refreshed with the blood of patriots” as a noted founder said. And if not for those willing to die for their children and their children’s children, there will be no freedom.
There may or not be enough of us, time will tell, but we will be targeted no matter what. To me better to die on my feet than live on my knees.
About the time we see “blood in the streets”, and/or states attempting to secede, unless we have some powerful secret weapons I know nothing about, (UFOs etc) USA will be wide open to a Chinese invasion as they know our military is in no shape to handle both at once.
And more ….
“The boom squanders through malinvestment scarce factors of production and reduces the stock available through overconsumption; its alleged blessings are paid for by impoverishment.”
— Ludwig von Mises
Thanks! That was a keeper. Already shared.
Spent a spell staring at it, knowing there were nuggets, but it was a long day!
So…Dr PhD… this passage works mo better 4 me with punctuation…! LOL
best, Walter
“The ‘boom’ squanders, through malinvestment: scarce factors of production and reduces the stock available through overconsumption;
its alleged blessings are paid for by impoverishment.”
— Ludwig von Mises
“The longer Biden suppresses investment in oil and gas production, the more severe the energy shortages will be beginning in late 2023. “:
We could have the cheap oil in the World if we just stopped blockading imports from Venezuela and Russia.
We don’t need to build new pipelines and continue polluting our ground waters with dumbass fracking chemicals to squeeze out the last few drops.
We could have one pipeline that was almost completed at the cost of who knows how much money – and then one of his very first acts was to cancel the Keystone. What?! Why?!!
Answer: because it screws America which is what his whole admin has been about. WEF/Davos anyone?
The Great Reset is the ultimate goal. And just about every western political leader is on board with that. Russia and China stand in their way. Russia and China are standing in the way of a one world government and a global digital currency which would spell the end of individual rights and freedom.
They cancelled Keystone to keep Canada begging with WCS prices at rock bottom. There is nearly unlimited heavy oil perfect for Texas refineries sitting there on the surface with zero exploration risk. It’s a choice made by lobbyists.
Correct.
The real Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is based on a smallholding in Northern Montana aka Alberta.
The Canadians independently are more than capable of building pipelines South,East and West out to World markets but it is not going to happen.
John Mearsheimer is correct in stating not all Countries have independent foreign policy. Some are more sovereign than others as we are seeing today!
I follow the WCS everyday, it is a very good indicator of US needs and intent.
clinging to hopes that any of the current political classes either want to or have the courage to change the system strikes me as flawed, copium at best. But by all means vote harder if it really makes you feel better.
Sadly, I concur. This is systemic.
The pool needs bleach.
Truth
“The big unknown is whether the Republican majority will repudiate Biden’s Ukraine policy.”
https://sonar21.com/interviewed-by-rt-and-an-essay-on-the-economic-pain-that-is-coming/
Larry,
The GOP will not repudiate Biden’s Ukraine policy. The GOP is shit just like the Democrat Party. No difference. None. We live under one party rule that dictates endless wars, open borders and free trade.
The extreme perversion now being promulgated is all because of the GOP which has long enjoyed being the choice of the lesser evils.
Survival depends upon something else. And Dump is not the answer. A snake oil salesman, ‘a pitch man,’ as MI Spooks first defined him.
I once interview Gen. Hal Moore: https://rebelarmy.com/audio/RFM-2010-08-04-HalMoore.mp3
https://youtu.be/wGNxHMFjigA
The above inspires me still.
MI Spooks shared with me: https://youtu.be/A-yZNMWFqvM
Your interviewer was beneath you.
The truth you are speaking now is more profound than any other!
Jim Giles
Radio Free Mississippi
The Fed’s true goal is to benefit the 1% at the expense of everyone else. The Fed can’t manage the economy any better than it could manage the rotation of the earth around the sun. It was created by the very rich to systematically steal from the poor and middle class. It’s a shame that very few people understand how this works.
Here is a link to a public blog post from Martin Armstrong from June 17, 2022 discussing the limitation of the Federal Reserve re inflation. The inflation we face now is due to supply chain shortages thanks to endless government stupidity.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrongeconomics101/inflation/the-federal-reserve-cannot-combat-inflation-alone/
Well said Steven. All done elegantly and with a veneer of good intentions…
but they, too are fast approaching the end of this spiel.
The Creature from Jekyll Island is not on the side of the people but Tom Luongo has an interesting take on recent Fed activity.
The mother-Wef’ers are pushing their reset. The Reset would eliminate commercial banking in favor of a one-world central bank.
Since the Jekyll Island monster represents a cartel of commercial banks they have declared the Khazarian mother-WEF’ers to be the enemy. The interest rate hikes is according to him a battle to destroy the Eurodollar and take down the European central banks and hence the mother-WEF’ers.
Basically two slave masters fighting over who will be in charge of the plantation.
The 1% own 90% + of everything. Most land, most money, most assets.
The system sees them as too big to fail.
Imagine pensions collapsing if half the companies in FTSE dropped. Taxes collapsing if top rate payers leave.
System is bad. New creative system needed. Elites have zero imagination and ability to create new systems needed. So prop old. Someone smart needs to make a new system.
Larry, I don’t know you but I like reading your essays. Believe it or not, you are an optimist in my eyes! Why? Because you say things that sound like hope that GOP is any different than the democrats. I am old enough to have lived through communism in former Yugoslavia under Tito. I also spent 20+ years now in USA. I actually have come to see Yugoslavia as more free and more “just” “back then” than USA is now. To me, USA is (was, now nobody outside is buying it anymore) great at propaganda and nothing else these days. Great at convincing people of things that are (no longer) true. We are running on the fumes of those dreams and this is why I circle back to seeing you as an optimist. Democrats, republicans, two sides to the same coin. And the coin is ugly today…..
Great reply!
I am sloooowly bring a Polish friend to recognize what he is seeing in his 25 years here…I suspect even in the shadow of the former land of glory there are legions opening their eyes.
It is, essentially The Horror of my 74 orbits.
Thanks
Since many years, I speak to my friends that US is the “Land of Propaganda”, only this. That US, progressist, fair no longer exist, unfortunately. A lot of greedy, irresponsible and cruel managers took control of the country and is taking US to destruction. I don’t see a good perspective for the future. In fact, I expect a civil war in US in the short-mid term, then the misery, violence, arrogance and intolerance are increasing every day. I don’t trust in the election system in US. The people can’t no longer choose the president. They are manipulated by a corrupt and evil press, bought by big companies (Financial and military first).
As we saw from Trump impeachment-gate hearings, Republicans like Democrats were not at all interested in the facts, nor the actual corruption of the matter viz. Ukraine in particular and all lies directed towards Russians and Russia more generally.
If this is accurate premonition: “The Democrats will . . . confiscate arms and private wealth, and incarcerate anyone who objects”; Then: how does it matter who is running Congress — since these potential actions are within the direct instruments of Executive Branch? — between now and 2024 election, assuming there is one. . . and in any event, for all intents and purposes, there was no 2020 election. That is, if election is defined as something that has meaning, as measured by its relative accuracy — at reflecting what the voters actually said; as opposed to what the “results” announced and imputed to be true, said. . . .
1] Assuming Republicans take control of the next Congress, are they going to use power of the purse to de fund, if need be, those direct instruments of coercion enumerated above?
???
2] Are they going to impeach and remove, say, for starters: Garland, Wray, Biden, Blinken, Nuland? Will they retroactively impeach Obama as was done with Trump?
The war spending is first item that must be stopped, to stop total bankruptcy of our country.
The rest will be a lot of pain for the common man, but at the very least, the gaping hole called spending on Ukraine would be plugged.
Even if this happen, can we recover from all the wreckage and dead bodies and suicides and . . . wait for it. . . extreme, like nothing we have ever seen. . . big tech and big media denunciations of [the putative ‘new’ R-led] Congress?
As bad as this has been, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet, not by a long shot!
In other words: is a Republican Congress, after Xmas, willing to dismantle: CIA, FBI, DOJ????? [along with the criminal CDC, NIH, NIAID? and the bio warfare research that . . . .]
If not, then nothing of matter will matter!
-30-
“… or tread water with the business as usual nonsense and get the blame for the economic turmoil that is likely to roil America during the next two years.”
It will be this, by design. The Republican role is to take the blame, especially with Trump voters. They have become the Washington Generals to the Democrat Harlem Globetrotters. The private owners of both corporations that we call the Democratic and Republican parties don’t care if the Republican ‘brand’ is ruined (especially if it removes the only extant institutional vehicle for expression of American nationalism) as long as they continue to control the Democrat-flavored corporation for the veneer of legitimacy it gives them to exercise power through armed federals.
That this would be stripping the threads on the propeller shaft of the USS Grift is perhaps something they are not noticing in their haste to plug all the holes that they have punched in the hull by hitting every reef in the sea with their drunken piloting. The British MP Enoch Powell noted that “The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils.” Our ruling class seems go out of its way to find every preventable evil it can, and then make it happen.
A great interview.
The situation with “resisting the truth” reminds me of a crash of Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612 in 2006. The English-language wiki page is not too informative, the Russian one is more detailed. Briefly, they were trying to get over a thunderstorm, got too high, entered a stall/flat spin at 39,000 feet and were then falling uncontrollably all the way down. What struck me the most when I was reading the actual transcript of the in-cabin recorder is that pilots were trying to do something constructive, working as a team, for the entire duration of the flat spin even though, as I heard, any one even remotely related to aviation (I am not) knows that it is impossible for an airliner to get out of the stall. It is not a military jet, nor a small Cessna – its aerodynamics does not allow it to break the stall. It is basically like a falling brick. Those pilots would have been professional enough to recognize the stall, but this is how human brain works – it resists the pain truth, so they were talking to each other, trying different approaches etc, all to no avail of course.
The thoughtful and informative international commentary is one of the reasons I keep coming back here. Thank you!
Lira’s round table tonight reminded me: Ross Perot was right!
Wow!
President Putin,
You must have some pull with RT. Why is Larry Johnson not front and center at RT? Why is Larry Johnson not where Macaroni is now? https://www.rt.com/news/564631-macron-nukes-russia-ukraine/
You have allies amongst peace loving Americans. Not all of us want endless war.
Why not utilize some of your pull and put Larry at the top of RT news where he belongs!!
Jim Giles
Radio Free Mississippi
P.S. And you love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tw3g88JtWA. Admit it.
Another very well written essay, Larry. The best we can hope for is a change in priorities, which will result in a de facto repudiation of the Biden policy as attention turns elsewhere. i would expect an impeachment investigation based upon the request to the Saudis to delay the output cuts until after the midterms, but it’ll be a slow roll at best.
I disagree. The privately owned Federal Reserve already “owns it all”. They will usher in the final wealth transfer heist, reset and do it all again. As for “elections”, either you believe that the last 2020 election was the most brazen election fraud in our US history ( certainly not the first, just the most brazen and in-your-face) or you believe Joe Biden won 70-80 million votes (more than Obama). I for one, believe whoever will serve the interest of the Fed, Business & MIC will be installed, be it Rep or Dem. It’s time Americans faced up that the US is a banana republic, quit this 2 party uniparty system and moved forward to imagine a nation better for ourselves. The fact that the stability & course of the Nation hinges on a “vote” every 2 and 4 years is no way to run a nation. Further, getting past the gatekeepers to even become a “candidate” means you’re in the club. Americans need to take some realism courses because most are 50 years behind in assessing our decay. In any case, these “discussions” are the same wheel turning the same tune…”this election is the most important election ever in our time”…
No, it’s not.
Present FED tightening ignores supply chain and production issues lingering from pandemic. “Too much money chasing too few goods” with the knee jerk reaction by the privileged that labor is overpaid is also camouflage for mismanaged energy and sanctions policies that directly contribute to inflation. There is also the management vs labor problem— employers hate workers with alternatives.
Sign back on to the original Obama Iran deal and remove oil sanctions on Iran. Remove mindless oil sanctions on Venezuela. Oil drops to $60 a barrel, problem solved!
Sadly, I concur. This is systemic.
The pool needs bleach.
Admire your takes but much of this grates. The point is not that I disagree with the ethic of the self-adjusting mechanism described here but rather that I suspect it’s an assumption rather than an assessment.
Just as an example, Blackrock just bounced tons of – probably clueless – pension managers out of their Gilts positions using “insurance” products as described here:
https://twitter.com/320kbps_4k/status/1580439687168000000?s=46&t=VdgWUl9aOlEanloz5mJTDw
My point is not about Gilts, UK Pensions but that this “cover story” of how the “market works” – while being apparently intellectually satisfying is empty calories.
I would be ~ fine if the market worked like that pleasing tale.
The whole point is it hasn’t / doesn’t. If the 2008 crisis where Wall Street blew a massive real-estate bubble then cynically created markets explicitly to short it, then having bounced fellow-Americans out of their most historically safe asset, bought up supply as rental units and are now tightening the vice…
But that doesn’t seem to outrage apparent true believers in market orthodoxy.
It’s very telling to me.
The US thinks, “We are the World”. Really, it is “we are A world”, just one of many and a very, very fake world constructed not by nature but by Hollywood and Disney. So logic and reason don’t apply. It is all about the story. And momentary satisfaction. This will continue until the American “world” is revealed as a facade.Walk through a door and see nothing there. That is why multipolarity matters so much. One earth, many worlds. https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/one-earth-many-worlds? Larry’s interview makes clear the US (and NATO) don’t live in a real world, but a fantasy.
Larry -First rate interview; solid sound bites; well done !
Regarding the Federal Reserve Bank – your buddy is correct but forgets to mention the key issue with the Fed; namely the Fed is a cartel of our biggest banks. It’s not a government body. Ron Paul is the best source on the short comings of the Fed for laymen.
Supply and demand for material, products, and labor has whipsawed since the start of the plandemic. The root cause of inflation is poor (deliberate?) governance: all events throughout the plandemic were inflationary, the absolute worst was when the Fed went !CTRL+P. Inflation is not defined by a rise in prices, it is a direct result of decreased purchasing power of the one’s currency. Deliberate, no?
As always, great post and I enjoy watching your interviews & round table discussions.
Cheers from Probolinggo.
In the interview, Larry talks about the failures of HARM anti-radar missiles:
In the period Oct 7-13, RuMoD claims the following numbers of HARM intercepts:
October 07:
4 HARM anti-radar missiles have been shot down in air near Novaya Kakhovka and Antonovka bridge (Kherson region).
October 10:
3 HARM anti-radar missiles near Antonovka (Kherson region).
October 11:
6 U.S.-manufactured HARM anti-radar missiles near Antonovka (Kherson region).
October 13:
10 U.S.-manufactured HARM anti-radar missiles have been shot down near Guselskoye (Donetsk People’s Republic) and Novaya Kakhovka (Kherson region).
Total 23 HARM intercepts. In the same period, 95 HIMARS/Olkha and 6 other ballistic missile intercepts are claimed.
The 4-week moving average of claimed missile intercepts has increased from 50 to 100 in June – August to about 150 in October. There is no indication that HARMS have had any impact whatsoever on Russian AD effectiveness, they are consistently claiming up to 198 intercepts per week, and identify the locations of them.
Maybe HARM needs EW support to be effective? Will we hear calls to supply EA-18G Growlers (EW F-18 Hornets) to Ukraine?
HARMs had trouble dealing with Serbian air defenses 20+ years ago. They aren’t firing them against Russians because they expect them to be effective, but are just emptying storage so that they can order more (it’s just business).
Were justice (not just us) extant in America, The CEO of Raytheon would sleep with the fishes.
In a sense it no longer matters what America, the FED, Europe, etc., do. The center of gravity has been shifting to Asia for a long time and and there is no turning back now.
“The commodity currency revolution
Apr 7, 2022
·
Alasdair Macleod
We will look back at current events and realise that they marked the change from a dollar-based global economy underwritten by financial assets to commodity-backed currencies. We face a change from collateral being purely financial in nature to becoming commodity based. It is collateral that underwrites the whole financial system.
The ending of the financially based system is being hastened by geopolitical developments. The West is desperately trying to sanction Russia into economic submission, but is only succeeding in driving up energy, commodity, and food prices against itself. Central banks will have no option but to inflate their currencies to pay for it all. Russia is linking the rouble to commodity prices through a moving gold peg instead, and China has already demonstrated an understanding of the West’s inflationary game by having stockpiled commodities and essential grains for the last two years and allowed her currency to rise against the dollar.”
Larry,
Nice interview – I never estimated that the HARM would work in the EW environment Russia has created over Ukraine – and I suspect neutralizing Ukrainian starlink (apparently ionizing the stratosphere), degrades GPS and NATO weapons systems that use it – Russia is certainly upgraded their own GPS (my guess – additional check bits, larger and more narrow band antennae, and half a dozen other things I can think of – ie how one prepares for battle against a peer power.
——
I find myself in serious disagreement with the economic analysis – it presents the current situation as a traditional demand-led recession that the standard financial (FED) tools can fight.
However, it is rather easy to learn (outside Wall St), that this is a supply driven recession/depression – a problem one sees in countries like Ecuador or the late Soviet Union – and raising interest rates to the sky does not help – it just prolongs the depression. What has worked is an influx of “solid” cash from the western banking system – oh, but now the western banking system is a house of shaky zombie banks.
And blaming payments for people to stay home from shit jobs that pay crap as the cause is pure BS – they Republicans and democrats shoveled trillions into the banks’ orifices without a care for moral hazard. In the 2008 collapse, I saw estimates of $24 trillion. How much did Blackrock get up the wazoo? 4 trillion, 6 trillion? No ones knows. No one cares about that!
Current inflation predates the sanctions and is because the US supply chain is dysfunctional – its too lean, investment has been neglected, and cannot handle Covid disruptions, and there is no domestic production of most things or redundancy. The sanction oil price induced inflation is just starting – there is a six month-ish delay from cause to effect. So the real headwind is coming. The cost of some industrial products that I buy direct from China are the same as two years ago. Same Chinese product from a US retailer has doubled or tripled. No US alternatives.
When the Portugese empire collapsed, Portugal proceeded to collapse for centuries. Same with Rome. Same with Spain. Britain is still collapsing. If not for Vladimir Putin, Russia would still be collapsing and fragmenting. To argue the Fed has the tools to prevent this is IMO, a unicorn dream. Let’s see the Fed print some Neon gas. Or grain. Or a modern infrastructure. Such economists need to get their head out of the non-sunny place in their ivory tower.
Nailed it
What mystifies me is while the Fed cannot print neon gas or uranium or anything else they can print US dollars by the containership load snowblower them everywhere
and the world still clamors for more!
Gold and silver dropping below the cost of production because traders are desperate for more dollars!
Can anything be more insane than this? Do they mix LSD with the green ink or something?
Americans are too stupid to elect good leaders. Most are not taught critical thinking or much of anything going through the public educational system. Then they lose 20 IQ pts permanently via binge drinking or doing worse in college. Finally, they follow up with electronic illusionary vegetable boxes like iPhones, TV and video games the rest of their lives. All this leaves them easily propagandized to vote for people who don’t have their interests in mind or believe things like Russia is getting smashed – especially when they have no core tenants, mores and atmospherics something like religion instills in someone to resist peer pressured propaganda. Weak men create tough times and here we are entering them is all – they definitely will blow up financial markets and maybe the world is the problem with this “turning” …
I’m still convinced the Straussians in power will never give up 450 years of Western global domination which is inevitable, but losing in Ukraine would accelerate this process, thus, it’s an existential threat to them so all the stops will be pulled out – up to and including nuclear war. As Russia’s offensive kicks off there will probably be a false flag on Ukrainians with a nuke then if Russia does not give up it’s on.
If the choice is between Dumb and Dumber (e.g. Trump and Biden) it is no wonder people (not only Americans) choose no good leaders. The potential good leaders are either too smart to jump into the snakepit or don’t stand a chance against the propaganda tsunami
Lord Monckton,
MI Spooks referred me to Larry Johnson, https://sonar21.com/about-larry/ No one comes remotely close to Mr. Johnson’s analysis and I thought of you and climate change because of the lies promulgated by those who believe in climate change.
My interview with you was one that I will never forget: https://rebelarmy.com/audio/RFM-2009-10-28-ChristopherMonckton.mp3
It’s asking too much to get you to side with Russia as truth and against the West as lies. Nonetheless the analogy is sound, i.e., those who promote climate change are liars just like those who promote Russia is the aggressor and losing the Ukraine War are liars.
Don’t you agree that America blowing up Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines was unacceptable? American terrorism?
Not that it will happen but it would be great fun to interview you regarding King Charles III. The future King having previously lied about climate change, is lying about Russia: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/prince-charles-condemns-russian-invasion-ukraine
I hope you are doing well.
I’m posting the following at Mr. Johnson’s site: https://sonar21.com/interviewed-by-rt-and-an-essay-on-the-economic-pain-that-is-coming/
https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/03/02/russia-declares-war-on-the-straussians/
You capture the heart of the matter but your concept needs development, i.e., it needs to be stated in simple terms so the common man can understand it. Straussian is too cryptic.
Leadership is what we lack. Leadership is what we need.
https://youtu.be/wGNxHMFjigA
https://youtu.be/A-yZNMWFqvM
All I see now is negativity which is inconsistent with leadership.
Our enemies cannot be called what they are because of political correctness. But they remain our mortal enemies nonetheless.
And we do not lack for smart leaders. What we lack are tough leaders.
Jim Giles
Radio Free Mississippi
” the American Republic, as a safe haven for capitalism and free market resource allocation, is doomed, permanently. ”
You’re kidding. Free markets …hahaha.
And please don’t compare a home mortgage with national debt. It’s nonsense.
To all you many Prophets of Doom: the US will will rebound again.
Because all people long for freedom.
As water will breach a dam’s wall or find its way to liberty.
“The FED will bring the FED Funds rate up to the intersection of the inflation rate, which is why, in the past, the FED raised rates slowly. AS the FED Funds rate rises, the inflation rate declines.”
Except, of course, that doesn’t work because the steering isn’t connected to the wheels.
What always amuses me is the belief that wage rises will always be passed through as price rises, but interest cost rises won’t. Why won’t they? There’s a supply side shortage. Firms have pricing power.
Interest is paid to somebody who will spend some and save some. Just like wages.
Moreover because loans create deposits (yes they do, as the Bank of England explained in 2014), you can’t have savings go up and loans go down. They have to go up, or go down together. Which means ‘savings’ can only come from paying back loans. Who is doing that when they can’t afford power bills?
What stops inflation isn’t the Fed. It’s fear and uncertainty. That kills business investment and consumption spending stone dead.
A stealthy but significant support beneath the elevated inflation we see today lies in the cost of energy, which propagates wildly and chaotically throughout the economy. This chaos manifests in a constant shifting of inflation from sector to sector, making it very difficult to mitigate. More importantly, because we’re experiencing cost-push inflation (and not demand-pull inflation), monetary policy decisions have little impact in the fight. The federal funds rate could be raised to 25% and inflation wouldn’t even pause. The absolute key to solving the inflation problem is to make long-term policy decisions in favor of the development of the petroleum resource industry, and to eliminate antagonistic policies that hinder said development, like the “green agenda.” The green agenda will enforce mass impoverishment and destitution on any polity in which it is implemented – and politicians aren’t stupid, they know this. I see the agenda as an express route to politicians’ desired form of societal organization, neo-feudalism. The future ain’t looking pretty.
Larry: yet another great article from you.
BTW, also check out the following predictions about the US economy and the US Dollar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8esfBFliR4
Your friend’s analysis, although superb, hasn’t mentioned the impact of any action that China might take against the US Dollar. There are some news reports that China is planning a major dump of the Dollar. If so, it tallies with the prediction given in the YouTube video that I shared above. And it would hasten the economic crash to which your friend alludes.
There is just one point that I think needs to be explored: How can it be that unemployment is not rising? Why is there a complain that companies don’t find personal?
If you compare the situation today to the 1930, there is
– Inflation
– a bad leader who wants to change borders. A. H. and the Czech Republic, now V. P. and Donbass
– but what about the unemployment? 6 Million German workers being unemployed in 1933. And today?
Unemployed may go for a revolution. But employed will go for nothing.
So, are there no unemployed people?
I don’t understand where the evidence is to justify any hope on the Republic party becoming the next government, since both parties have combined to take the US where it is now. Differences in social and culture policies but complete unity in the bread and butter of wealth-oriented economic policy: that’s what liberal democracies are about.
Someone was saying that the US needs a course on reality. That course has existed now for two hundred years but seems to be anathema to Americans: Marxist thought. There is nothing happening now that hasn’t been forecast, understood and explained either by Marx or Lenin.
Even if we could go back in time a million times and start over again with little adjustments that didn’t affect the main proposition, “Free” markets would lead to the current world a million times.
By all means, vote harder. But you need to realise that that magnificent American material culture of the last 80 years has been based on the capture of resources outside the USA, that marvellous lifestyle of consumerist progress and prosperity people seem to think can be recaptured, the natural state of things for America, will be a matter for future tall tales round the campfire. America is a poorer country than anybody knows. Just take a look at the state of your rivers and tremble.
EDIT: “ I don’t understand where the evidence is to justify any hope on the Republic party becoming the next government”.
Any hope for meaningful change in economic and foreign policy, that is.
“But you need to realise that that magnificent American material culture of the last 80 years has been based on the capture of resources outside the USA, …”
This is nonsense. Our standard of living and even more so our quality of life were good and growing before our country became an exploitative financialist empire. It has been steadily declining since the capture of the control nodes of our civilization in the late 1960’s by not just culturally alien ‘elites’ but elites hostile to the mere notion that European peoples should continue to exist, and the open immigration they have pushed through against the will of our people for the express purpose of destroying our people.
European people with sovereignty, without the burden of predatory oligarchy (alien or indigenous) or unwanted diversity, will create nice places to live no matter where we are in this world. It is high social trust, not bananas in winter or exotic MSG-laden food available on every street corner, that makes a country a nice place to live. Diversity is not a strength. I laughed out loud when I first heard that ‘diversity is a strength’ nonsense years ago. It boggles the mind that anyone could be so stupid and ignorant to believe it. ALL of human history says otherwise. Not some of it, not most of it, ALL OF IT …
Social trust and the societies it can create do not scale, and never will. It’s not our fault that reality is the way it is. We didn’t design reality. We just live within its constraints like everyone else. Civilizations are ecosystems. (not ‘are like’, ARE) It’s not our fault that the numerous low social trust people in this world cannot break free of the chains of their cultures (aggregate population behavior), which co-evolved with them inside their civilizational ecosystems. It is monstrous conceit either to think that we have the capability to fix these problems, or that it is somehow our responsibility to do so even if we were not being gradually extinguished inside our own civilizations, or that anyone else wants us to be doing so in the first place. Most people just want to be left alone.
You want us to leave the rest of the world alone? We would be DELIGHTED to do so, as long as it goes both ways. ‘The World’ can start by taking back the planetary-scale Mariel Boatlift that has been dumped on our shores in the last 2 years. Many if not most of the decisionmakers in the oligarchy, the architects of this madness, do not belong here either. Alas, no one will willingly take back their dyscivilizational nation-wreckers, neither those in rags nor those in 3-piece suits with Harvard diplomas on their walls.
All those words just to say you are an ignorant white supremacist? Dear me.
And actually diverse nations that engaged with others more have always been more successful historically.
See ancient Egypt, Persia, Ancient Greece, ancient India, modern Russia has over 120 ethnicities etc, contrast to Arab nations, those that are more diverse UAE etc thrive most. Least diverse, tribes in Amazon who unfortunately get abused by diverse South American baddies.
Civilized comes from Greek word civilos, means a person who understands and is travelled, learned in a wide variety of cultures. Nothing to do with fork and knife.
The problem isn’t diversity of people it is ghettoisation and clash of classes.
Do you think rich white dude like Gates, Soros, Buffet, Musk wants to interact with white poor and working class or with Obama, Xi, Mittal, Indian Google head, Japanese leader, African and Arab princes, rap stars
.? Who do they want to hang with?
Divisions only really exist at lower class levels as they fight for resources, importance and space. Just how the wealthy like it while they pick their pockets. BLM v Proud Boys. Achieved what?
The reason that I take the time to comment on what might seem to be notions tangential both to the specific blog post and our host’s blog mission is because I don’t think that they are tangential. America instability is a planetary crisis, and it is rooted in our currently poor management of our inhomogeneity, which used to be managed with federalism when the polity was European. If this country were filled with 340 million ethnic Danes (or 340 million of ANY other homogeneous ethnicity) and no one else, none of this would be happening. They wouldn’t even need to have a federation; there would be no multiplicity of peoples to federate. The conflict that comes from diversity is endemic in all but small ethnostates, and has surely occurred from the dawn of hominin sapience and consequent rise of cultural variation. Different polities throughout history have developed different ways of organizing power relationships to solve resultant conflict, some more humane than others. We have to deal with reality as it is, not as we wish it were.
The ancient Greeks would scoff at multiculturalism. They had internal variation (as any and every numerous people does) but they made a VERY clear demarcation between who was Greek and who was barbarian (not-Greek). The rest had imperial ruling classes that were homogenous at their core, at least for the times when they had extant states. Diversity didn’t work out for the peoples of the Indian subcontinent when the Mughal came calling: no unity before the storm. Diversity was almost a disaster for Europeans in exactly the same way: barely enough unity before the storm of Jihad. (thank you, Jan Sobieski, for uniting Germans, Austrians, and Poles long enough to win the Battle of Vienna in 1683)
However, noting modern Russia is good, except while it is certainly true that is has many small ethnicities and it does appear that the RF is making it work, it is working precisely because the actual ruling class of Russia (*civilizational architecture* decision makers, not just implementers) is decisively Russian, as it should be. They have made generous accommodation (imo) with their minorities (who it appears to me have a level of genuine local cultural autonomy that makes this subject of the American empire envious), but they will NEVER AGAIN allow them to rule over Russians (at the central government level) and I think it is fair to say that they have made this crystal clear. Several tens of millions of Russians in early graves show what a bad idea ‘sharing’ power is, not just for ethnic Russians but for all who live in the lands which comprise their federation. My take-home assessment from watching one of Putin’s speeches was that ‘the past is forgiven (implicit that the actual perpetrators are long dead) and we should move on and make the best of the present together, but WE will rule’.
There can only be one civilizational vision. It’s not that different from when the WASP’s ruled over America. We used to have free speech for everyone because WASP’s enforced it when they ruled. They thought is was important: it was one of their values. They lost power and now we don’t systematically have it any more for anyone. The civilizational mission and its value system got changed along the ruling class.
The problem with diversity in America is that, just like the ‘culture’ that comes out of the television, it is not natural but engineered, forced, and synthetic. It has become a weapon. You are sorely mistaken if you think just shouting ‘racism!’ is going to get people to stop noticing that diversity is directly responsible for our country (and others) falling apart and that leftists have openly publicly celebrated our replacement and ostensibly impending destruction. Compared to historic timescales for cultural change, awareness is spreading like wildfire. Play time is over. The days of pretending that nothing is wrong are not coming back. Engage with people of good will to analyze problems and find mutually acceptable solutions while there is still some good will left.
Look at Joe Biden as an example of the clash of culture problem with synthetic American approach to diversity. I’ve heard some say”he’s Irish, not American” which is simply incorrect. If he actually were culturally Irish we would be SO much better off. The Irish have a culture and associated mores (alas, they are fast throwing it all away instead of just the negative identity ‘We are not British’ parts). It’s not ours, but authentic Irish culture has made significant contribution to some of the constituent cultures that comprise Heritage America, so it’s not completely alien either. Biden’s problem is that he is culturally neither Irish nor Heritage American. Instead, like many Americans he became rootless and was easy prey for absorbing the synthetic multicultural ‘citizen of the world’ nonsense which is fundamentally a tool of control pushed by those who use America as a launching pad for planetary empire.
The imperialists want one culture with which to rule us all. Unfortunately for their plan, the blank slate theory is incorrect and instead the truth is that the various peoples on this Earth have different preferences on how to organize themselves socially, politically, and economically. These preferences are to a large degree expressed in their mores (cultural behavioral standards and sub-legal customs for their regulation) which co-evolved with their ancestors over time. They are, to a degree, rooted in biology, a consequence of the very diverse natural selection forcing that humanity has endured. There is no one-size fits all solution to stable governance of polities containing diversity that does not make allowance for local self-rule sufficient for maintenance and perpetuation of culture and genome. No one on this Earth willingly makes investments in commons, local or global, that will not be inherited, at least in part, by their own.
Sorors is jewish.
Gates is jewish.
Buffet is jewish.
Musk may or may not new jewish according to the evidence.
And anyone promotign them as ‘white’ is spreading anti-white hate, and is also probably jewish.
Like you Ash.
Yeah, do we really want a government with Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell and Adam Kinzinger running things?
Blackrock, Raytheon, et al, own both sides.
|
From your financial advisor:
“the Democrats have instituted policies at both national and state levels that discourage people from going to work”
What policies are being referred to?
Welfare, EBT cards, social security (for young people), Medicaid, free housing, etc etc…
The entire unemployment scam and definitions are fubar’d.
It’s nor just the demoncrats.
Larry congratulations , your name is now internationally known with these exposure..
the bad news is im afraid you are drawing fire like B17 over germany , i expect increased trolls in this site and pure smear on your name in other media. Pretty sure the cowards at SST bite their nails off watching you expand your influence while lang and his handler TTG become meaningless after they dropped their mask of objectivity..
i hope you dont get threat or nasty mail from your ex employer along with their usual BS games of inserting child porn into your computer harddisk.. be safe and keep your firewall up
The last sentence of the quote (from an informed friend of Larry) reads: “This election is the Pivot not just for the USA, but the world as a whole”. This has an empty ring. Another rhetoric blow-up: “This year’s election could be the most important election in the 21st Century.” As soon as one adds ‘could be’ to whatever statement, the statement becomes always true (and therefore: void of truth). But to return to the facts. What difference does it make when an incapable GOP wins over a just as incapable DEM during ‘the most important election of the 21th Century’? I saw the RT interview with Larry. He mentions the fact that the Russian air defense took down American HARM missiles above Belgorod. Well, the bug of US made incapacity seems to be everywhere.
Excellent interview on both ends. Got to a lot in in the alloted 5 minutes, including what I believe should be possibly the key take away from this war, how did the Russian Federation, whose defense spending was hovering near the zero bound in mid-90s, find itself nearly 30 years later in a position that it could more than defend itself against the combined West, despite being ouspent every year thereafter at better than a twenty to one clip?
That dirty word, central-planning, was involved, I suspect.
As for economics, I believe it matters not which neo-liberal party is in charge of my country, and by in charge, I mean providing the muscle for the global banking cartel and its partners in crime, international corporate and private interests.
I believe in nation-state sovereignty, which means I have all my life been marked out, especially by my Republican brothers, as a crazed, lunatic leftist of one school or another.
Now my Democratic brothers do as well, which is fine, because I never voted for a single one of them since I first became eligable to vote. By the age of 18 I knew what I was, I was a New Deal Democrat, and would be all my life, and it was clear to me then, even as a very young man, that there were no New Deal Democrats left in the Democratic party, and 42 years later, there hasn’t been one since.
China is the only major nation-state on this planet functioning as a nation-state, and that means versus the privatized West, China is a lion amongst lambs.
I have spent 250 hours touring China in the past 7 months, and what do I see on these virtual walks (and flybys), beside a Jetson’s level existence springing up?
The New Deal writ large.
It’s no wonder that American pariah, and patriot, the New Dealer Michael Hudson, gets 60,000 turn outs when he lectures in China. They greatly appreciate his contribution to their society.
Max,
About the same happened to me, just a average worker type so I really didn’t know what was going on economically with changes into the 80’s. The masses bought all that Reagan enthusiasm thing though. But at any rate, I sure felt it as my standard of living declined from then on to this very day. That suggests to me things were working for the common mook way back then. Not so much now.
As far as the defense spending disparities, I’m fairly well convinced Russia builds weapons that will work to protect their nation. In the US, as with everything, profit is the driving force. If what is created does not work as advertised, back to the drawing board go pigs to the $$ trough.
Best of luck.
Larry and all
To highlight a point Larry mentioned in his interview reference the “military-industrial complex” (MIC) in the U.S./West and how the MIC serves itself and the “cabal”/elites and not the nation-state.
A few years ago, the U.S. Army chose the Sig 320 over the Glock 19 as the service pistol to replace the Beretta M9. I was very surprised. I had just been involved in the selection of the Glock over the Sig for a law enforcement agency and knew both weapons quite well. Anyhow, I found the choice “strange”…, but that’s a different discussion.
Then last year, the Army selects the Sig rifle, rifle round, and machine gun…
Now look at who just joined Sig as an advisor:
https://www.sigsauer.com/blog/former-nato-afghanistan-commander-general-scott-miller-joins-sig-sauer
Did retired Gen. Miller have any direct influence in selecting the Sig weapons? I don’t know. But him joining Sig certainly isn’t a good look… We all know the MIC and NGOs and many other corporations are filled with former .gov and .mil who served the MIC and cabal well.
The entire “Western” system is corrupt…
Yes, the western system is corrupt but come on, you sound like one of those Glock fan-bois who cannot accept that not everyone gets on their knees and prays to St Gaston.
The P320 is my normal carry, I have it for years, I’d never hesitate to take it into combat.
It is solid, precise and feels cycling it feels like setting the time on a Rolex. I love that precisely engineered feel. And it functions flawlessly.
The Glock is the only gun I ever sold, ( I still own every other gun I have ever bought) I truly tried to like it but looked and felt like it was made with Lego blocks, that and the magazine always looks like it ready to fall out, and the grip is horrendous. Plus on the ugly scale, it wins the prize.
Geez, how hard would it be to buy a few Walthers and study the grip ergonomics?
My first personal sidearm was a SIG P226, I still have it today and shoot it regularly. It is the Porsche 911 of pistols.
The Glock, ok the Toyota Corolla of pistols.
I know my preference. Just because they picked the SIG over the Glock just means someone has good taste.
I have to agree. I carry the Sig 226 Pro Comp. I also have the Legion V 320. Far superior to Glock in every aspect.
https://d2cdo4blch85n8.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/LEGO-style-Block-19-Semi-automatic-Pistol-image-1-768×512.jpg
Hello Larry,
Michael Hudson defined capitalism as a scam and the “Free Market” as someone who talks about aliens: nobody has seen them but they swear they exist, that is, the Free Market is a huge myth.
Will we return to the Feudal world again? Or to the Muslim “Taifas” kingdom?
I refer to Free Market as Santa Claus for adults.
No one has seen them, not because a true free market cannot exist, but because one kind of state or another exists that is anathema to it, the corporate state being the most recent. Calling them ”free” is debauching the meaning of freedom. Now, people like Michael Hudson want to impose a “kinder, gentler, more compassionate but nevertheless coercive state socialism” on mankind. Michael is sincere and he’s right about what passes for the free market these days. But his socialism will still force people to be obedient to the politically powerful. We will be regimented as all states are wont to do. And the free and creative spirit in each of us will be stymied and subordinated to the alleged “greater good” or the “will of the people”.
Future MIC overseas sales, overseas business expansion, & Washington, DC alliances are tied to the perceived Tech superiority, & superiority of US military performance. Future Grift is tied to real performance (it is a conundrum for crooks).
It has been time & again pointed out that past US Grift Wars fought against sticks & stone militaries is fake, that what is happening in Ukraine is that NATO, using US military defense air tech, has **failed** in combat against Russian air defense and hypersonics. Arguing the opposite runs contrary to Russia 1st clearing Ukraine skies, & its new unopposed missile & drone campaign (unopposed low cost attack drones is hugely bad news).
Financially, the Ukraine Grift Project has been a MIC Grift disaster for future overseas sales, NATO superiority myth, & advancement of the WEF / NWO fantasy. Worse, the cost is killing the Golden Goose that powers industry, which is **subservience to reality** in science & economics (reality is anathema to Socialism & is killed in Universities & lower education).
Even Russia and China together at the moment have no chance of fighting American imperialism, but there is no need, the United States is self-destructing.
“ECONOMIC PAIN”
Focus is a linear paradigm restricting perception – for example to economic pain..
Increasing focus is also a linear paradigm restricting perception – for example to economic pain and the facilitation of Covid 19.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57284.htm
Hence transcending restricting perceptions require lateral analyses/strategies to inform perceptions of the interactions of the facilitation of Covid 19 and the Russian Federation’s Presidential decree 355 of 3rd June 2020, why the Jewish lady who forgot the salt on Independence Square likely increased her stock of incontinence pads before/after being “interrogated” by Mr. Rubio, and some of what’s it all about Alfie.
I am totally ignorant about finances, Fed vs inflation, etc., etc., but one of the things that I have read is that economic analysis regarding inflation, at present, is based on the issue of the demand side of economics. And that this is not what is currently occurring, but rather inflation and our economic woes are happening due to the supply side of the equation. The apparent theory is that Biden, etc., is reducing supply so that the economy will be in balance with the lesser ability of ‘green’ energy, in order to bring in the climate change doctrine…..????
https://www.unz.com/ishamir/the-dull-war/
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2022/10/14/putin-misplays-his-cards-what-could-have-been-a-winning-hand-has-become-the-road-to-armageddon/
Shamir and Mr. Johnson,
Do you believe President Putin is an Atlanticist Integrationist or a Russian nationalist?
Jim Giles
Radio Free Mississippi
Russian nationalist.
Yep, Medvedev was the true Atlanticist, but nevermore.
Thank you Larry
Another excellent piece.
“If the GOP takes control of both chambers, it faces a stark choice–act decisively to isolate Biden, Harris, Myorkas, etc and stop funding the war in UKraine or tread water with the business as usual nonsense and get the blame for the economic turmoil that is likely to roil America during the next two years.”
First of all this assumes there’s really is a difference between the R’s and D’s which of course we already know there is only one party in control, the Uniparty.
Regardless, If past history is any indication anymore of what to expect the R’s will do nothing but ride the gravy train.
The R’s and D’s make money regardless of who has the majority. And we already know the R’s have no backbone and we have no representation.
When I talk to most Americans, when they talk about ‘supporting capitalism’ what they really mean is a dynamic economy where they are free to start their own businesses. Which China has. There is way less red tape for someone in China to start a food cart business than say any of our major cities.
They are certainly not talking about our current system, that allows nerds like Bill Gates to be the biggest ‘farmer’ in America. Especially when that nerd got his monopoly power by selling inferior software.
Uncovered a website on neutrality and its interviews interesting too
sharing in case anyone is interested
http://www.neutralitystudies.com/
Very good link. Thank you
Hi Alex,
I found the recent interview with Clare Daly quite interesting… the part where she commented that the acceptance of a peace/diplomatic outcome to the SMO was more amenable now than it was a few months ago.
that- and the eerie silence in the EU parliament over the NS2 explosions.
Yes. I caught that.
Thank you again!
don’t need to raise rates much. just raise taxes on high-asset investors to reduce money supply. punish those who invested newly printed money into stock buy backs to inflate corporate valuations, don’t punish those who need a loan for a new washer/dryer or a new roof or a car to get to work.
especially in a supply-driven inflation, raising the cost of getting the credit necessary to survive hurts the working class much much more than it hurts the banks.
of course this is never mentioned by ideologically sclerotic libertarians or policy makers. it’s all “FED FED FED.” also, it’s political death to raise taxes on the 1% corporate pirates, so it’s never even mentioned on the Hill.
For those who haven’t realized it, the end of the colonization of energy sources is also at stake in this conflict. With the West facing another major defeat! The end of financial globalization, which is over 50 years late. Because just as the WWI decreed the end of almost all Empires, the WWII should have decreed the end of colonization and colonies. What only happened with territories physically like European decolonizations in Africa, but with the US, as early as 1953, overthrowing the PM of the young Democracy of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, who was preparing to nationalize Iran’s oil industry because he was fed up with being stolen by the West. And as a final result after the passing of the Shah as a vassal of the West, we have today in Iran a fundamentalist Islamic Republic like all Religious Republics.
We are therefore also witnessing the end of the control of most of the world’s energy sources by the West. As seen at the last OPEC+ meeting! Much at the expense of the continuation of absolutely idiotic measures on the part of the West such as the ceiling on the price of oil. With the same result as all sanctions packages on a scarce product that is neither owned nor controlled. As with all embargoes on scarce products, they always have the same result – a rise in their price! As any 1st year economics student knows. And despite all the green daydreams, oil still remains the world’s main commodity. #1. The entire world economy did not depend on energy transformation.
Everything we produce for a living is nothing more than energy transformation. And although some of the former 7 sisters who completely dominated the world since the discovery of oil as the main source of energy, still have great power in countries like Azebeijan and even Kazakhstan, that power is also irrevocably coming to an end with the advent of a multipolar NWO. So another bad news for the West. You can even see it in the US reaction to the Saudis, which they controlled until very recently, after OPEC+’s latest decision to reduce oil production, contrary to what the West demanded and needed! And how those who dominate energy dominate the world!
P.S. In addition to raw materials and the production of everything we need to live, for which we always need energy for their transformation, there is only another more artificial source of world domination. The information! And the last great information revolution that the US led was already the digital – computer – revolution in the 20th century! And according to MIT in Massachusetts a few years ago, China already had 20 of the biggest technology companies and three in the top 10. And today with the Quantum Revolution underway and the evolution of chip-free AI, the number of patents registered in areas as quantum communications and quantum cryptography in China already surpasses those recorded by the US.
https://thecradle.co/Article/Analysis/16825
Just to top it off with the irony that this profound transformation to an NWO is happening in Brandon’s shift. As he promised right after the election. With China inevitably already ahead of the US in many economic indicators. Of course, the former colonies also began to educate their populations and in the particular case of China, many more leave universities every year. No debts for life, which is also very important for the freedom it gives to the greatest assets of all countries. The biggest responsibility comes of course from the US not having for many years
a President and above all an Administration from the people, for the people and by the people. But from the financial markets, for the big oligarchs and never by the country.
If not, look at the paradigmatic case once again of the abyssal difference between East and West in the electric car industry. Particularly in the case of the success of China’s electric car industry. Truth be told, it never managed to produce a combustion car worthy of western parameters. But in the same way it is circumventing and not surpassing the Achilles heel of the chips in terms of communication speed. Even among the financial markets that continue to rule our world.
However, in the West we continue to hear much more about TESLA?! When even the Germans in Europe already offer cars with the same technical solutions at half the price. Nothing that prevents the brutal market capitalization of TESLA. A company that never got out of the red or produced 1/1000 of vehicles of other brands that are worth only 1/0 in the financial markets… A good example of the hot air of the financial markets today and of many over-indebted economies. We will all come to the conclusion that like many other financial phenomena today, Elon Musk’s Everest at Tesla happened before the first car was produced. At least for the biggest financial speculators associated with Tesla. Who love the virtual world in which they move that doesn’t say anything to the anonymous citizen!
Trump funded vax for COVID and supported the vax but never agreed with mandatory mandates and kids out of school and masks etc.
So he had a personal view. He did not impose it.
He also called Putin a genius at start of the SMO. He has called for nehotiations. If elected I think he will continue trying to get peace in mid East and elsewhere sorted.
He irritated the hell out of me with his thin skin and tweets plus minor corruption re kushner dad but bottom line, unlike the machine bots in government he was still an ordinary human who wanted business not war. Rather that.
“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”
-Noam Chomsky
UKRAINE it’s a Gas Gas Gas.
Why Brandon’s diaper crew wanted war!
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2022-10-14/europe-begs-africa-natural-gas
As usual, I’ll say it’s all about Peak Oil. The 1% have always been kleptocrats, but as the oil supply AND quality of energy inexorably declines, wealth goes down too. The blood supply of the economy is stalling, thus what the 1% steal is a growing chunk of a shrinking pie.
No amount of debate over pipelines, policies, Reps or Dems etc is going to change depletion and we’re all going to be a lot poorer, hungrier, angrier.
New oil discoveries for the last several years have been ~10% of what we consume and the maths are obvious. You can’t print oil.
The perennial question is are the elites in control really delusional and stupid, or are they deliberately making things worse?
So…I’ve never seen those very expensive luxury refrigerators, which you often see in the homes of politicians, such as Pelosi, Shumer, Nadler, Crist, Buchannan, etc….and you have…?
Completely Bogus political narrative. Go back to economics school. “As a side comment, the Democrats have instituted policies at both national and state levels that discourage people from going to work, causing labor prices ro rise due to the appearance of labor shortages.” Yeahhh? Like What policies…? Trump had two Stimulus cheques, Biden, only one, a small one. We have the lowest un-employment ever and in the world until the FED started raising interest rates. They and you do not understand the difference between supply side inflation and over stimulus inflation. The FED has kept interest rates artificially low for years, inhibiting savings accounts and T Bill purchases. They did not hand this huge QE to the working public, they flooded it into T Bills to artificially support the bankers and wall street Now they kill off employment at its’ highest levels which will kill off manufacturing and create even great supply side deficiencies and spiral down into another recession, which they have caused the last 11 times they have done this since the 80’s. You don’t even mention inflation is rampant across the entire world because supply chains are still broken since Covid. The US has the lowest inflation in the world, the highest value currency at all-time highs and the lowest unemployment in the world today. Neither do you mention the Bush 2006-7 melt down because the Bush Admin encouraged home buying, 110% mortgages with money back in hand and Wall Street sold shaky ‘Derivatives’ as A class REITs. Since and including Reagan, EVERY Republican administration has crashed the economy and the following Democratic administration recovered the economy AND paid down the deficit, just like Obama did and trump blew that head start. So I’m invested in all facets of US oil production. All these companies are already sitting on tens of thousands of oil leases they are doing NOTHING with. Same goes for mining, I have those too. WTI oil can be drilled for profit around $45-60 barrel. The US is one of the largest oil exporters. We don’t buy Russian oil. Most of the foreign oil we buy is sold immediately offshore. In 2015 N. Dakotas Heidkamp inserted the provision in a CR which allowed US oil companies to export oil, banned since the 70’s oil crisis. These oil companies are gouging US customers to make up for their Covid losses in 2020. Makes me money but screws the public at the pump, remember this is also the most heavily subsidized business in America. The 3 largest each just spent 4*Billion in windfall profits buying back their shares to enrich their directors and shareholders…screw the public, we’ll maximize our profits at the expense at the pump… ! One of Bidens first acts was to refill the already depleted Strategic Petroleum Reserves at rock-bottom prices, trump didn’t think of that in 2020 when oil went negative. Having those reserves is reducing our pain now for summer driving, with the lowest cost in the Western world, yet all you can do is sound off inaccurate pathetic RepCon talking points. Sad. I know you won’t post this…you can’t admit you’re wrong or completely politically biased. Egregiously Sad.
I’m really sorry if i’m being rude or ignorant, but, Larry, tour friend overestimates the upcoming elections. Midterms will change NOTHING. Reps and Dems. live on the same pocket. Blackrock’s, J P morgan’s, military industry’s, etc. US people middleclass is doomed. Of course , an empire does not fall from one day to another… it will be slow… and painful. For the Europeans, it’s different. Poverty standards are coming much faster…
It also appears to me that the dollar’s fate is not on Fed’s hands, but on China’s and Russia’s. Once they come up with SWIFT’s replacement , it’s over. And it seems they’re running out of patience with west’s arrogance.
But i always feel obligated to pay you a compliment and thank you for your inteligent analisis. I´ve been reading your site and also the saker’s, Pepe Escobar, Scott Ritter, Andrey Martianov, The duran, Michael Hudson, Col. Mcgregor Gonsalo Lira…. for some time. You all are the beauty of internet, because if i had to rely on media mainstream information…. My GOD!
Greetings from Brazil,
Sorry ’bout my english
Keep the good job.
Also i would like some suggestions of books and websites on geopolitics…