I had a relaxed, focused discussion today with Craig Simpson, who does a podcast from Arizona, on the political and economic fallout in the West from its feckless attempt to kill the Russian economy and end the presidency of Vladimir Putin.
I have written previously about the end of Pax Americana, but it bears repeating — the major consequence of Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine is the deconstruction of the international world order created and dominated by the United States in the wake of World War II. Elijah Magnier agrees:
Elijah J. Magnier told Sputnik that humanity was facing the dawn of “a new world” as a consequence of the US proxy conflict in Ukraine, which has sparked an economic crisis and civic disorder in the West.
“Things are changing” and Saudi Arabia is “looking at what’s happening,” Magnier said, “looking at the Americans much weaker than before, a distance from the Middle East.”
The US lacks “the same dominance as they used to have,” with the oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran now accepting payment in other currencies than the US dollar — like the Chinese Yuan and the Russian ruble.
https://www.theinteldrop.org/2023/03/31/closer-china-saudi-arabia-ties-show-new-world-is-dawning/
The supremacy of the U.S. dollar as THE currency of international trade, especially in the oil markets, is over. Fox Business is reported today that China and Brazil agreed to abandon the dollar in mutual trade and will use their national currencies for mutual settlements. This deal lets them conduct trade and financial transactions directly (i.e., exchanging yuan for reals and vice versa) without the need to convert their currencies into U.S. dollars.
Simplicius is written an essential article on substack, The Truth About Russia’s Economic Power: Is It Really as Small and Weak as the West Claims? (Spoiler alert, it is not), and discusses how U.S. dollar dominance has enabled it to exert significant control over the economies of other nations:
A country which operates on a Trade Deficit (which is most country’s in the world, including the U.S.) simply imports more items than it exports. It is a country that relies on importing goods from other countries to survive. The reason this is important is because, since the global financial system operates on the U.S. Dollar basis in accordance with ‘Dollar Hegemony’—i.e. the Dollar is the reserve currency of the world—this means that when a country IMPORTS items, it is pricing them usually in Dollars, since most trade, particularly of the most valuable commodities like Oil are done in Dollars. So this means that the price of a country’s native currency to Dollar conversion is important.
What the world is now witnessing is an economic battle between the United States, which is a Trade Deficit country, and Russia, which enjoys a Trade Surplus. Simiplicius explains:
But, what if your country is a TRADE SURPLUS country, a rarer breed of highly self-sufficient economies—a list comprising only the most advanced first world nations such as Germany, Japan, China, etc.? Russia is in fact amongst this distinguished list. It has one of the largest trade surpluses in the world, while the U.S. is the world’s biggest Trade Deficit country, by far.
So, how does a Trade Surplus country work? It is when a country Exports more than it Imports. In summary: the price conversion of the Dollar to the country’s currency is irrelevant because if you are generating everything your country needs within your own borders (self-sustainability), you are naturally pricing those items you yourself create in your own currency. So, what does it matter if the Russian Ruble goes from 30 Rubles to 1 Dollar, to 1000 Rubles to 1 Dollar? If you’re Russian and you’re not importing anything that’s priced in the Dollar, and you’re buying things within your own country priced in Rubles only, then it makes zero difference what the Ruble trades against the Dollar. Inside the borders of your own country, a Ruble is a Ruble, its price conversion to the Dollar is inconsequential.
Previously, the United States could rely on Saudi Arabia to counter OPEC decisions to limit oil production. That is no longer the case:
Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers on Sunday announced surprise cuts totaling up to 1.15 million barrels per day from May until the end of the year, a move that could raise prices worldwide.
Higher oil prices would help fill Russian President Vladimir Putin’s coffers as his country wages war on Ukraine and force Americans and others to pay even more at the pump amid worldwide inflation.
It was also likely to further strain ties with the United States, which has called on Saudi Arabia and other allies to increase production as it tries to bring prices down and squeeze Russia’s finances.
The production cuts alone could push U.S. gasoline prices up by roughly 26 cents per gallon, in addition to the usual increase that comes when refineries change the gasoline blend during the summer driving season, said Kevin Book, managing director of Clearview Energy Partners LLC. The Energy Department calculates the seasonal increase at an average of 32 cents per gallon, Book said.
So with an average U.S. price now at roughly $3.50 per gallon of regular, according to AAA, that could mean gasoline over $4 per gallon during the summer.
And the bad news for Washington and the dollar keeps on coming:
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is considering dropping the US dollar, euro, yen and British pound to foster financial settlements via national currencies, ASEAN Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors said at a recent meeting in Indonesia.
If such a measure is adopted, the ASEAN cross-border digital payment system will be further expanded. It will also allow member countries to use local currencies for trade, according to a briefing report.
For the last 75 years, the United States has been the economic colossus dominating and deciding what the international rules are that must be obeyed. That era is over, but most folks in Washington and London do not realize it yet.
Dunno, what do y’all think? Russ Bentley is no big time military expert but he makes some compelling points, no? Even Pepe Escobar linked to this.
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2023/03/30/the-bakmut-diversion-and-the-donbas-defense-a-view-from-donetsk/
I too am worried about these points. Larry, please do comment.
Russell is an emotional character, no one can blame him; he has lost friends in that civil war, but he is not a higher level officer and hasn’t studied in even the U.S officer academy (I believe it’s the war college there) so his assessment is largely based on OSINT and emotion. Can Ukraine launch an offensive in the direction he mentions? Of course but having the ability to do it and carrying out the task to its completion achieving satisfactory objectives is not the same thing. Russian General Staff and Ministry of Defense have the full intelligence (C4ISR) through the military satellites, SIGINT etc., they don’t need OSINT; something that any regular person can observe for themselves (OSINT).
Russell can call himself a patriot, can root for Russia’s victory but not under Putin and current leadership he would rather see Russia lose with current leadership.
A country’s Industrial Production is the key platform upon which victory is won. The U.S. North in the Civil War, the U.S. in WWII, the USSR behind the Urals in WWII.
Now we have the core of U.S. Industrial Production shifted to China and Mexico. The talent and know-how to engineer and rebuild this lost, critical production has long ago been dead.
We reap what we sow. U.S. GDP is not Paul Samuelson’s GDP. Instead of washing your own clothes, if you paid your neighbor to wash your clothes and your neighbor, in turn, paid you to wash their clothes, now you have created new “GDP”. In other words, GDP is perception, not reality. This is the essence of “Owner Imputed Rent” which is $2.5 Trillion of US GDP.
Self-sufficiency has been ingrained into the Russian consciousness. The US dollar, whose might was built on the U.S. Industrial factories, now has no platform. Military budgets, paid less in taxes, and increasing on conjuring USD from nothing (unpayable debt) was the slow acting poison, that U.S. Political Power created over the past generation.
Only countries run by fools, Europe, Canada, Australia, have their political and economic power chained to the sinking ship of American Belligerence.
Americans, Great people, silenced by the American Politburo.
I’ve followed & conversed with Russ since the early days of the attack on the Russian speaking Eastern regions & he’s a true Russophile, passionate & imv a nice guy who has put his life on the line for what he believes in. But Russ is also an avowed old time Communist & one needs to keep that in mind.
Cheers
I fear you’re missing the point. Larry does not want parrots. He wants a New American Revolution. He is teaching us how to present arguments effectively in our own words, using our own eyes and our own minds.
After the stolen 2020 election, I asked Col Lang to forward an article from the Executive Intelligence Review to him. It seemed to show exactly how it was done.
It was absolutely no use to him.
He explained why, a few months later (in general terms, obviously; not to me personally). Things may have happened exactly as the article said, but we had no independent way of verifying them. Just one wrong detail would discredit us. And by wasting time worrying about the big picture, we were missing the damning facts in plain sight.
So he urged us to work up from what we can prove, rather than work down from someone else’s version of events.
Go back to his early SMO interviews, and note how he built a massive indictment of NATO’s performance from the 40km tank convoy parked outside Kiev. No-one could dispute the convoy was there. In fact it was the centre-piece of the propaganda blitz on Russia. And he turned the tables on them, just by saying, “Hang on, something’s not right here; if they’re sitting ducks so close to the Ukrainians, why isn’t some-one trying to blow them up?”
Even further back, at the start of Covid mania, he graphed the statistics in his state, and wrote an article at SST, demonstrating that many people are catching Covid and recovering, but nobody is telling us.
The other benefit of doing things his way, is you’ll gain confidence in your own judgment, and stop worrying about events which are beyond your control.
And please give him your thoughts on today’s article, which is what he really wants.
Thanks Bob. Good to know someone gets what I’m trying to do.
Jim Bob.
I disagree with you regarding Russ Bentley’s perspective. Why would the UAF that was unable to hold Bakmut suddenly be successful elsewhere.
Half the Ukrainian population has fled the country, their military has taken devastating casualties and massive destruction of materiel. The electrical infrastructure has reportedly been pretty much destroyed preventing the rail system from operating effectively.
The claim NATO has made pretty much from day one that Russia was running out of materiel appears now to have been pure projection.
Saudi has again cut oil production and now appears to be moving out of the US orbit.
The stale old trope so popular in movies where the good guy takes a sustained, crushing beating by a largely untouched bad guy only to suddenly find from nowhere the resources to fight back decisively is just that, a stale old movie devices.
Way back NATO upped their military aid in what Scott Ritter correctly described as a game changer. The Russians simply responded with a game changer of their own, much to the detriment of all Ukrainians.
Zelenskyy now says if Bakmut falls the Ukrainian people will demand a ceasefire.
Sadly the Russian ears are now blocked by the bodies of their fallen comrades.
The western media will simply direct their gaze else where and the West will limp on, a once mighty colossus stumbling into irrelevance.
“Why would the UAF that was unable to hold Bakmut suddenly be successful elsewhere.”
Or more specifically how does a UAF that spent so many lives trying to hold Bakhmut for so long find more troops to use elsewhere.
The fall of Bakhmut if anything is the best thing for Ukraine – at least for the few remaining wives and children that have someone who might return.
History Legends made a video saying mostly the same thing, his source was a Wagner commander called “Lotus”. Seems the musicians and RF Army are aware of this. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6_TO5rwi6U
Guys, great points.
Agreed!
OT. I absolutely hate sites that detect your browser’s language – in my case, French – and automatically translate pages for you without asking.
That’s a browser setting, not a website setting.
Well that would be a huge blunder if they would allow something like that.
It should be relatively easy to prevent that since they have resources to do it – massive artillery and air-power advantage should make advancement over narrow corridor completely suicidal, and not to mention things like thermobaric which can more easily be used when opponent is advancing towards you then when it is in prepared defenses.
Ofcourse, errors can happen, but I don’t think that RU side would abandon Donetsk, but would in fact go with street fighting which would increase casualties, but its very unlikely that no matter what technique you use you can take over those cities quickly if they are defended.
Even if the UAF was able to take one or more cities they would still incur heavy casualties. There is no chance that it would result in a Russian surrender. It would only act to prolong the war.
This is simply part of the transition to a new digital payment system for cross border trade settlement taking place now in 3 phases for BRICS + and any country wishing to use it. Phase one is using each other currencies and swap agreements already happening. Phase two is using pricing mechanism other than dollars in valuing commodities and other assets. Phase 3 is the new digital system itself whose value is backed by a basket of currencies weighted who wish to use it and also around 20 commodities like sugar, wheat, oil, metals, etc. It is simple and straight forward. This phase also has these countries defaulting on debt and obligations in dollars, pounds, euros and yen since they confiscated trillions in other countries assets and their citizens. Since the west defaulted first on agreements and international law by this confiscation why should other countries honor their agreements with the west? This confiscation was a huge mistake by the west and this will hit large western banks and especially the IMF and WB extremely hard which is why wall street banks and the FED were against sanctions and why they were not consulted by the Biden admin, State or Yellen and Treasury beforehand as they knew they would be opposed because of the eventual backlash that will come..
Exclusive: Russian Geoeconomics Tzar Sergey Glazyev Introduces the New Global Financial System https://www.unz.com/pescobar/exclusive-russian-geoeconomics-tzar-sergey-glazyev-introduces-the-new-global-financial-system/
excerpts
Currently, the US is fighting to maintain its dominance, but just as Britain previously, which provoked two world wars but was unable to keep its empire and its central position in the world due to the obsolescence of its colonial economic system, it is destined to fail. The British colonial economic system based on slave labor.
The new convergent economic system that emerged in the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and India is the next inevitable stage of development, combining the benefits of both centralized strategic planning and market economy, and of both state control of the monetary and physical infrastructure and entrepreneurship. …the goal of increasing common wellbeing in a way that is substantially stronger than the Anglo-Saxon and European alternatives. This is the main reason why Washington will not be able to win the global hybrid war that it started.
In the first phase of the transition, these countries fall back on using their national currencies and clearing mechanisms, backed by bilateral currency swaps. At this point, price formation is still mostly driven by prices at various exchanges, denominated in dollars. This phase is almost over: after Russia’s reserves in dollars, euro, pound, and yen were “frozen,” it is unlikely that any sovereign country will continue accumulating reserves in these currencies. Their immediate replacement is national currencies and gold.
The second stage of the transition will involve new pricing mechanisms that do not reference the dollar. Price formation in national currencies involves substantial overheads, however, it will still be more attractive than pricing in ‘un-anchored’ and treacherous currencies like dollars, pounds, euro, and yen. The only remaining global currency candidate – the yuan – won’t be taking their place due to its inconvertibility and the restricted external access to the Chinese capital markets. The use of gold as the price reference is constrained by the inconvenience of its use for payments.
The third and the final stage on the new economic order transition will involve a creation of a new digital payment currency founded through an international agreement based on principles of transparency, fairness, goodwill, and efficiency. I expect that the model of such a monetary unit that we developed will play its role at this stage. A currency like this can be issued by a pool of currency reserves of BRICS countries, which all interested countries will be able to join. The weight of each currency in the basket could be proportional to the GDP of each country (based on purchasing power parity, for example), its share in international trade, as well as the population and territory size of participating countries.
In addition, the basket could contain an index of prices of main exchange-traded commodities: gold and other precious metals, key industrial metals, hydrocarbons, grains, sugar, as well as water and other natural resources. To provide backing and to make the currency more resilient, relevant international resource reserves can be created in due course. This new currency would be used exclusively for cross-border payments and issued to the participating countries based on a pre-defined formula.
Glazyev: Transition to the new world economic order will likely be accompanied by systematic refusal to honor obligations in dollars, euro, pound, and yen. In this respect, it will be no different from the example set by the countries issuing these currencies who thought it appropriate to steal foreign exchange reserves of Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan, and Russia to the tune of trillions of dollars. Since the US, Britain, EU, and Japan refused to honor their obligations and confiscated wealth of other nations which was held in their currencies, why should other countries be obliged to pay them back and to service their loans?
In any case, participation in the new economic system will not be constrained by the obligations in the old one. Countries of the Global South can be full participants of the new system regardless of their accumulated debts in dollars, euro, pound, and yen. Even if they were to default on their obligations in those currencies, this would have no bearing on their credit rating in the new financial system. Nationalization of extraction industry, likewise, would not cause a disruption. Further, should these countries reserve a portion of their natural resources for the backing of the new economic system, their respective weight in the currency basket of the new monetary unit would increase accordingly, providing that nation with larger currency reserves and credit capacity. In addition, bilateral swap lines with trading partner…………….
Bentley does raise some valid questions, especially the big one: Why hasn’t Russia taken out the railroad and other bridges, cutting off the flow of supplies and munitions to the front? (Unless Putin is correct that the Russian air force is not able to do so.) Also, if there really are something like 200,000 UKR troops being held in reserve, in addition to the large numbers already committed around Bakhmut and other parts of the eastern front, perhaps the UKR forces have not been decimated to the extent we have been hearing from Scott Ritter and Col. MacGregor, which is an unsettling thought.
My concerns precisely.
Regarding railroads and bridges, let’s recall what Putin stated the objectives for the SMO/SVO (SVO; Russian) are: Denazification and Demilitarization.
Let’s say they blow all the bridges and destroy all the railroads (a very expensive objective, material wise and human cost), in that process if they use bombers/strategic bombers they will also lose planes and pilots because Ukraine (till this year) had a competent air defense network (inherited from Soviet Union and through trades with RF; S-300, Buk etc.).
Sure they may succeed in taking out the railroads and bridges but at the cost of what and how would that cost effect the citizens of Russia? These pilots have families too, a bit off topic but something to think about.
With those assets destroyed how would Russia go about her initial objectives; Denazification and Demilitarization? Russia now has to go West into Ukraine to achieve those objectives whereas leaving them open Ukraine has to go East to meet the threat.
Also let’s take note that Russia for over 6 months has been targeting and destroying Ukrainian power grid, we know that Ukraine’s rail infrastructure is 90% electric. Their rail network traffic is not the same as before with difficulties in moving/deploying rapidly.
What Russell wants is to see Russia nuke Ukraine, he may not say it but that’s what he wants. Just like all the other “pro-Russians”, they want to see Russia flatten Ukraine just like U.S would.
If Russia takes out the bridges then how do the Ukrainians get to the East where Russia is waiting to destroy them? Russia doesn’t want the Ukrainians remaining intact in the West. They want them in the East so that they can grind them up.
Jim Bob links to an article by Russ Bently, which appears to be mostly advertising for the private Wagner group, and seems to fault the Russian army for failing to lavish the musicians with enough support.
Whether Wagner is supported adequately may be debatable, but one question bothers me. Why is Wagner fighting in Ukraine? Why does the Russian Army need help from mercenaries?
Oops, I forgot to finish the link to Jim Bob’s comment. Here it is.
Russian Army is just one part of Russian armed forces. Wagner is not some independent organization, but also a part of Russian armed forces. All the parts of Russian armed forces are included in this conflict, because that’s their job. This reminds me of last year’s fuss about Chechen forces.
Why was Wagner created in the first place, is another question. They are pushing out French Foreign Legion from Africa as we speak, and have fought in Syria for many years. I believe that those things are the initial intended purpose. Regular Russian Army can not just send soliders to Mali or wherever. PMC Wagner can, and does.
I don’t know but after following Bentley’s telegram for a few weeks I concluded that, in a field full of arrogant loudmouths he probably deserved the hold medal. Another case of an American who knows better and wastes no time in letting everybody know. Unbearable character. More Russian than the Russians too.
This sentence probably gives an accurate idea of his general attitude and emotional inner life: “I am, as Scott Ritter recently pointed out, not an “intelligence officer”, but unlike Ritter, I am intelligent.”
Ok, Russ, pass another beer.
Another one: “They (the people now in charge) must be replaced immediately by competent, serious and combat proven soldiers of the caliber of Khodakovsky, Pregozhin, and Surovikin.” Pregozhin? A soldier? I must’ve been distracted all this time.
I always thought there was something delusional about this man, that he’s living a self-mythologising fantasy of him in the midst of a resurrected Russian Patriotic War. I mean, the guy is sixty something and been in Donetsk a mere 8 years! And he talks about himself as if he was Russian!
Frankly. I think the story is crap and based on nothing. This man is an absolute genius, not. He understands tactics and planning, not.
Sorry, being on site at the Donbas does not make him a Russian General perse.
A lot of ifs – and 1,000s of tanks – where from.
The man is a dreamer – and full of BS
“Saudi Arabia and other allies.” Saudi Arabia is no longer an ally. Its gone to the other side.
Was Ukraine worth losing Saudi Arabia? Nope.
Tonight on FOX Pam Bondi and Tommy Lahren were talking about how when Trump wins the election in 2024 the world better look out! Cause Trump will bring the US back to its Unipolar Top Dog spot! China and Russia and the Global South wouldn’t DARE mess with Trump!
Obviously sanctions will be useless. What will Trump use to put the U.S. back in its top spot as world hegemon?
More military threats?
If Trump really intends to bury The Deep State he would be smart to launch a Truth and Reconciliation Commission starting with releasing all the JFK assassination files. Go through all the wars and release the truth about ALL war crimes.
And for Gods sake tell the truth about Ukraine, Nordstream etc.
What could be so horrible about the U.S. becoming a great country by manufacturing sound products again and having a fair trade policy without the constant threat of military intervention all over the globe?
Hey! Here is a cool idea to get countries to work together: Start a program to clean up all the plastic garbage in the oceans! Some areas as big as Texas hundreds of feet deep!
China is right to focus on helping developing countries build solid railways, find clean water and build housing and schools and hospitals for people.
Bondi and Lahren need to stop yacking about the U.S. getting “back on top!” and get major reality checks.
AGREE! What is the point of being a demonic hegemon? I would rather be a powerful America, friend to all. We have been given by God two oceans to protect us and only two borders to defend and only one in practicallity.
Do you believe Mark Milley asked to double the US military budget to 1.6 Trillion from .86 Trillion. This is just utter madness, no one ever asks “What then?”
Or, to quote Bismarck: “The Americans are a very lucky people. They’re bordered to the north and south by weak neighbors, and to the east and west by fish.”
The deep state hack Peter Ziehan has been extoling the natural boundarys of the USA for years.Few people have pointed out that fences have two sides.One side keeps people out while the other side keeps people in.
I have changed my perspective on Joe Biden.
Far from being one of the worst Presidents ever and a senile old fool I have decides he is one of the greatest Presidents ever.
In the remarkably short period of two years he has rapidly ended the US Imperial Hegemony and replaced it with a new fairer multi polar world.
He should be applauded for the visionary statesman he is. Nobody thought it could be done or so quickly.
All done for the low, low cost of $150b (+ reconstruction) and the lives of 400-500,000 foreigners.
Once the bully gets a resounding beating, as the bully America is getting now, it slinks off into the sunset….never to annoy anyone again. There will be no great revival, no return to top dog spot, America will be lucky, very lucky, if it survives intact.
America will survive and prosper, once it rids itself from the treacherous European old money influence and its shadow banking centered in the City of London.
Here, I have a question for Larry, if he would be kind enough to answer. as he is more qualified than anyone I can ask: How subservient is the CIA to MI6’s influence?
Not saying this is one necessarily but there are certain questions that Larry can’t or shouldn’t comment on and we should all thank him for having the good judgement to know what’s what.
Watch the TV series, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. MI6 is in the servant role but burdened with arrogance.
Much appreciated Larry. I watched the series a while back, will watch it again.
“Some areas as big as Texas hundreds of feet deep!”
This is a leftist lie that has been debunked…..
Nothing’s wrong with American manufacturing, except for the fact the bankers and financiers want the highest profit for the lowest cost. Zero sum game. That kind of model discourages local manufacturing with high wage costs.
Truth of the matter is that the past decades’ industrial shift to China has helped keep inflation low and corporate profitability high in the US for close to two generations.
Now comes the shocker.
If the dollar loses its reserve currency status then the cost of American labour will swiftly decline for trade purposes. Such a development may become a boon for American manufacturers; at least those not dependent on foreign imports for raw materials.
Any day now, expect an ICC arrest warrant for MBS over the Khashoggi killing.
But Credit Suisse was probably worth it.
However KSA themselves were not happy when EU stole their $1.4Bln in that bank hoax…
Looking at all of the death and destruction inflicted on the M.E by the USA and UK, I suspec that the Saudis had no other option but to do as they were told. It looks as if there is safety in numbers… there seems to be multiple countries breaking with the USA dollar, I guess the USA can’t invade all of them… 🙂
The MBS character in Saudi seems to be pretty fly…. I wonder how long he will last before having a heart attack or helicopter crash ? The USA is going to have to make an example out of him.
America expects loyalty, but will blow up an allies pipeline the second it even “hints” at stepping out of line.
from a man that manages vaulted gold…. buried in a mountain….
https://goldswitzerland.com/the-everything-collapse/
Mexico to join the Brics?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A67JaflvJAg
the coming credit crunch is inevitable:
https://www.dlacalle.com/en/a-credit-crunch-is-inevitable/
Hedge accordingly.
As I read all of these bad choices by the West I ask myself:
A. Are they really this incompetent and foolish? or,
B. How does all this destruction benefit the W.E.F., Soros and all the other top-of-the-pyramid ‘Elites of all the Elites’?
Once the bully gets a resounding beating, as the bully America is getting now, it slinks off into the sunset….never to annoy anyone again. There will be no great revival, no return to top dog spot, America will be lucky, very lucky, if it survives intact.
Like most empires in the decline stage, America hasn’t really been “intact” for a while. The fractures are just becoming more obvious to normal folks.
A. Yes.
B. Sense of absolute power causes hubris in morally rotten individuals. Hubris alters judgment.
psychopaths tend to self-destruct eventually
including the uneducated, stupid ones with a lot of ill-gotten shekels who call themselves ‘elite’
“psychopaths tend to self-destruct eventually”
True, but sometimes they take so long doing it (say 1935-1945) that they take a whole lot of good people along with them. So your observation while correct is in no way comforting.
A: Groups seek their lowest common denominator.
B: Divide to conquer at every level, between nations, between races, between religions, and anything else that might undermine opposition.
Soros will make out just fine. Right now, he’s got a brigade of quants looking for just the right time to short the dollar, just like he did with the pound.
The emperor has no clothes.
The US had a good thing going but they abused the position. They got greedy and arrogant, drunk on power.
It’s an old story. I suppose we the people are ultimately responsible due to our voting habits. Then we the people will suffer the worst of it.
The people in the US need to get our shit together and learn how to play well with others. I’m not holding my breath, but I am confident that we will eventually figure it out and see how forgiving the rest of the world is.
Perhaps if we deliver a few dozen heads to the Russians as a peace offering.
So this is what hybrid-war looks like… The rest of the world divesting itself of US control via its currency. Not quite what the neocons and neoliberals envisioned, I’m sure.
Further down thread, Juan Valdez worries about Uncle Sugar’s policy of Full Spectrum Dominance (as do nations outside The Empire) which accounts for their employment of hybrid-war political economics against the debt-ridden hegemon.
Are the occasional (and unattributed) comments that NATO has some 300k troops stationed around Ukraine accurate? Are they equipped?
Sorry this is a bit random, but have a belly full of stitches and head full of painkillers. Just consider it free association.
And finally…
I suppose we the people are ultimately responsible due to our voting habits. Then we the people will suffer the worst of it. — Alex Thrace
Considering the complete domination of the American electorate by the Democratic and Republican uni-party (which is funded and controlled by billionaires), corporate legacy and (most) social media, I can’t get behind your first sentence, but the second is accurate. And, yes, we should be responsible, but the republic died long ago under the tyranny of greedy and ambitious men (which is the root of all big evil). Fixing that will require more than a few dozen heads… unfortunately.
Is that a unicorn in my mirror…?
We should call them the Newcons, because every new war they start is based on a con. These people need to be banned from government, with extreme prejudice.
The American electorate did the best we could. But when the elections are rigged your/our vote doesn’t count. So let’s no hear any more about the “American electorate” being responsible for what we have now.
George Soros and his acolytes stole that election which otherwise would have be a landslide for Trump. This was one election when it did make a difference who got elected. Trump or “Joe Biden”? If Trump was “uni-party” then why did the Democrats sit “Joe Biden” down at a desk on Day One and have him reverse most everything that Trump did?
No, sorry, but I keep remembering numerous statements made by Soros to the effect that he hates America. Well, if you hate America one of the best ways of destroying it is to do exactly what he did with the 2020 election.
That said, I am no Trump fan. He was a pussy. He could have done a lot more to combat that stolen election. The “Joe Biden” Party walked right over him. And he let them. So to that extent there was a Uni-party of sorts, but give him his due, he got a lot of things right from 2016 to 2020. What has happened to America since January 16, 2021 is light years different from the Trump era.
Yeah you have a point. the American elections have been rigged for quite a long time. They were never supposed to let another JFK take office ever again.
But I recall years ago there were nationwide campaigns to “throw the bums out in November” a populist move to replace congress. Despite a lot of support the voters never actually succeeded in throwing any of the bums out, a lot of ink was spilled on speculation as to why no one was able to vote the bums out, but looking back with a lens from today, the elections had to have been janky for a long time. Just then they only needed to be janky a little bit a few points here and there.
After 2020 the jankiness was so over the top that many of those who did have confidence in the system started to look at it differently. the methods were not invented in 2020, well the mail-in ballots were but the rest of the techniques they revealed have been operable for a while, just easy to overlook when it was 1-2%.
Yes Trump vowed drain the swamp, but he allowed his cabinet to turn it into a jacuzzi and they drowned him in it.
He would have been better off with a cabinet of the first 100 names in the local phone book.
It might require than a few dozen heads but then again if the heads are chosen carefully it might be a good peace offering.
I hope you are feeling better
“The US had a good thing going but they abused the position. ”
I’ll say. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing coined the term ‘exorbitant privilege’ to describe USA owning the world’s reserve currency. Meaning, the USA, and USA alone, can buy real stuff (like oil or Mercedes Benz cars or whatever) paid for with paper it *and only it* can print. I remain incredulous of the fool(s) who decided to risk (and now, lose) this cosy arrangement in the name of (economically) attacking Russia. WTF were they thinking?? As it is written, “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” and, boy, is it a long way for the USA to fall. This really is imperial overreach happening before our eyes.
As always, it’s the ordinary, decent folk who will pay for the hubris of the leaders.
“… and see how forgiving the rest of the world is.”
Alex, I think the sobering news for the USA is not that the rest of the world will not forgive, simply it does/will not care. Once the ‘almighty greenback’ is no longer almighty, Americans will have to find a way of actually making stuff that others want to buy (this used to be called ‘trade’ 🙂 ). Somehow, I don’t see either selling F35s or threatening with the 7th Fleet is going to cut it.
Best wishes.
Karma is said to be a bi-ch. (or biblical: Reap what you sow).
Sadly the US oligarchs are / have jumped ship to New Zealand.
But B.M. Daddy writes… ‘I remain incredulous of the fool(s) who decided to risk (and now, lose) this cosy arrangement in the name of (economically) attacking Russia. WTF were they thinking’??
What if this was The Plan? What if the Cabal which has no allegiance to any nation, and which had taken over the U.S.A. decided they were done with it and decided to destroy it? Maybe they are cooking up some new country to take over and milk?
“What if the Cabal …”
As someone once said, “Cabal, Shmabal …” (oh, okay, that was me 🙂 ).
What I do actually agree with, is Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
The Neocons (after all, that’s of whom we talk, non?) are incredibly stupid if not in the formal sense. They completely fulfil Nassim Taleb’s descriptor “Intelligent Yet Idiot” (IYI).
To remind, Albert Einstein was not only a world-changing scientist but also had a pretty sharp sense of humour. One of his quips: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
Good health!
Instead of blessing our stars that we ended up on top of the world after WWII, we pushed our hegemony into everybody’s face, bullied and sanctioned countries into poverty, unleashed destruction, killed at least a million people for nothing, and now, everybody is sick and tired of being bullied by us and footing our bill…
Nobody here really “voted” all that… I’m not even sure what depends on us, the voters. Who is there really to vote for? The options are really there? When the war started, I was naïve to write twice to both Democrat senators of my state begging them to vote against sending weapons to Zelensky’s Nazi junta, wrote about the abuse of basic human rights, including the freedom of religion in Ukraine, and CRICKETS – not even some write-off to me. Senators should serve only 2 years top – not 6 years to let them get entrenched in corruption.
I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016. I didn’t vote at all. I was completely apolitical. I voted against Trump in 2019; he annoyed the heck out of me. But now, if Trump survives all that (provided he’s killed in federal prison because they want to separate him from his secret service), I’ll close my eyes, pinch my nose, and vote for Trump, because I don’t really “buy” DeSantis.
Hopefully, Trump will be mad enough for what they put him through, to scrape all the alphabet agencies and cut, cut, cut the government. But I’m being naive again…
America will survive and prosper, once it rids itself from the treacherous European old money influence and its shadow banking centered in the City of London.
Here, I have a question for Larry, if he would be kind enough to answer. as he is more qualified than anyone I can ask: How subservient is the CIA to MI6’s influence?
Alex… could you consider that US monetary policy was not controlled by the US? After all, the Fed is a private enterprise with no reserves, it is part of the European Old money. A usurius system built on a double entry system. Remember Jekyll Island.
Could it be that for the first time since the war of Indepence, the US financial system has freed itself from this control and just like every other entity trying to free itself from the World’s offshore Banking is under attack?
There is something real called the Cunning of Reason. Has the Cunning of Reason declared war on the barren Usury Sytem that has enslaved man to steal his labor and profit from both the scourge of war and the scource of addiction? Could be that the Cunning of Reason has decided Usury is a system only is designed to take and it is time for balance to be restored?
I see the war in Ukraine as a preamble to destroying America’s blood and treasure with more wars to balkanize other countries to, in the end, enslave its people.
This is where the fight will be for America. Are the Americans, subservient to the WEF, going to double the military budget so as to enrich the shareholders of the IMC, or are the real Americans going to finally exorcize these agent traitors from their midst and lean on their best and brilliant to return America to a strong nation among equals and live by its democratic creed among other nations? The choice is between Mercy and savagery.
More concrete cracks in the Deep State basement! Brandon will have to be careful. Floors are slippery when wet..
Lots of repairs required in this kind of house!
Better to rebuild brand new… Whatever the costs!
The US ran headlong into the trap. Ukraine is only the focal point that Biden can’t look away from. It’s important in many ways, but primarily that it has sucked all the energy of US governance into it and that it shows the US can be stood up to.
Meanwhile the most history defining events are happening in multiple orbits of the conflict. The US leadership class is missing most of them and misinterpreting the rest. For example, nobody’s trying to replace the dollar as the single reserve currency of the planet. They’re simply setting up numerous means to not be sanctioned to death and/or be able to ignore the dollar. BRICS has always been about de-dollarizing, but in an ad hoc way. It’s conceptual rather than prescriptive.
The over reaction to Ukraine, financial, political and military, has shown not only that the US is as untrustworthy as most of the world suspected (or knew) but more importantly it was well timed. The timing is both because the US is in the decline phase of empire and China and Russia can offer an alternative not possible 5 or 10 years ago.
Slowly and carefully the rest of the world is isolating the US. I suspect the plan is not at all to “defeat” the US but to create the appropriate conditions for the US to collapse in on itself.
“The US ran headlong into the trap”
You make a smart and timely point, considering that Russia was certainly forced into this military operation as into a trap, for its own destruction, but… it is turning out to be a turning of the tables along the way, with the US and its silly puppets potentially suffering the fate – to one degree or another – they were intending to inflict upon Russia in the first place.
I agree. Although a sudden collapse of the US would be bad for the world. Who knows what the idiots running our country will do? Better to just slowly stop the money printing machine. The US is being treated like a spoiled rich kid whose trust fund is running out and is coming to the realization he needs to get a job.
Did Putin and his brain trust foresee this situation when looking at the US after Iraq 1 or some other milestone dumbshittery by the a$$holes that run the policy machinery? In retrospect, of course, the current descent into irrelevance seems pretty obvious.
Big remaining issue: would the Neos, seeing the end game is “the jig is up” for them, just fire off the nukes and dra the whole world into death with them? There’s so much pagan Nastyism in that crowd, fed so diligently by the Dulles boys and the rest of the globally ambitious power grabbers, that I fear that end result. Same applies to the Likudniks, with similar antecedents and present proof in Israeli behavior toward Arabs and Palestinians in particular.
I take no comfort in the reality that Russia has its own doomsday weapon, on a dead-man switch — the perimeter system. And I saw remark recently that indicates the effing US rulers have pretty much set up the same thing, hoping to deter a decapitation strike like the one they have been planning to unleash on Russia (that dastardly country that now threatens the world by moving its western border right up to NATO’s innocuous eastern border of Finland…
It’s an element of the plot in the second “Planet of the Apes” movie, where this subterranean death cult holding the trigger to a Doomsday weapon goes ahead and sets it off, as the good apes are about to liquidate them. Not “Inconceivable” at all, unfortunately, and way beyond the ability of us ordinary mopes to do a damn thing about.
slowly at first, then all at once. Looks like it still holds true about bankruptcy. Finally the day comes when you have to file.
Can’t put it off much longer. All the clients are fleeing after a rumor of syphilis. The imperial wad ain’t what it used to be.
people get ready because you know your government isn’t.
USA was the undisputed leader of the world, the envy of all, the most admired country. But the elites of USA grew arrogant and decided that is not enough, that being the richest country is not enough, that everyone’s admiration is not enough! They want to be worshipped like Gods, they wanted complete prostrate submission even at the price of others sacrificing the future of their children while they laugh and jeered and congratulated each other at the miserableness of those submitting to them! And when the bolder of those who resisted, they were beaten, sanctioned, bombed and invaded! More and more began to resist, and USA began to beat more and more people, resulting in more and more resentment. Now the critical mass has been reached, and we are witnessing the few trying desperately to crush the many. But the many are numerous and strong while the few’s image of invulnerability is shattering.. This will be an age of turmoil and reckoning, but this too shall pass.
“USA was the undisputed leader of the world, the envy of all, the most admired country. ”
No never the leader, the bully for sure. And envied and admired? Only by the same twits that watch Hollyweird shit productions.
Please let’s get it right!
If the United States was a leader at all it was from the rear
But the real truth the United States never led didn’t ever intend too
It pushed, forced, coerce its own self interest throughout the world.
From warmongering administration to the next making enemies all along the way.
Correct!
We can just take a look at a map. And quickly make a list of countries who were never bombed, regime changed, suffered sanctions or blocus.. from the US global dictatorship. This list will be pretty short!
These few untouched countries could MAYBE admire the US and their political leaders!
The list of US presidents who did not commit war crimes would also be extremely short ( or even empty!?!)..
The rest is a great collection of ( certainly not racist) Hollywood propaganda!
Celebrating Chuck, Rambo and Arnold..
And the early manipulation of children’s brain with Disney and their magical characters.. Selling dreams.. THE PRICE IS RIGHT with Bob Barker! People could win a yacht!! A Cadillac!! WOW!!
Staring at some kind of void… Earlier version of the Meta Universe….
The next superhero will enable people to travel to Mars! WOWWWWWW!!
The elites of USA didn’t grow arrogant, because those elites were not the USA. There’s the United States of America, a constitutional republic, with some very fine people making up its public body. Then there’s the U.S. federal government, an oligarchic dictatorship, with a super-elite cabal running it from behind a facade of “leaders”.
This cabal has been infiltrating the American government for about a century now. They have very, very patiently gone about the business of controlling this country, mainly through money which they gained control of in 1913 with the Federal Reserve System.
When that feat of legerdemain was accomplished it was only a matter of time before we would wind up right where we are now. But just keep in mind those people behind the scenes whose names you do not know. The folks that show up at the super-secret Bilderberg conferences. They’re the real problem.
The question is not if other countries are trying to move away from the U$D; the question is:
What is the U$ going to do about it?
The answer isn’t going to be pretty for anyone. The world is about to become even more dangerous.
I would remind everyone that the U.S. stated position is “Full Spectrum Dominance”. Anyone who thinks we’re just going to roll over and accept some new world order where we aren’t the capo di tutti capi is living in fantasy land.
This scene from Game of Thrones is instructive (Note: When the video warns that there are “Spolers Ahead”, they aren’t kidding!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHYL-uiLJ14
When I look at Cersei I see Hillary Clinton.
haha! me, too. hillary and cersei. the writers kept saying “she loves her children,” over and over, like that made it true. such a shame how it ended.
Piracy on the high seas? The navy has always been the enforcer that no one wanted to show up in their neck of the woods. Rules based order might be used this way to appropriate what is necessary to feed their habit.
“Piracy on the high seas?”
At the very least.
This is gonna get real ugly.
If a person goes on any of the marine shipping sites… you find hundreds ++ of ghost ships anchored off China.
Whats with that? The Triads and so forth…the dark fleet:
https://twitter.com/navalhistorian/status/1642481906942918656?cxt=HHwWgIC21fKlosstAAAA
https://lloydslist.maritimeintelligence.informa.com/LL1144468/The-Ukraine-effect-podcast-The-rise-of-the-dark-fleet
Just like alcohol prohibition period in the US….smuggling booms and there is real money to be made by the govt created artificial shortages of goods.
“For the last 75 years, the United States has been the economic colossus dominating and deciding what the international rules are that must be obeyed…” That’s not exactly true, that’s only been true for the past 30. From 1946 to 1991, the USSR was the counterweight limiting america power to mostly the so called first world. Despite western propaganda about soviets being poor (for westerners the USSR history jumps from Stalin to Gorbachiov’s perestroika with the 60s/70s missing) the USSR living standards was among the highest, being a well developed/industrialized country, with a real GDP close to 2/3 of the USA, at its peak, and a 5 to 6% growth in 1966-1974. Given the fraud that the American economy currently is (as explained in the simplicius76 article) think how devastating the next 5 years will be for the west; bank collapses, winter energy crises in Europe, debt crises and collapse of the euro/yen, and finally collapse of the dollar. Taking all these(and more) things into consideration, the chance of the EU/NATO surviving another 5 years, or America remaining whole by 2030 are very low.
If ever there is a chance for normalizing the political situation in Europe, those who are the most responsible for the current economic chaos and international crisis should be brought to justice. I think that unless Ursula von der Leyen (President of the European Commission), Charles Michel (President of the European Council), and Jens Stoltenberg (NATO chief) are tried for criminal incompetence and recklessness, there will never be any hope for any meaningful reconciliation and recovery in Europe.
I can find it within me to feel a degree of sympathy for everyone in The West in these changing times. We all of us lived under the conscious or unconscious belief, a not entirely unfounded belief, that we got to call the shots. Suddenly, and seemingly in the blink of an eye, that is no longer so.
When I say a degree of sympathy, I mean only a degree. If I could see it coming, so could they. I remember suggesting to a family member back in the ’80’s that the financial system in the USA could one day collapse. I was, discretely, laughed at.
It is beautiful to watch Bretton Woods and with it the whole Western hegemony collapse before our eyes.
But
Anyone with any knowledge of the actual historical behaviour of the Amerikastani Empire is aware that it acts like a particularly petulant toddler when it can’t get its way. For instance, it stole Afghanistan’s foreign currency reserves when it lost the war; it occupied Syria’s Eastern ⅓ when it failed to overthrow Assad; before that it stole Iran’s foreign deposits and held them for decades before reluctantly returning them.
And what is the dollar? In international terms, it’s like the local mafia goon coming to your shop, taking what he wants, and throwing a piece of paper on the floor with a scrawled message saying he’ll pay for it at some unspecified time in the future. If you demur, you get your teeth punched down your throat. Instead, you and the other shopkeepers can only use these scrawled messages as a currency between yourselves to at least try to minimise your losses. Now suppose one day you see the mafia goon looks ill and is staggering a bit; you see that some shopkeepers are beginning to ignore his demands. Are you going to start hoping that his grip is loosening? Yes. Are you also going to be afraid that even if the big shopkeepers – say, those who can afford to hire security – tell the mafia goon to go jump in the lake, you’re too small fry to risk that kind of courage? Probably.
And what do you think the mafia goon will do? Unable any longer to take on the big shopkeepers, will he then start tyrannising the small merchants even more, both to steal enough to keo up his lifestyle and to maintain as much of his grip as he can lest he be overthrown by younger mafiosi?
Of course he will.
Indeed, and the “small merchants” are the EU vassals…everybody in Europe, even the worst paid working guy is realizing….
Once the “Big Merchants” Russia and China showed impossible to plunder….
The current blog puts what many of us have been thinking, since the the sanctions were only producing negative blowback. My family are from Ukraine and I never suffered from any delusions about how this erstwhile friendship was worth it all. The US $ is likely the next Pound Sterling, an insignificant secondary trade currency. The sanctions worked so well that they made it difficult for every other country to trade conduct trade except the Russians.
For people looking for some levity on the imminent collapse of Russia.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11935369/The-total-collapse-break-Putins-Russia-begun-Zelensky-official-predicts.html
That article is hilarious. If there’s one thing you can be sure about Ukraine’s current regime, it’s that it’s overflowing with world class grifters in the driver’s seats.
1) Macron and Druzilla off to China in hopes of forging an off-ramp that won’t leave egg on their faces.
2) Ukraine senses the wobbly vectoring and tasks Danilov with offering an enticing bone. “Stand fast, EU, no knee-buckling with the Chinese! Guaranteed regime change and balkanization are right around the corner for Russia, so just maneuver China into a clean up operation after the storm. Entice them with the Polish gambit even, with more territory for you if need be. They’ll be happy you did.
I’ve been wrong before but this one seems pretty much a no-brainer. Question is; would such a ‘sophisticated’ cadre of EU leaders fall for such a scam?
They would if they were in on it?
Our Saudi brothers are doing an excellent/smart job of moving out of the US dollar zone, congratulations. One can understand how much pressures and threats including freezing their bank accounts in US$ the Saudis have been getting since they took part in the American casino world order, post USSR. Soon they won’t even need to spend so much of their petroleum earned money buying useless western-made military items. They will receive plenty military / economic supports from Eurasian giants Russia-China-India. They can also count on full Iranian support from now on. Once the new Eurasian Energy Organization kicks in, all the rules and standards for the international order will be decided in Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi, Riyadh,…Tehran, Brasilia….The only problem would be who’s going to make the world laugh when the US/UK get their … kicked?
The linked article from Russ Bentley was a real shock. I didnt realize just how many troops/material the Ukies still have. The upcoming Ukie attack would appear to be the pivotal battle.
It makes you wonder if at some point, under a no-doubt flimsy pretext, that the US might enact its ‘quick strike task force’ plan and directly seize control of Saudi oil fields in order to ensure that the oil is only purchasable with US dollars. Maybe they’ll suddenly care about human rights abuses and use that as an excuse. Considering the stupid things they’ve been doing recently, I wouldn’t put it passed the current government to to try it.
‘quick strike task force’ plan and directly seize control of Saudi oil fields
Considering that’s exactly what’s prescribed for in the ‘Project for the New American Century’s’ energy management plans; if the neocons have their way – it will not be unexpected.
Very refreshing to watch your thoughts on the geopolitical realities of our day, Johnson.
Your remarks regarding Russia’s autarky potential – although they have been caught out regarding some industrial developments (like a few important aircraft parts, some oil industry components, etc.) – are quite relevant now, since the western ruling mafia still pretends Russia is under their leash technologically and economically (however, as events are unfolding before our eyes, worldwide, that self-declared god-like cabal must be having some kind of school-boy tantrum and nervous breakdown)
Your other comments about Russia’s natural wealth, the decaying use of the dollar, shifting of international alliances, de-industrialisation, education are an accurate description of the overall state of affairs, it seems.
Schlumberger, Halliburton, Baker et. al. are not happy. All that sophisticated technology, programming etc. for reservoir modeling, horizontal drilling, bit engineering, etc. etc. should take, if not already done, maybe a year or two at the most to totally duplicate and maybe even improve on for the Russians and half that time if the Chinese are in on it. Shale tech, Russia doesn’t even need for the near to distant future.
THEN how do they sell their services worldwide, when competitors come knocking at half the price? Hmmm?
Every US citizen can also abandon the US dollar… by opening a renminbi (yuan) account at a nearby HSBC (or other foreign currency holding bank) today !
You can buy and hold, even getting no interest, with only the exchange rate going in your favor for the next decade (or more) !
Less risky than crypto. Better return and safer than US dollars.
So start today. You’ll be glad you did !
Far as I know, can’t do that – same as not having an option of a Euro account (even if you’d want one) in a US based bank.
My bad. Only Bank of China in the US (NYC) currently has a renminbi acct (that I saw with a quick internet search)… but CANADA has several choices for this, including HSBC.
I stand corrected.
But, I suppose it’s something to look forward to soon.
It’s one of the very few benefits of living in Canada, I suppose.
@LJ , THanks for your constant articles describing real world situation outside the media propaganda..
There are LOTS HIDDEN from the public eyes , but analyst can check actions from the nations who suddenly rush to enact TRADE with their own currency.
This is obviously in reaction to the ‘hidden’ or ‘secret’ threats to other nations on the future severe sanction if they do not side with US against Russia and China.
and by threatening ALL these nations at once , the nations who even those used to be US allies (eg loyal vassals) suddenly turned on the US and drop their OWN RISK against future possible economic sanctions.
and @LJ congrats on your place becoming more and more known but with your current reputation we got influx of trolls who bleat the same nonsense as usual as they posted on MOA/MATRAYNOV/SAKER.
I foresee people who behind the SAKER closure might be aiming for your site too
be safe thanks
Most of the comments on this site are so thoughtful, reasoned, and informative that it is very difficult for trolls who write according to propaganda patterns, who have a habit of beating their opponents with personal insults and harassment, to take root and spoil the atmosphere.
Think and write what you think without the purpose of deceiving and confusing the reader, and no trolls will be able to threaten this site.
This is my observational opinion.
Larry handles the trolls.
I think our country, the US, has a chance to straighten up and fly right. There is no more top spot for us. That died in Syria to be realistic. Probably even earlier in Georgia but, we just couldn´t see it. Since that failure, we have just continued to go on blindly from one failure to the next. Ukraine amounts to the can of worms we should never have opened.
Western leadership is no more than a group of blind, stupid fools. The think tanks that create and guide policy are a bunch of clowns. For example listening to videos from CSIS is ……….. those ladies and gents are in outer space. They always talk about personality quirks. They don´t understand s**t and almost always smell the coffee at least 3 days later. Now they and others of their ilk are waking up to the problems such as with the dollar? This started quite a while ago. The growth in currency interchanges between countries has been growing like an out of control spider web for maybe more than ten years. So, they just figured that out? Jackasses! I am not going to be kind to those clunk heads.
The only thing in my opinion that will cure this is a very big dose of humility. Jettison the arrogance. Accept that we were never in control, relying mostly on cooperation. Clean house on the Think Tanks. Then, figure out how we can get along with people as of today. Wipe the sanctions slate clean fellas, if you want a fresh start.
As to Trump, he had his shot and he failed. So even if he is reelected it will not matter. I think it will be a long way to the bottom but, we will hit with force. At that particular opportunity ( sans Blinken ), we will have a chance to rebuild. Let us see what will unfold ( I have a 48´van of popcorn at the ready ). My take.
I wish well to all.
John
Andrei Matyanov was writing years ago that the West’s military power was an illusion, that it’s weapons were not up to spec and it was falling behind Russia. Seems few chose to read his books.
As to current events I am but a spectator with limited information, it will all unfold as it does. No doubt the Ukrainians have assembled some kind of force and have been shifting new weapons to it, if the Russians can’t see what is coming then they deserve defeat. My suspicion though is that they knew exactly what and where, if so it will be ugly for Ukraine.
Martyanov also consistently makes the valid point that the decision making personnel produced by the system are also not fit for purpose.
The notion that a system simultaneously collapsing on multiple fronts – economically, culturally, militarily, socially, educationally and politically – is capable of effectively hitting back – as per Juan Valdez’s point above – does not stand scrutiny.
In this regard we are entering the Gell-Mann amnesia effect territory. As Fred Reed’s recently featured piece on this site notes, nothing works in the US (and by extension its comprador elite run vassals across the rest of Zone A). The idea that an expensive poor quality (in terms of bang per buck) US MIC is capable of pulling off some kind of outcome similar to that shown in GoT when everything else within the necessary support systems are failing and falling apart is definitely in the realm of “wet pavement’s cause rain” levels of analysis.
Looking at the pace of progress in the Ukrainian war, I don’t see some vast superiority of Russia weapons. Adrei is a Russian patriot bragging about his country. I wish I could brag about my country, but, I can’t. It has been taken over by imbeciles.
On the contrary, I perceive Andrei Martyanov as a patriot of both countries. This is even a little unpleasant for me, I feel something like jealousy, but I understand that Andrei’s position is more righteous – only such a position can pull us out of the geopolitical impasse.
Alex, by now you should know how progress is gauged by Russia. Experts are certainly impressed by the superiority and use of Russia’s weapons. Check out at least two minutes at the following point in the conversation with Douglas Macgregor. The whole conversation is worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzNMGtJgiZY&t=254s
Meanwhile in the Netherlands , the MSM commenting on Rutte and him loosing his very fragile grip on the country. A victory for the Farmers 👍🏻
What about the news on that the so succesfull “Farmers Party”is controled opposition?
The Davos “young leaders” of which Rutte was one of the most committed to the ruining of Europe on behalf of transnational oligarchs, are falling one after another, starting with empty nonsense woman Marin…..
We will not miss petty Rutte, always trying to strangle south european countries when his country is the paradise of the high frecuency trading linked ot the activity of the City of London, “economic” activity brought into the EU by Thierry Breton….
It is due time to finish these parasites who produce nothing and pocket way too much profits on the backs of the working people…
Oh no, the USA will be able to wreck havoc for many years to come.
A schoolboy bully will just find weaker targets to harass. On Russias borders we have Mongolia, Moldova, Georgia, Kazakstan, Transnistria. And there are opportunities in some of the Stans.
And what about Venezuela? Do a Peru there? Hotel National in Havana is still ours. Brazil are letting Iranian ship to dock and want to by SU37. Lula did not learn anything from his time in prison so he has to go. Maybe an Abe/ Kennedy solution.
Argentina wanted to create a monetary union with Brazil, Gaddafi also tried that in Africa, a gold backed new valuta. No, he’s gone but we have his gold.
Speaking of Africa, a lot undone there. SA har conducted marime drills with Russia, not good. France is loosing Sahel to Wagner, somebody has to sort that out.
It still havent baited Japan enough. The Kurills that Abe Shinzo wanted to create peace with Russia over. Well Abe did and there is a ned rigth wing government.
Australia is enslaved, but what about NZ? They should have something worth stealing?
So there is a lot of businessopportunites out there- just have to stay away from the big boys.
What a proud record of evil.
Sorry, I forgot the rest og Africa. From today’s RT
https://www.rt.com/africa/574139-lavrov-russia-african-police/
Talast? Norwegian?
citing All the Presidents Men, these people just aren’t that smart! some things never change. and Pogo “We have met the enemy and he is us.”.
I’m Brazilian and since the beginning of Lula’s third term, I was sincerely worried and discouraged with the direction of his policies, both internal and external, but when I read news here in the media that our president’s special advisor, Celso Amorim, had visited Russia and had meetings with Lavrov, but mainly with PUTIN, my spirits returned, because I believe that in the underground of our foreign and domestic policy essential facts are happening. On the other hand, as I’ve read in comments here in this space, when losing the juicy bones crammed with meat, the usamericans will return to their “backyard” and will settle for eating free-range pigs and chicken. Finally, there is hope for our long-suffering Latin America if Brazil assumes its responsibilities in this changing world.
I don’t think the precipitous dedollarization and prestige loss of the US is due to the special military operation, it is due to US behaviour. Behaviour like sanctioning countries, bullying those that don’t go along, illegally seizing assets, and blowing up pipelines. The brain dead Biden administration has done grievous harm to this nation both domestically and internationally. This is what happens when the “Chosens” get control of the levers of powers and uses it to settle scores.
The vital mistake made by the US was to export its manufacturing base ( mostly to China). It did this to drive down labor cost but failed to realize that this would impede the ability of Americas to buy those products. Debt and useless government jobs were used to bridge the gap but that was only a temporary bandaid. It also transfer technical knowledge and ceded control of those manufacturing capabilities to the countries in which they reside. America is thus a hollowed out shadow of what it used to be. Thanks Wall Street and government grifters!
” the major consequence of Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine is the deconstruction of the international world order created and dominated by the United States in the wake of World War II.”
I think we are well past that and so you have cause and effect reversed.
US hegemony is over now, and stupid things like pushing Russia far too far in Ukraine are symptoms, not causes.
The end of US dominance will Not be televised – it happened 6 or 7 years ago.
MAGA – Again!!!! Trump knew it then.
Mister Larry.
This has nothing to do with his article. I only tell you the most basic.
Maybe you already know about this and my set of letters here are useless. What if I ask you is not to publish it. You know who the motherland of your country is and also who your maternal aunt was.
Well, in the land of his maternal Aunt, an authentic network of the underworld has been woven (this is not John Wick) that mainly covers hospitality and CUSTOMS businesses. Why customs? it’s obvious; If a politician, whoever he is, charges 100,000 euros a month to warm up a chair, why is a policeman who earns shit going to consent to it? These are captured and receive (so to speak) the difference. Yes, from time to time “corrupt” police officers are arrested; they put them all over the media to make sure that people who are in jail know who they are. Very cheap to collect accounts or blunders; dirt cheap That’s why they kill each other to cover customs posts. And here I come. What Don Pablo Escobar Gaviria said: O plata o plomo
This is a very good perspective by Larry C. to explain the dollar demise. The simpler explanation for a fiat world reserve currency is that its fundamentals decline with trade. The USD has been the world reserve currency since 1944 (Bretton Woods Agreement) and used to settle trade in foreign countries with the US and other countries. Canadian gold production, for example, is sold in US dollars even when it is mined in Canada.
But the dollar is a victim of its own “success”. Over the years countries move their trade dollars into their central banks as reserves and they keep building in numbers to the point where it becomes clear that they cannot be spent without collapsing their purchasing power. That is basically what happening to the dollar worldwide and it is a very large reason for the US treatment (war et al) against countries that would wish for a choice in currencies. Libya and Iraq wanted payment in gold – and they were punished. This is the simplified story behind the collapse of the dollar tyranny.
The problems are magnified when these failing dollars are backing those foreign currencies as reserves. Canada’s dollar is “backed” by 40% of USDs. Can you see the problem here?
Lot of Win Win, lots. A whole lot. Cutting out the central banksters from their take in the global wealth transfer scheme is just a beautiful form of counter insurgency by 88% World. Anything which reduces the budget of the almost incomprehensible surveillance state is a huge win-win. Less gangstalkers, less method actors and influence agents, less armed badged legbreakers. Yeah. Nasty old george soros, and his pals ,is going to have to cough up more of his filthy lucre to keep cabal operations running at full tilt.
All the while all those fractional bankster notes and derivitives loose fiat value. It is open source grass roots resistance to globo=peedo hegemony, the really beautiful aspect begs the question what are they going to do now to stop the roll on order consequences of the Russian and Chinese influences which have created a bum’s rush of small sovereign nation states going total resistance against cabal thru effectively cutting off it’s sources of filthy lucre by eliminating the global skim of everyone elses money and wealth from resources transactions.
At what point is it become a case of too many resisters, to contend with, for the globalist tyrants terror and reprisal operations traditionally employed against countries who refuse to comply with the A&$-H%#¥$ running cabal west? Will it be a case that it is beyond the capability of them not being able to do the Gaddafi and Libya treatment to all these nation states saying “I WON’T!” Basically a global size resistance to tyranny, ironically led by the once and formor hard core largest communist nation states of Russia and China. It is beautiful just deserts.
It appears consequences of loss of all that tasty filthy lucre are setting in rather swiftly, they even put little marco rubio up on their media complex stage few days ago, the disgusting little usurper looked quite freaked complaining about 88%-Land turning its collective back on the money changers. How they could’nt do exctly what they are doing because something, of course he can not come right out and say it out loud. His overlords are right to be worried 88% of the world is defying them outright.
I think it is the most beautiful thing involving corrupt power and tyrants the world has ever seen. It is literally Revolutionary. It is the most feared thing imaginable to this cabal: secession from tyranny, in action. Top it off it truly appears this true anarchy in action, is passed the point of no return. Unless the lunatics destroy everything just so nobody can have nice things and find happiness and prosperity in a world without them and their global dominion. Be just like them. Only have to look at the madness of the proxy war they are involved in against the Russian Federation to see how they operate.
Well said!
Do not worry the gas station to the North aka Canada has all the oil that you need at an amazing discount. Been that way for quite some time. Different grades of oil are priced in USD but at different rates. See Western Canada select is usually at a 20USD discount. This heavy oil is the same oil that refineries in Houston lap up. Seeing that 60plus per cent of this oil is exported to the US that leaves little room for Canada to export to other countries account the constant pressure of outside forces funding dirty oilsand protests. Gosh kind of would be nice to have Japan buy it rather than from Russia just 3 days ago. No pipeline protests currently the fix was in and a certain Prime Minister did his job in scuttling all projects at the detriment of Canada. Bottom line follow the money. Just a hunch but have got a sneaking suspicion the money to fund protests in Canada are funded by outside entities that favor said oil in one direction. This goes back to the wonderful Obama administration who took 8 years to cancel Keystone XL from Canada. America became self sufficient in all its fracking. Canada was trying seek alternative markets under Harper as Obama avoided for 8 years. Then like magic the moratorium on selling oil to world markets was lifted by the Obama administration and India received its first shipment of American crude in 2015. Under PMO Harper the CDN was on par with USD even more actually for a brief moment. Oil prices were around 110 USD. Under the current Trudeau regime the CND never breached 88 cents. I have said it before if these dirty tarsands that the climate cult screams about were in some European country we would not even be talking about global warming. Thus they had to dream up some other scam and create this thing called carbon credits and start trading this new BS. It is all in the charts. Interestingly these EU carbon charts date back to roughly the same time that Global Warming hysteria movie by Al Gore was pushed on the simple minded sheep. So do not worry America the gas station to the North is ready to fill er up all you have to say is Keystone XL. Sorry for the long winded post but saw oil and money on the thread and thought it would help in a quick explanation of some history of game we call global energy for the past 20 years. Along with the con of global warming. Feel free to fact check if my observations are off.
There no saving the West when the Sodomites agenda is being pushed on Children by Goberment and all: Big Business, Schools, Hellewood, etc etc. The Protestants have split form 10 or so major denominations to over 20000 groups and Few speak out.
The Land of Sodomites was destroyed thousands of years ago.
St. Jude
But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
So I want to remind you, though you already know these things, that Jesus first rescued the nation of Israel from Egypt, but later he destroyed those who did not remain faithful. And I remind you of the angels who did not stay within the limits of authority God gave them but left the place where they belonged. God has kept them securely chained in prisons of darkness, waiting for the great day of judgment. And don’t forget Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns, which were filled with immorality and every kind of sexual perversion. Those cities were destroyed by fire and serve as a warning of the eternal fire of God’s judgment.
Jesus did not rescue the nation of Israel from Egypt.
And He did not destroyed “those who did not remain faithful”. The only thing He managed to destroy in anger was a fig tree (Mark 11, 12:25).
All this talk of an April counteroffensive seems to ignore one important military General Officer, namely General Weather. Although the mild winter precluded an offensive by Russia, that does not mean that things are conducive to operations now. In fact, significant rain is forecast for the next two weeks in many parts of the theater. Never mind the snowpack that is melting now. Good luck moving tanks in the near future!
In other words the US is like a guy that makes lets say $1200 monthly (the real money he makes), but lives in a big and expensive house to maintain, owes like 4-6 big cars, expend in all kinds of fancy things like traveling abroad 3-6 times per month, womens, drugs …
Everything worked fine because the town where he lives accepted the money he pays (and printed) by coercion.
Till one day the whole town agrees not to accept the money he prints and uses to pay, and what happens next? Yes: Big cars breakdown, No women, no drugs, no more traveling abroad 3-6 times per month, no more fancy stuff … in other words no more living beyond his means.
Because the bottom line is that when the whole world accepted the dollar what really happen is that the world is PAYING THE US EXPENSES…
… And the danger is that the only way that the US can keep that is by war.
Just a thought, maybe Biden shouldn’t called the Saudis “pariahs” and stated Putin could not be “allowed” to be in power….
My definition of multi-polarity:
What the hallowed shall not allow shall be the hallowed’s hollow call.
First sensed it with the Russian involvement in Syria. There is no hurry. The US gets weaker and every body else is figuring it out. The greater the effort to maintain the status quo the faster our numbers plunge.
Name the thing the MSM has got right?
The most obvious thing? Psychological Projection, when they accuse their enemies of anything, that is, with precision, exactly what NATO is up to.
The Liberal Virus
So the rest of the world and most Americans in USA feel and many now put to words fact our country’s social and economic fabric, ripping apart — and simultaneously we know there’s no real anything we can do about it, via our institutions.
At heart, fact there is no real anything we can do about it — this fact puts in stark relief the social fact that: we are not and have not been democracy, nor republican/representative form of government, despite being one, so-called, via USA political structures.
It seem to me lack of awareness of this fundamental — and now, it should be, perfectly obvious — social fact, gets in the way — this lack of awareness — of: how we got here, and where to from here.
A stubborn [and for some a well-meaning, perhaps, stubborness] — refusing and denying — that is us, the masses, this now obvious situation.
Long prior to Michael Hudson and his astute observations, Samir Amin, the great Egyptian economist and communist and Marxian social theorist, told the world in early 1970: USA, with its core lackeys [lackeys, or allies, or vassals or partners in capital-accumulation-crimes] against the non-core nations outside USA & outside of [mostly west] Europe & Japan, Canada, NZ & AUS — against the rest of the world — the ‘periphery’.
This core of predatory capital accumulation system, Amin theorized while Nixon was in office, would work to: destroy Russia, then China, as part of and embedded in this system’s perpetuation.
His “The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World” of 129 pages published 20 years ago, wonderful and edifying primer on this system, well worth reading.
He passed away on Napoleon’s birth date in 2019.
Among his central thesis is: any nation whose social and political institutions which, while including voting for politicians to lead — that does not allow/permit citizens to change its economic system, represent only fake [artificial, false] ‘democracy’, & this is The Liberal Virus.
Democracy means choosing — there is no, and has been no choice among the Liberal Western nations, when it comes to what is our economic system, period. Put another way, it’s not socially acceptable, nor permissible, to challenge this hegemony. . . look no farther than Arab rulers Gadaffi when he wanted to ditch the dollar, ditto Hussein — what happened to the man in Iran when he sought to nationalize Iran oil in 1950s?
What happened to JFK when he wanted less war and more peace? This, an actual coup, violent overthrow of our sovereign.
Permanent War and the Americanization of the World are means to perpetuate the system we’ve been in, that’s in crisis.
What I’m saying is not to defend or reject systems Amin theorized, to replace Liberal Virus. . . rather, to suggest his work a great contribution to knowledge of what it is, how we got here, more than anything else. One need not agree with what he theorized should replace this, to appreciate this contribution to knowledge.
And briefly, the Italian sociologist and economist Giovanni Arrighi’s “The Long Twentieth Century” from three decades ago provide perspective and ways of possibly perceiving how we got here and where we’re going.
Among signal purpose of science are tools to at least make some educated and informed inference to predict. To perhaps see a little less un-clearly, what that road ahead may look like.
These men readily admit they stood on shoulders of giants, and we can benefit standing on their shoulders.
A long dead professor of mine, fifty years ago, once remarked that in terms of psychology, in its classical sense, that in 19th century, “the Russians are 200 years ahead of the West.”
Read, say, Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed, decide for yourself. And encourage friends to, and talk about it. . .and decide yourself. . . .
Democracy prerequisite is educated and informed and courageous citizens. . . .we have a great big country. . . .what should we do, can we do, possibly do. . . in face of what’s coming [and what’s already upon us]?
-30-
“This core of predatory capital accumulation system, Amin theorized while Nixon was in office, would work to: destroy Russia, then China, as part of and embedded in this system’s perpetuation.”
Although an astute spectator Mr. Amin was a spectator not capable of outlining, implementing,evaluating, modifying and further implementing lateral geo-political strategies hence his limitations as seeing this lateral process as a perpetuation of the system, instead of simultaneously facilitators of the destruction of this system through its own practices.
As your quote above, in 1969 as he in part recognised “The Soviet Union” was a coercive social system which in context was a necessary support of another coercive system “The United States of America”.
This was researched separately by various parties including but not limited to Mr. Amin, as was Dialectical Historical Materialism by Mr. Joseph Deitzgen and Mr. Marx to mention just two.
Some parties which were practioners capable of outlining, implementing,evaluating, modifying and further implementing lateral geo-political strategies coalesced from 1969 onwards to facilitate the presently ongoing transcendence of coercive social relations described as “The Soviet Union” and with short time lag the coercive social relations described as “The United States of America” by the co-operative relations described intially de facto and subsequently de jure The Russian Federation.
As in all scientific endeavours research to some degree is reliant on multiple sources to inform and Mr. Amin and others were sources which informed the lateral processes thumbnailed above in respect of The Russian Federation, and why “The United States of America” is reliant on “intellectual property” and hence rendered co-operation incapable.
“Among signal purpose of science are tools to at least make some educated and informed inference to predict. ”
Practice indicates/suggests that your framing above assigns too much emphasis to spectatorship/evaluations as a function of being predicated on linearly logical extrapolations within paradigms.
Mr. Marx’s observation that – philosophers here to fore have merely described the world, the purpose however is to change it – refers.
Some were/are of the opinion that this observation by Mr. Marx aided the transcendence of “Philosophical materialism” by Dialectical Historical Materialism in order to achieve the purpose of changing the world through the co-operative agencies of others interacting in contexts in order to change the world, the contexts, and themselves.
Hence some practitioners on the basis of varying degrees of uncertainty interact within laterally dynamic contexts to encourage change of contexts and change in themselves and their productions simultaneously.
Those seeking to maintain a status quo tend to use contrary notions that contexts are linearly dynamic in reference to “created” notions such as “human nature” in hope of acceptance by others that – It is better the devil you knowness.
That was a component in the ongoing process of the deterioration and limitation of science in the coercive social relations self-misrepresented as “The United States of America” deemed to be necessary to facilitate the 1971 alchemy of turning gold into paper and promises, and in some lesser degree the restructuring of the KGB, including but not limited to its role of umbrella to facilitate the initiation in 1969 of Progress Publisher’s rigorously constituting then publishing the Complete Works of Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels not framed by hagiography from 1971 onwards, on the understanding that “war” is not restricted to things that go bang, whilst the opponents encouraged the primacy of belief in hope of facilitating :
“simultaneously we know there’s no real anything we can do about it, via our institutions.”
US Dollar (USD) hegemony is the “International Rules Based Order” linchpin…I dare say much of the Global South and particularly Russia and China are rejoicing at the USD being replaced or “abandoned” in lieu of other currencies. It seems pretty clear that the trend will continue–at least in non Western aligned countries and it seems pretty clear that a unipolar global order is in real trouble (thank God).
I read the Simplicius76 Russian Economy article a couple of days ago–as always a well-sourced assessment. I encourage everyone to also read Alastair Crooke’s recent article:
“The Crucial Ideological Transformation of Our Time”. https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/04/03/the-crucial-ideological-transformation-of-our-time/
The article highlights not only the demise of USD hegemony but does a nice job of tying in the “Moral integrity” vs “neoliberalist democracy” which he opines is driving the gravitation toward a multipolar global order visa vis the end of USD hegemony.
For example…why would Islamic countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc) want to continue to sell oil in petrodollars when current US moralism (or immoralism) is offensive to Islamic fundamentals whereas Russian Orthodoxism is more morally aligned with Islam.
Maybe good (moral) will prevail over evil (immoral) after all…very interesting.
I found Crooke hard to read. You seem to understand his way of writing but I don’t. Frankly I don’t think he is a very good writer. But who am I?
“US Dollar (USD) hegemony is the “International Rules Based Order” linchpin..”
It has never been hegemonic but of variable primacy facilitated by, and rendered through, coercive social practices including continual “wars” not restricted to things that go bang, either internally or externally.
“very interesting”
Yes an increasing sum of some with facility have found it “very interesting” since at least 1969, and have internationally co-opertated multilaterally to facilitate the ongoing lateral processes.
It is nor primarily about “Ukraine” although “The United States of America” seeks to portray it as such in hope of minimising the perception of the international nature and scopes of co-operation, with their complicity to transcend the coercive social relations self-described as “The United States of America and/or America”.
It makes no difference to Russia if the ruble is 30 or 1000 to the dollar? So they are giving the oil and gas away for free? Really? I get tired of the petrodollar nonsense. The petrodollar has been meaningless since 9-11, and the Fed put a stake in it during the 2008 bailout.
Here’s what matter — Reserve Currency Status. The looting of Russian bank reserves is far more serious to the economy of the US than China buying oil in yuan. The FX markets trade $6 TRILLION PER DAY.
Reserve currency status requires liquid markets (narrow bid-ask spreads with a large order stack) and various insurance type instruments for hedging with sound counterparties. The US will eventually lose out, and the looting accelerated the process, but it will take some time.
“Reserve currency status requires liquid markets (narrow bid-ask spreads with a large order stack) and various insurance type instruments for hedging with sound counterparties. The US will eventually lose out, and the looting accelerated the process, but it will take some time.”
Framing frames perspective including through limiting perception of interacting phenomena not perceived as components – Mr. Rumsfeld’s notion of unknown unknowns refer.
“and the looting accelerated the process”
“sound parties”.
No “looting” took place, the Russian Federation conciously made “investments” with unsound parties not so “The United States of America” would lose out as that would be too simplistic and in part an emulation of the norms practiced by “The United States of America” predicated on ongoing short-term evaluation horizons with limited half-lives through their reliance on linear paradigms based on precedents.
The Russian Federation made a conscious investment with unsound counter-parties because they were unsound counterparties who would interpret “investment” as an opportunity to loot, thereby becoming even more complicit in undermining phenomena which facilitated/facilitates “The United States of America” in reducing measure, thereby increasing the scope and velocity of complicity of “The United States of America” in the ongoing transcendence of “The United States of America”, whose divisions of labour encourage focus on the technical and magic bullets derived there-from which they deem to be “strategies.
This in thumbnail describes the process of alchemy of turning gold into paper and promises in 1971 and some concommitant outcomes.
” it will take some time.”
Time doesn’t come in no time but always sometime.
The salient questions are therefore :
1. What is the context ? (what is the content of time?)
2. What is the time ? (what has been the length of time from chosen “initiation”?)
Deliniating the “start” of lateral processes is a function of choice of framing where change is a constant.
Deliniating the “end” of lateral processes is a function of choice of framing where change is a constant.
Hence time is rendered of less significance than purposes which are achieved within time where change is a constant, and hence render “forecasters” in significant repetition “useful fools” – another ongoing outcome contingent on the attempt of rendering gold into paper and promises since 1971.
“hence render “forecasters” in significant repetition “useful fools”
In varying degrees “forecasting” subsumes “analysis” including framing.
“MORE PROMINENT COUNTRIES ABANDONING THE US DOLLAR AND IGNORE U.S. PLEA TO BOOST OIL PRODUCTION”
Hence the framing of this “thread” limits focus to symptoms thereby obfuscating causes and scopes.
Within the scopes obfuscated are that more prominent countries are increasing the vectors through which, in co-operation with others including “The United States of America”, they aid the transcendence of “The United States of America” in increasing velocities, partly an outcome of the attempt at alchemy of turning gold into paper and promises, and the “return on investment” of The Russian Federation derived from “The United States of America” practices which some interpreted/interpret as “looting”, which “The United States of America” misguidedly perceived/perceive as “sanctions.” on “the other”.
Enjoy your journey.
I believe many in the establishment know what is happening and their portfolio are set to make a killing off the decline of the US.
Clintons, Obama, Shumer, Pelosi are in that crowd.
” Phase 3 is the new digital system itself whose value is backed by a basket of currencies”
There not going to be a “basket of currencies”. We never see how that works. You really want something based on rupees, real, and rand? Let’s have some details on how this would work.
There will be one currency which will be the new reserve currency. Likely the yuan, but maybe the ruble. Gold would work also.
One of the most evil enterprise in this world is the media from west. Without a serious discussion about rights and responsibilities, punishing the board of these companies for the spread of fakenews, manipulation, etc. we will always have a stupid population giving their votes to scumbags everywhere. The media is partner of this rotten capitalism. This must end definitively.
The Difference between African and US debt: the US dont have to pay it.
5 min Video with Professor Michael Hudson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4MgWg-XQec
Very easy to understand and important
I have wondered where this transgender stuff came from. In only a few years tthe world have become compleatly changed. It is of cource to divde us- tear down our understanding of values!
This is from GlobalSouth
It is an excuse for the US to meddle in the internal affairs of other nations and also undermine their sovereignty, the latest example is Uganda and a bill criminalising LGBTQ+ people. “John Kirby said if the law were enacted Washington would “have to take a look” at imposing economic sanctions on Uganda.” [AP 22 March 2023].
This is the sordid reality of U.S. policy, always on the quest to dominate and coerce other countries in order to maintain U.S. exceptionalism at all costs. These aspects are outlined in details by Nikolay Petrushev in a recent interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, [translation], specifically mentions “since at least 1945, the source of any escalation of tension on a global scale is the unrestrained desire of the U.S. authorities to maintain their dominant role in the world.”
https://globalsouth.co/2023/03/30/web-of-u-s-foreign-policy/
“I have wondered where this transgender stuff came from”.
This is why I believe there is a “program” operating, at least since the “Joe Biden” regime took office 1-16-21. But really it is a program going much farther back than that. The program just stepped out of the shadows reckoning they have their control iron-clad and so why worry what the People might think?
So, back to the original question Paul. Where would something like this come from? I mean it didn’t just spring up spontaneously like mushrooms in Fall. It had an origin; it had a purpose. I just have to believe there is an ultra-powerful, small cabal that is running this Whole Show. We don’t know these people. At all.
Some of you (Jim Bob, for example) have recommended links to some very informative outside sources. Here’s my suggestion:
https://socialistincanada.ca/the-tragedy-of-the-war-in-ukraine-a-reply-to-misguided-leftists-supporting-the-far-right-governing-regime-in-ukraine/
Some abandon the dollar, others come in full force as vassals….
Implication of Finland´s accession to NATO…..what awaits Finland is scorched earth, deindustrialisation and a probable future as source of nazis to be thrown at Russia…
https://t.me/EurasianChoice/25930
Finland’s never been ‘industrialized’ to begin with, for the most part.
Wood tech, sauna tech and internet tech, oh and they may still assemble Porsche boxters, not sure.
“Some abandon the dollar, others come in full force as vassals….”
“Implication of Finland´s accession to NATO….”
Certainty is the greatest weakness which emotion multiplies.
Finally you stayed….
Have you not finished with this portal some weeks ago?
Really, it gives me a damn what the Fins make of themselves….It seems to be a country full of nazis….
A country which votes such a Davos illiterate puppet they had as PM is quite lost of itself, the so many STEM graduates they could have….
Which implies that not everything in life is STEM, as he affirms Martyanov….
STEM did not save them from ruining their lives and economy joining NATO at its demise…
What do they try to achieve?
Here the ceremony with an interesting soundtrack….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxX76XAF4I
“Have you not finished with this portal some weeks ago?”
All wise strategies are flexible as functions of context.
The contexts changed within a limited horizon extending the short-term utility of this portal by circa 10 days, which has now laterally (qualitatively) changed, reducing the utilities of portals not restricted to this portal.
“the so many STEM graduates they could have….”
I simplest presentation, those immersed in linear logical extrapolations, which includes but is not restricted to you, believe that more is/should be better not restricted to STEM rendering them subject to “seems”, whilst practitioners of lateral logic pursue lateral quality not restricted to STEM since such has greater utility in facilitating their purpose of transcendence with the acceptance of doubt as catalyst, thereby limiting their reliance on “seems” in pusuance of their purpose.
I guess you heard the protests surrounding Jens´vacuum ( as always…) speech….
Do you think that Von der Leyen will nail the last clove in NATO´s coffin with her huge usual incompetence?
Related to STEM as panancea fro success, and since you talk with other commenter about Dialectical Materialism, what about Philosophical Materialism?
I have been hearing for some time some people from the Gustavo Bueno school and I think that facing the current mandatory and neccessary descomposition of ideas and concepts on the part of globalists, looks quite necessary to define concepts like “motherland”, “historical or ethnical nation”, “political or canonical nation”, “eutaxia”, “biocenosis”, “ortogram”, “humanity”, “democracy”, ·citizenry”, “depredating empire”, generating empire”, “colonialism”, “fractionary nationalism”, and so on…
As you have interpreters…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRTnmE3wmNc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkqzihAjS2Q
From the second part, probably showing a bit of misundestanding of V.I.Lenin by V.V.Putin:
“En la Europa occidental, continental, la época de las revoluciones democrático-burguesas abarca un intervalo de tiempo bastante determinado, aproximadamente de 1789 a 1871.
Esta fue precisamente la época de los movimientos nacionales y de la creación de los estados nacionales.
Terminada esta época, la Europea Occidental había cristalizado en un sistema de Estados burgueses que, además, eran, como norma, Estados nacionalmente homogéneos.
Por eso buscar ahora el derecho de autodeterminación en los programas de los socialistas de la Europa Occidental significa no comprender el abecé del Marxismo” V.I Lenin.
Thus, the overflooding of European political nations by millions of inmigrants of various ethnic origins is a tool in the way towards the dinamitation of European political nations by the oligarchic elites in charge of the hegemonic empire which seats at Washignton DC and the City of London and who meet periodically at Davos….
And why you are a Federation….
Include some bibliography for these holidays….
On federations, you must be highly likely aware….on the rebirthing of the Lithuanian-Poland federation, including what of Ukraine remains, so as to solve West´s problems at once….
https://t.me/rocknrollgeopolitics/6663
The so-called Putin pilot crisis…
https://youtu.be/MUTilHcu-_Y
This type of “analysis” keeps grassroots US Americans inside the narrative. And this is done to give our “leaders” less resistance domestically so the can play the game of RISK internationally. But it will be my children and grandchildren who lay the price for their lies and actions economically and, perhaps, kinetically.
FGB3,
You really have to see it from the globalist perspective to understand the US elites and the WEF. The first thing they did was erase the concept of “nations” from their vocabulary. (that is why they believe in “open borders”, etc) The EU project is one giant nation erasing exercise, BTW. Now that nations are gone, they proceeded to roughly organize the world into regions. Hypothetically, to make things simple, lets say they divided up the world into 4 specialized regions: 1] Finance (paper money) 2] Manufacturing 3] Fossil Fuels 4] Foodstuffs. In such a world, the financial region exercises control and coordinates it all. That was the globalist concept and as far as they were concerned it was working well and they even envisioned a “Great Reset” to formalize the one-world governance structure. This was why they referred to folks from the realist school, like John Mearsheimer, “dinosaurs”… they really believed they were past the era of “great power politics” because, as there were no nations, there were no “great powers”.
But they never asked themselves what would happen if the world suddenly splintered and reverted back to nationalism? …breaking up into the 4 blocks I outlined above.
And that is pretty much what is happening now. Russia has the fossil fuels and food stuffs, China has the manufacturing and the West has the “paper money”.
What region would you prefer to be in, in that situation? And that explains the panic and desperation.
I would say the whole thing was caused by hubris, living in a self-reinforcing bubble and a poor understanding of human nature and other societies and cultures. It was just assumed that you could not have “Modernization without Westernization” (Fukuyama’s End of History). Or as you more succinctly put it: incompetence and foolishness.
All IMHO
Oh I knew about that globalist goal a long time ago. In fact that was understood in what I was trying to say. Someone above asked, succinctly, where did all this gender come from?
Good question. And that is just one meme among several, that just seemed to spring out of nowhere, spontaneously I guess. But if you don’t believe in that kind of ‘coincidence’ then you are left with only one other way to look at it: IT’S ALL PART OF A PLAN.
And that means, my friend, a conspiracy. Yes, that awful word. And as you’ve pointed out, the goal is to erase national states, and they can do this how? by destroying cultures, customs, languages, and even simple gender distinctions. Because it is CULTURE that holds a people together and gives them the ability to unite against a common foe.
Furthermore, this conspiracy is multi-generational. It gets handed down within families, be they Old European nobility, or Old financial dynasties, or just plain old sociopathic clubs.
As long as we, the People, continue to look at the Show being put on for us, we will never see what is really happening. And that will be deadly.
“that globalist goal”
That globalist goal is a linear extrapolation of the goals of “The Pilgrim Fathers” from 1620 onwards, and hence perceptually why the foreign policies of “The United States of America” is and always has been a facilitator of the internal policies of “The United States of America” and hence are conflations in some degree, and contingently why all the people who pledge/d alleigance to the wall whilst mouthing mantra are complicit in varying degrees for the practices of “The United States of America”.
Consequently attempts of using it-was-not-me-it-was-my-sisterism, which informed the extensive Persilscheining programme in the former GrossReich from 1945 onwards, are held by others to be a risible alibi.
I do not think that they thought to continue relying in paper money in the Western side, since they had planned the digital money CBDCs and ECD ( carbon credits ) as a way to monetice world nature and human nature.
They are aware they will not manage neither the raw materials sources, nor the manufacturing power, thus they have thought of financializing everything which now is provided for free both by nature and human condition.
An example.
Today I have had breakfast hearing in the radio that the OMS now preconize investing in human fertility through artificial methods in face of a worrying decaying of human fertility rates….
Of course, as the associated combo OMS/Davos/UN pursue with their 2030 Agenda, this will have to be a public/private partnership, that is, that the governments must pay with public funds coming out of ctizens´taxes for the corporations to provide artificial means of procreating….
This, after the same OMS worked hard to erase human natural fertility, and human natural inmunity, though mandatory “vaccines” of the whole world during the past three years…. and ongoing in some turned herded nations…..
That is, they try to privatize human conception and human immunity by erasing those human capacities so that you must pay astronomical prices to, allegedly, access them again.
This has the amoral outcome that only people with enough money would be able to survive from 50 age or so, or procreate…..
Recently it caused quite scandal in Spain the case of a famous already old actress who, having lost her son because of cancer, had produced a grandaughter from his son´s freezed sperma by surrogate maternity, once her son deceased…
This way, the poor become mere children factories for the rich, since the poor could never afford having children that way they try to imposse as the unique possibility to do so.
Promotion of transgenderism is not but part of this lucrative business.
This will give place to a caste system where human condition, no to mention social ladder uprising, turns impossible for a majority.
Then, it will be making you pay, for your own already payed home, taxes on carbon emisions which only those who are able to afford reforms to fullfill the increasing expensive requisites for environmental calification will be able to avoid, leading in the end to the lose of their homes for those in the middle class, thorugh multiplying of taxes and requisites.
You will not be bale to seel or buy a home unless you have a certain environmental calification….
Then, it will be forbidding of cars unless they are electric only available for people who has a charge station at home and can affrod the electricity bills…..
This is extorting citizenry to the bones, by plundering the product of what they have worked hard for through decades.
Thus, the way they have planned their gains and investments, as they know they are losing the grip on the raw materials and commodities, is through de facto requisitioning your properties and privatizing nature and human characteristics, in a word, making you pay for living, breathing and being human, states you bring with yourself fro free as you birth.
On transgender and transhuman agenda as part of the new business….A MUST WATCH….
https://gorf.tube/w/we6a3PdnrCvyijeTL27f7P
With interesting reflections on why religions must be erased so as to rise this “new techno religion”, and why the people do not move, because their are continuously shocked and traumatized by being exposed to increasing levels od violence of all tipes through TV and internet….
She is talling that never before we were being constantly exposed to suhc levels of sexual aberrant or pornographic sexual behavior, wars, violent espectacle in the TV, mass shootings, etc, in our little communities, that now this all is so violent that the people gets freezed, incapable of reaction….
All this exposition to continuous high level violence is being rehearsed with thye population of Ukraine, turning them, hence, incapable of revolting agsint the nazis…beause they are mostly shocked by the past 8 yeras of har core violence, especially people of Odessa and Mariupol…
Ukraine is being the general rehearsal, including human living farms for medical experimentation, for the coming technocratic corporate fascism….
I’m an Aussie who escaped the American War (Vietnam) draft by a month – June came out of the hat and I was born in May. I have seen a few things and have kept a close eye on the US for 40 years … things didn’t look right!
Kunstler’s CF Nation is exploding into view like Ripley’s alien baby … the cries of ‘how can this be’ are growing louder. SONAR readers are less surprised by what is happening, but the pace is a shock.
Several comments here generalised that the “US” had it coming … the “US” is responsible. Then comments morphed to excuse the “US” generally, pointing to specific villains like the “US government” or some “elite” or another … it was “them”, not “us”.
Sorry! Just like I bear some responsibility for Australia being a US cuck, every US adult bears responsibility for what is happening. Own it!
It is astonishing to see the events unfolding this millennium … Iraq, GFC, Snowden, Libya, Syria, Wikileaks, Citizens United, the warm embrace of “intelligence agencies”, never ending increases in military budgets, media concentration, censorship … on and on it goes. Where is the anti-war movement?
All the while, the populace seems oblivious to the fundamental immorality of it all … hypnotised by exceptional color & movement … Kardashian drivel and Augusta National worship.
There’s a lot to fix, at many levels, over many time frames … good luck!
PS If I had a magic wand, I would have every US young adult take a gap year after school … backpack around the world for 12 months … witness and appreciate some real diversity.
The Diversity is pouring over the border. No thanks to more.
There is a way out of the impending economic disaster for the US.
1. You want BRICS and all it entails? Fine. Fuck you and BRICS. The US is declaring bankruptcy. As of two hours ago, the US will not redeem all of those bonds and other debt instruments foreign governments and individuals are holding. US citizens will be held harmless, but no foreigners.
2. The US is restructuring. Part of that plan is to take a percent of the debt that would have been paid to foreigners and use it to strongly incentivize US manufacturing and other critical industry to establish domestic plants, etc
3. Some of the debt that is not being paid to foreigners will be used to establish STEM education programs, for children and adults, so there will be a well trained work force to fill the open positions in domestic manufacturing, etc.
4. The borders are closed. All illegal aliens will be deported immediately.
5. All superfluous government regulation, Green New Deal BS and other ideology based scams that represent hindrances to business are hereby eliminated.
6. US military bases around the world are to be shut down immediately, but an extraordinarily powerful US military will be developed to defend the US’ borders, air space and oceans.
That would cushion the immediate economic fallout and damage to the markets in the short run – and the country would be stronger in the long run. Fuck Europe. They can go back to killing each other like stupid savages, or become China controlled socialist zombies, for all we care. Eventually, we will normalize relations with Russia.
No surprise that Trump is being persecuted. I think he’d be down with is feasible plan.
“STEM education programs”
Well done like many you desperately hope that time can be reversed in regard to STEM by an entity increasingly predicated upon belief from 1972 onwards.
“Eventually, we will normalize relations with Russia.”
In addition you don’t listen like many and hence you fantasise that The Russian Federation would return to “normal relations” with “The United States of America”.
Two boys in Brooklyn in 1939 created the superman comic in attempts to assuage their fears, whilst apparently you have chosen the fantasies outlined above framed in vindictiveness to assuage yours.
OK, then screw Russia too.
You’re just another pathetic, ignorant, America hater that hopes the country will be erased. Well, you’re wrong
” America hater that hopes the country will be erased”.
You are mistaken and hence I outline below some considerations which may engender similar reflex reactions including but not limited to reinforcing your “certainty” and continuing utility in useful foolery.
Hate is an emotional response that precludes focus and resolve as does “certainty” as you illustrate .
I also understand in some measure what erasure would entail and the likely problems derived there-from, and if at all possible complete erasure is best avoided. which informed/informs Presidential Decree of The Russian Federation number 355 of 2nd June 2020 and relevant addenda.
I also understand like many that the target has always been coercive social relations and that the emotional responses of opponents like you are useful fooleries in facilitation of the ongoing transcendence of coercive social relations by co-operative social relations for mutual benefit with the minimum of blowback.
So thank you for your continued emotional responses when your fantasies were challenged in additional illustration of “The American Way”.
ah yes, of course – and the Russian way and the Chinese way are devoid of the characteristics that you deplore because they are a superior subspecies of , or something like that. Sans America, there will be utopia on earth, right?
Also, I like how every vulgar, know-it-all, America hater here acts like they have a direct line to Kremlin, Washington DC, The Hague, etc.
Russia will do what is in her best interest. If the US changes direction, part of that will involve using its immense talent and resources to produce demanded goods and services – and Russia will purchase those. Russia will also participate in security operations with the US when advantageous to Russia. Unless, in your emotional outburst, you’re foolish enough to believe that the Kremlin is so stupid as to cut off its nose to spite its face, like you would.
Looking at oil-price.net and wondering what would be the non cartel non govt manipulated true market price? Has anyone ever the theory of the US capping oil wells is to ensure that last drop of oil on earth will be for US military?
Note price when Trump opened the domestic spigot in 2020 and was summarily replaced by the cadaver in chief.
Okay, but the other side is alive and kicking. James Carafano, of the Heritage Foundation, is hitting the circuit pumping the neocon view. He argued “Ukraine is going to win,” because they have “millions of men ready to fight Russia and stand up for democracy.” Now he says all of this financial change is false. “Saudi Arabia is going nowhere, nor is anyone else.” He says this is all show, because ALL the world wants America in charge. They WANT America back where it used to be, in control.
No one wants to leave the dollar. It’s the only game in town. Just get rid of Biden, and it will all be better.
Carafano is always overseas “helping countries to build democracy.” I mention him because he’s always on the talk shows here, is given an honored place on air, talking for a 20-30 minute block. He is what most conservative Americans will listen to, not you. I don’t say this sarcastically; believe me, I don’t, but he and his views are what most conservatives hear, and no doubt will be herded to De Santis.
And, yes, Carafano calls for an increased defense budget “to stand up to China.”
Didn’t I once hear that heritage Foundation is a CIA front?
Let’s make it basic. To have a working economy, you need people buying and selling goods they produce. The more resources you need to produce something , the more valuable it is.
What do we need to make sell-able the goods and services ? Raw materials , work , tools , energy and that’s it.
The day they cut 25% of raw materials AND energy from SWIFT , what happened to the dollar’s global market ?
It’s called suicide … try to find some help before doing it.