The disconnect from reality that is being published and broadcast in the West is staggering. I suppose I should not be surprised that people who embrace transgenderism as normal and declare that men can be pregnant will eagerly embrace nonsense about Ukraine winning the war as reality. I want to draw your attention to two articles — Russia faces ‘incredible poverty’, warns ex-IMF chief (The Telegraph) and What 2023 will bring for the war in Ukraine (The Spectator).
Thank God that the “ex-IMF chief” is no longer in charge of the IMF. I am not sure if the man is really this stupid or a shill who will say anything to support the failing Western meme about Russia.
Russia’s people face “incredible poverty” following Western sanctions in response to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, according to the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.
Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff said the country is headed towards being a new Cuba, Venezuela or “a giant Iran”.
Equating Russia’s economy with those of Cuba, Venezuela and Iran exposes Rogoff as an incompetent economist (Parents, don’t send you kids to Harvard). Let me present some facts:
Venezuela GDP — 482.36 billion
If you have trouble with math let me help you out. Russia’s GDP is greater than Cuba, Venezuela and Iran combined (949.42 billion). But GDP says nothing about the underlying strength of any economy. Iran and Venezuela share something in common with Russia — all three are major oil producers, but Russia surpasses them. In 2022, Russia’s oil output increased by 2% despite onerous international sanctions. That is because Russia is not dependent on selling oil to the United States and Europe. Countries outside the Western sphere of influence — China and India in particular — have stepped up their purchases of Russian oil.
But Russia has something that none of the other three pariah states possess — vast natural resources beyond oil that makes it a self-sufficient country. Russia is the richest country in the world in terms of natural resources:
The nation is a leading producer of coal, diamonds, aluminum, asbestos, gemstones, diamonds, lime, lead, gypsum, iron ore, bauxite, gallium, boron, mica, natural gas, potash, platinum, oil, rare earth metals, pig iron, peat, nitrogen, cadmium, arsenic, magnesium, molybdenum, phosphate, sulfur, titanium sponge, silicon, uranium, tellurium, vanadium, tungsten, cobalt, graphite, silver, vermiculite, selenium, rhenium, copper, and gold.
These resources guarantee that Russia will not suffer the fate of Cuba, Venezuela or Iran. Russia is not dependent on trading with the United States and Europe. In fact, it appears that the United States and Europe need what Russia produces in order to keep their economies chugging along.
Here some video evidence that Russia today is light years away from the old Soviet Union:
What the failed economist Rogoff fails to grasp is that the decision of the West to try to sanction and destroy Russia is precipitating the collapse of the post-World War II financial era dominated by the United States. One indicator of that is Saudi Arabia’s decision to entertain accepting payments in other currencies:
Saudi Arabia opens to settling trade in other currencies than the US dollar Saudi Arabia is open to discussions about trade in currencies other than the US dollar, according to the kingdom’s finance minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan, informs Bloomberg.
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/01/20/saudi-arabia-opens-to-settling-trade-in-other-currencies-than-the-us-dollar/
This is the start of a new world economic order. Maybe that is what haunts Rogoff.
Next up, Charles Lipson, who is “Peter B. Ritzma professor of political science emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he founded the Program on International Politics, Economics and Security, and a Spectator contributing writer.” Pretty impressive. Just more prima facie evidence supporting Andrei Martyanov’s scathing denunciation of “political science” as a fraudulent academic field. Lipson just wrote the following:
What’s happening on the battlefield itself? The fight has slowed over the past two months because of early winter weather. Now, as the ground freezes solid, Ukraine’s tanks and artillery are beginning to move again. The soft ground didn’t affect Russia, which relies on human-wave attacks by expendable soldiers and air attacks by Iranian-made drones. What has slowed them is the dwindling supply of precision weapons and conscripts. Putin can’t do much about the weapons, but he can do something about the manpower. He has secretly begun another round of mobilization, despite the political dangers. It’s one thing for him to round up men from outlying areas. It’s quite another to drag them off the streets in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the political heart of the country. Putin would only do that if he thinks losing the war would be even more dangerous. That is exactly the prospect he is facing if Ukraine continues its gains this spring and summer, and especially if it threatens to retake Crimea.
Right now, Russia is continuing its unsuccessful — and extremely costly — effort to take the cities of Bakhmut and nearby Soledar, as part of their failing attempt to consolidate control of the Donbas. Meanwhile, Ukraine is slowly advancing on two cities further north: Kreminna and Svatove. Those cities and the highway connecting them represent the next steps eastward after Ukraine’s capture of Lyman in October.
Ignore the fact the Russia has stepped up its missile strikes on key infrastructure during the past two months. If Ukraine’s tanks are moving and the Russians are losing, according to Lipson, then why does Ukraine desperately need hundreds of tanks from the West? If Ukraine is winning and Russia is being defeated on the battlefield, why is the West not preparing its victory party? Cobbling together a failed NATO summit in Ramstein this past week is not a sign that the West is confident of Ukraine’s military prospects.
Poor Professor Lipson apparently is not keeping up with current events and does not realize that not only has Russia captured Soledar (and some American soldiers in the process) but it has tactically encircled Bakhmut and is making rapid advances in Zaporhyzhia.
Lipson is repeating the propaganda from Kiev that Ukrainian attacks on Kreminna and Svatove are strategically important. Nothing could be further from the truth. Russia has now established fire control over the only lines of communication that provide supplies to the Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut. True to form, Russia is not divulging its plans, but the current movement of troops and artillery and air attacks strongly suggest that Russia is going to cut off Ukrainian forces east of the Dneiper River from resupply. Shades of Operation Uranus (i.e., the Soviet cauldron that encircled and destroyed the Nazi’s 6th Army at Stalingrad).
Let me conclude by posing a question — will the western cheerleaders for Ukraine ever admit that Ukraine is losing?
The title of the article asks “why” but the conclusion asks “will they admit”.
Let’s answer both:
1. Why? The west has devoured itself, destroyed all its industries and convinced itself that it is the s*it. Due to the newly acquired arrogance, it thought it can crush Russia but it backfired spectacularly. Like any good gambler at a casino, it will keep doubling down to zero. In addition to that, most people in the know understand that we lost and that Russia. China and BRICS are the new innovators and producers and that we are the dependent losers hooked on cheap junk, bored and decadent and picking arguments on social media over garbage that nobody considered just 10 years ago. Being weak and knowing it – is bound to make one jealous and sore losers who know they cannot win in a fight – run their mouths….
2. Will they admit defeat? No. The west is in an echo chamber (or more graphically – the ostrich with the head in the sand). It can also keep running up debt for a few more years until the combination of increasing debt/taxation intersects with the decrease in services provided for said taxation to its citizenry plus loss of USD as reserve currency, at which point riots will begin.
Two possibilities: a) double down fast all the way to nuclear confrontation – some may subscribe to the theory that a festering gangrenous leg needs to be simply cut off instead of trying to save it or b) set up some situation where it looks like Ukrainians will be blamed for the failure of this confrontation and hope to prolong the coming economic decline and agony for a few more years.
Sorry if I sound like a pessimist but reality is what it is.
The media have created not just an “altered state of consciousness” but an alternative world. I don’t live in that world. Neither does Larry. Nor do the people who comment here. But Rogoff does. Lipsom does. What does a fish know of the world of airbreathers? Rogoff and Lipsom just keep on swimming. Trouble is they are fish in a bowl which no one bothers to clean.
Who to blame? Blame the media. Blame journalists. I was a media professional for forty years, starting as a stringer during the Vietnam war. Believe me. They know what they are doing.
For most people, the NYT is like the Bible. Thou shalt believe. But like the rest of the MSM, a shameless rag.
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/the-nyt-shame A good example. Lies on top of lies.
That they are living in a different world is a weak defense. These are smart people trained in objective evaluation of data and analysis. They know how to do that.
They have no excuse for falling for propaganda other than that they wish to aid and abet a deception.
What is surprising these people is that they expected Russia to collapse economically and they can’t understand it’s non scorched earth approach to fighting.
These people are invested and conflicted as advisors to government, companies, etc and financial institutions.
There is no few more years of running debt there is just buying time for international mega corporates to spread risk and hedge against financial collapse.
There is also the need to sell globally the idea that the West is winning economically and militarily. My guess is much of this noise is to stop third nations peeling off from America as well as the understanding that the US ultimately has the biological, chemical and other weapons systems to win if they decide to play dirty, though that is not consequence free.
You are correct. One of the MOST important reasons for the “why” is widespread corruption – and this is not just conflict of interest, it is also the fact that the west is dependent on others to feed/clothe/power etc. it – from actual food to cheap Amazon/Walmart junk that keeps the stupid entertained. Also corrupt in the sense of “do as I say not as I do” as evident in sanctions, illegal wars and illegal seizures of assets/foreign reserves. Also corrupt as in education/credential-wise. Also corrupt as in “every job is a gateway to a better paying job and as soon as you start one gig, your eyes should be on the next gig”.
You are correct – these are people who should supposedly be able to analyze data and reach conclusions independently. They either are not what we expect them to be (educated/able to reach conclusions independently) or they are neglecting to do so intentionally (corrupt).
All good points, but something that must be understood is that to narcissists and psychopaths, control/power over others is everything. They will lie when telling the truth is actually more advantageous and easier because getting you to believe the lie means, to them, that they have power over you – and they’re pretty much correct about that. There is some measure of practicality involved. You don’t know what end is up, and they do (as long as they don’t forget and start to believe their own BS, which happens). They can dodge immediate consequences and keep scams going for as long as possible. When the whole thing eventually falls apart, it’s difficult to sort out how it happened and who is to blame. One hallmark of the liars is that they are out for immediate gratification. Another is that they have a grossly inflated sense of their own abilities, often almost godlike. So keep the party rolling today and we’ll figure something out tomorrow if the bottom drops out.
Now, as to why people are duped by the liars, well, to believe that the liars are actually that deeply depraved, crazy and so thoroughly dishonest is terrifying to most people. They just can’t believe that anyone could be that bad and irresponsible, especially when the liars are in positions of power. Plus there can be material social penalties for questioning the lies (see story of the emperor’s new cloths, etc)
In the instance of Russia v Ukraine, most people in the west have been conditioned to understand that Russia is an evil empire run by a madman. So the lies have an additional component of offering hope that it will all work out sooner or later and Russia (=evil) will be defeated and we’ll be in fine shape and life will go on as normal. No one wants to live in fear, even if that means hiding from that nagging sense that maybe, just maybe, things aren’t ok. Most people are psychological and moral cowards.
There is a strong psychological component to all of this. It’s not all rational and material.
“.. are not what we expect them to be (educated/able”
you are right – I’ve unintentionally exposed 2 American friends from very wealthy families (one is a son of a former AG of USA, another one is one of the wealthiest heiresses in the US) for lying about their education.
they both went to Princeton/MIT – but it turned out (after I introduced another friend to one of them who studied there at the same time the same year and the same course and was officially one of the most established experts in the field they studied) . He told me he had never seen the heiress in his life before – not at any lecture or any exam. And it was a very small group and MIT.
Soon after that event the heiress stopped telling people she was an architect…
the story with another guy is similar.
and these are just a couple of very ‘elite’ sons and daughters of USA’s most famous families – that as a Serb, unintentionally exposed…
there must be many more who have best degrees but never even went to the places they got degrees from (but their parents paid for libraries etc)
No wonder they mostly look dumb and lost.
Didnt that Trump’s gay-looking son in law also pay for his degree from harvard?
“The media have created not just an “altered state of consciousness” but an alternative world.”
Per Karl Rove, mid 90’s
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
For most people, the NYT is like the Bible. Thou shalt believe.
this matches my experience – I remember my former neighbors in LA (parents in law of that guitarist from U2 Edge (who now plays private concerts for Ziolensky). Every time we ate breakfasts together (many times) they would get NYT out and start reading it literally like a bible.
Although they are jewish.
I told them many times to stop reading that shit and gave them several examples of their blatant lies and deluded sheeple manipulation, but like cult members they just continued reading their BS (or listening to NPR while we drive in a car together)
“Believe me. They know what they are doing.”
Could you elaborate?
There are some things that are unexplainable that make me very uncomfortable. There are smart people at the CIA. Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab are not dumb. Klaus Schwab has been caught saying the USA needs a haircut. Meaning it needs to be reduced in power and influence. Klaus Schwab’s actual claim to fame started in the 70s as he helped drive Western investments and technology transfer to China. This is why Xi Jinping personally hung the Chinese reform friendship medal on his neck in the Great Hall in 2018. At the same time he supposedly believes in Climate change and the world is going to end if we don’t quit using “dirty fuels”. Climate change theory has indeed impacted Western energy production. In Europe and the USA coal use is down by over 50 percent. Energy production is down in the Europe slighly and +has been stagnate in the USA for 20 years. CO2 emmisions are down. Mostly due to burning more gas than coal because renewables are a joke. They just don’t put enough power out. In the last 20 years the USA went from averaging 27 TWh to 26 TWh. China went from 12 TWh to 50 TWh. China has also been importing record amounts of coal from the USA and Europe. On the cheap since it is being regulated and we don’t need as much. Today China is burning 400 percent more coal than the USA ever did and it is increasing every year. CO2 emissions are through the roof in China. As a whole the world is burning more coal and emitting more CO2 than ever even though it has decreased in the West at the expense of its energy production. Everything I just stated is available on ourworldindata.org I ask you. What are the chances the CIA, Bill Gates, and Klaus Schwab don’t know this? In all the climate change hand wringing why is this not a big topic? There is no good answer go this question
I really liked your comment and I often ask my wife questions about people’s thinking and believing media propaganda without researching and finding the truth and facts. I am dismayed at where alot of peoples thinking is in western society today. We live in New Zealand.
Media disconnect number 4735:
Here’s a good one with DW interviewing Trenin. No need to go beyond 0:44. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgp6zRPsQv4
“But why did Moscow go to war – just as the West had begun the dialogue Putin had been demanding?”
Huh? Guess I must have slept through the ‘just as’ part.
These people invent realities on the fly. Just astounding.
Certainly the Neoliberal Nazis running the show in the Anglo-American-EU-NATO Reich think they know exactly what is going on and what they are doing – no less than seriously insane psychotics believe that they have the only true picture of the world. The western media is also replicant of the Nazi media and devotees of Hitler in the 1930s and during the years of WW11 – equally servile and terrified of ever daring to publish the truth or question the lies and propaganda.
The article draws very accurate parallel with Operation Uranus and the surrounding defeat by the Soviet Armies of German 6th Army in Stalingrad November 1942. What is happening right now in Ukraine / Bakhmut is almost identical replay.
Late November 1942 northern and southern Soviet forces linked up at Kalach encircling 290,000 Axis forces including 6th Army; and just as the lunatic Hitler refused sensible request of General Paulus to breakout, when it was still possible to do so, and retreat from Stalingrad to save the Axis armies to fight another day, so the lunatic in the pay of Washington, Zelensky, has just as insensibly refused reported request by Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Valerii Zaluzhnyi to evacuate Ukrainian forces from Bakhmut so as to avoid their being surrounded, captured and destroyed.
So similarly the imbecile Neocon Nazi political leaders in Washington, London and EU/Brussels HQ carry on just like those German generals obediently obeying insane orders of the Fuhrer as they continued conducting battles even though they knew they would ultimately be defeated by the Soviet armies – while all the way through their slow agonizing slaughter, all the way back to Berlin, they were proclaiming eventual triumph of the Reich, too afraid of the Fuhrer’s wrath to do otherwise – all the while, the Fuhrer’s mind had succumbed to chronic debilitating delusions of grandeur and megalomaniacal hallucinations of his supreme Aryan Deity and ultimate victory; and all they had to do was to “will it so”.
Ukraine, along with the Anglo-American-EU-NATO Fourth Reich will end the same way if they persist with their delusional belief systems and hate-fuelled Nazi comic-strip propaganda. Watch this space.
The writing is writ large on the tombstone of future history, just as it was so indelibly scribed in the haunted skeletal faces of the defeated, surrendering Wehrmacht soldiers of the German 6th Army as they were herded out of the rubble of Stalingrad by the victorious Soviet army. Soon we will witness the Neoliberal Nazis hunkering down, way below ground, in their massive underground bunkers that they have spent years and hundreds of billions preparing for their doomsday Valhalla scenario – the only difference between the mythological fairy tale epic and the soon-to-unfold reality is that it will not be strong courageous warriors inhabiting the great hall of the einherjar it will be criminally-insane, effete cowering fools of dubious gender struck down by the blinding light of reality – the deer in the proverbial headlights frozen in terrified puzzlement, fear and confusion that they will have brought on themselves by their insane perfidy, insatiable greed and hunger for unchallenged global power and dominion over the earth and over all peoples in it.
If they do don’t desist from their madness then soon the Neocon Nazi’s dreams and ambitions will eventually become to them like the ashes in the gaping mouths of the frozen Wehrmacht corpses that were strewn across the rubble of Stalingrad 1942 and early 1943.
May real freedom and peace prevail soon for all people everywhere. The multipolar world.
The conflict is a result of the hegemonic ambitions and the fact, that the west has to conquer and steal from others to maintain their financial status quo. Therefore they cannot prolong their economic “decline and agony”. They need fresh capital in form of resources or something else they can use to back up their immense debt or a distraction to blame the implosion of their financial system upon that conflict. That is, in my opinion, why they double down and pass on every opportunity to resolve that mess they created.
I am a Pole living in Poland and I am in two minds about all this. Seems to me, the one option is to oppose the American war in Ukraine and risk the return of the Russians to Poland and perhaps even falling under the rule of the Chinese, and the other option is to support the Americans (and Ukrainians) despite my deeply felt disgust with the American exceptionalism and its recent history of conducting unprovoked wars all over the place. No easy answers for someone finding himself between the rock and the hard place.
Thousands of Polish volunteers in Ukraine have been sent to eternity clutching a St. Faustina/Divine Mercy prayer as they spent their final days fighting for Globohomoshlomo and for everything their Catholic faith has opposed as gravely immoral and demonic (in the St. Michael prayer).
The Poles want American exceptionalism bad. And it will come to them fast and hard. With multiculturalism, gay marriage, abortion, and a subversion and emptying of churches, et al. It’ll never happen in deeply Catholic Poland you say.? Yeah, sure, in deeply Catholic Ireland it took a dozen years for the West to obliterate Irish and Catholic culture and make abortion and gay marriage not only legal but promoted. It’ll take less than a dozen years to eviscerate Cathoic Poland.
But hey, at least Russia won’t have any influence there! The hollowing out and de-Christianizing of Poland will have the Russkies reeling in horror and staying away as if civilizational suicide were a contagion.
Poles are desperate to be posh Englishmen. The rich Poles send their kids to England’s finest private boarding schools and it’s a huge badge if honor if your child has gone to Oxford.
Yet the forget Churchill called them the ‘jackals of Europe’ and the West looks down on them even today.
Those who are easily bought are never respected.
It was the Russians who helped Poland in the past but they forget that. The West will just use them, as noted above, destroy their values and culture. But the shiny glowy West is too hard to resist except for those who have actually been there, who see what western Europe thinks of the east.
You don’t seem to get it guy…..sorry to offend you but this type of ignorance and fence sitting seems to me to be a Polish trait. Russia has no interest in your country as much as you might like to indulge yourself in that self serving hysteria. They’ve got all the land and all the natural resources that they need, what do they want from you, Poland?! All you have for them is PROBLEMS !
So you are “torn betwikx…” ( as Jethro Bodine used to say on Beverly Hillbilly’s, Larry will remember that!) turning yourself over to a rising Russia that has no need of Poland or staying with a bonafide tyrant that has milked half the world or more almost to exhausting. And using you like a spent whore.
You got a problem, guy.
‘jackals of Europe’
“hyena” was the word……… “greedy hyena of Europe”
Polish pandora’s boxes. Why would the Russians be interested in Poland as long as Poland stays disinterested in Russia?
It’s been over thirty years, time to put your communist bogey men to bed. All Russia ever sought (for 20 years) was an inclusive pan-european security architecture and trade with the West. Was that too much to ask from any nation? Instead, it got an in their face NATO with Polish, Baltic and now Ukrainian tales wagging the NATO dog’s greedier half. If Poland had problems with security for me but not for thee, then they’re problems of its own making.
And BTW: Although no Third Reich, Poland in its day was no slouch of a regional hegemon either, so don’t be so quick to play the victim card.
You are absolutely right. The demon possessed people running this country are committing suicide like all haters eventually do.
as they say
most psychopaths tend to eventually self destruct
I agree with you, WTF. Most “American” politicians today ARE demon-possessed. To be possessed is to be insane. The politicians who have financed the continuous, ongoing destruction of the Ukrainian people are both demonic and insane. Needless to say, they are also very evil.
Correct.
America is “Babylon the great”:
And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. (Rev 18:2)
I think you are spot on.
Oddo,well said with one exception.Newly aquired arrogance?When you argue with a fool you will lose.He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.Sam Clemmons(Mark Twain).
The media and the democrats have primed the pump of class division and racial hostility in the US. They would not be able to turn that off if the economy declines.
I am sure Russia and China(among others) see it. They must be nervous about it’s ramifications but I am sure they are preparing. WW3 with cyber and infrastructure attacks on US mainland would cause some type of civil war-there is no way in hell inner city thugs would not venture out into high income areas to loot, rape and kill.
One’s woke credentials mean nothing.
Allow me to add, Larry, that it’s time to forego this type of low hanging fruit. Use your serious mental capabilities on better targets. This is a compliment. You’re better than this. It’s like preaching to the choir. We all know and generally agree that the Globalist Neocon DC Uniparty Intel Bubble is busy 24/7 fabricating a propaganda narrative on Ukraine and Russia (and China) divorced from reality. Few if any of your readers pay any attention to these pitiful purveyors of info puke. Your time is better spent elsewhere.
Such as…
1. What’s your insight on how these gangsters in DC and London will respond to the unfolding collapse of their Ukrainian proxy? How far will they go?
2. Do you see any evidence that cracks are widening among the DC factions? Is there any, real chance, for example, that the Intel faction may split w the MIC? Might the Uniparty go too far and force an open breach w Intel or Pentagon? How do these various factions align and where are the red lines each faction sets for their own interests? Are we seeing a divergence of interests between the factions? Do the EU vassals show any signs of breaking away from the Anglo Cartel?
3. Do you think the USG is dominated by Global Davos EU powers or is it the other way around?
4. Is there any reason to believe that US states might provide a brake against the totalitarian trend of DC?
Thank you GinnedUp. I have the same issue with Andrei Martyanov. Of course the press is 100% liars and academics and bureaucrats are low IQ shills. Enough about the trained monkey’s on leashes. We need to talk about the organ grinders who might be running both sides of this conflict for fun and profit.
With you guys re; more trained monkeys on leashes, story at 9:00 and Russia is awesome/US sucks!
We’re actually in very fascinating times.
First half of the 20th century crazy Europeans destroyed themselves not once, but twice! India, Africa not even developing nations yet. Russia and China made the stupid choice to become commies. So the USA emerged as the adult in the room; unscathed from WW2, powerful economy, reserve currency b/c it was the only one worth having based on aforementioned issues with Europe and the commies.
However, now, the Europeans are still crazy and as self-destructive as ever, but Russia and China have their acts together. We have strong emerging economies in countries like India and in less strong but energy producers in Latin America. Btw, “strong” doesn’t just mean big value production. It also mean stable/secure.
So the era of US global dominance is coming to an end, as it naturally must and should. However, the US is still highly relevant. Furthermore, the global economies are still tied to the US economy and vice versa, especially the new powerhouse, China (Russia less so currently). If the US falls hard, all others will be hit hard too (again Russia to a lesser degree currently).
I do not believe for one second that there is not faction of leadership in the US, EU, Russia and China that do not fully understand where we are and that discussions are not be held (even with Russia behind closed doors). Yes, yes, yes, the overly coifed mouth pieces in the media probably do not have an iota of comprehension. They merely parrot what they are told – and what they are told is designed to keep societal panic and unrest to a minimum. Probably the typical US politician is fairly clueless as well and those who get it are too busy filling their personal accounts with whatever they can grab while the getting is good. Btw, the CIA has even released statements about the US being a global power in decline and the need to adapt to that reality. So, again, contrary to Andrei’s endless scolds, I am confident the situation is well understood by the US.
So a great discussion would be around who is in the know and what are they doing to bring about a well controlled, equitable and peaceful as possible transition? What is being proposed? Who opposes such a transition and wants to slug it out on the battlefield? How are those factions fighting each other?
Here’s something to look forward to. When the US dollar loses it’s reserve currency status the president of the States will have to beg congress to pass a tax increase to pay for a for a war and if it’s a foreign misadventure with no clear benefit to the US he can forget it. The taxpayers of the US will have to find another way to get their geography lessons.
True, but something to not be hoped for. As far as I know, as change in reserve currency – or even a serious threat that it could happen – has always resulted in a world war type scenario. In the nuclear age, that would be terrible beyond imagination for all of us; meaning, literally, even you and me.
A move away from the US dollar as global reserve must be handled delicately, wisely and with cooperation of all major powers, especially nuclear powers. IMO, we aren’t there yet, but there is a growing threat. That’s what this proxy war is all about. A sudden collapse of the dollar would even be very bad for competitors, like China.
Some of the BS, the propaganda, what the WEF discusses, etc. is the west trying to manage the looming change. The internal partisan conflicts must be immense.
If there were to be incontrovertible proof, tomorrow, of technologically advanced space aliens visiting the earth on a regular basis, there would be an effort to suppress that information so as to mange the situation and stave off society wide panic. Would that be the right to do? Arguably, maybe. Similarly, if you travel a lot, you have most certainly been aboard an aircraft that experienced some kind of crash possible issue – and you didn’t even know it. Should the pilot have announced the danger to the passengers as he worked to resolve it? What good would it do? How much harm? Well, we are in the same kind of boat with the US dollar. The panic could be worse than the reality. The question is, “Are there competent people working globally to develop a soft landing for the world?” We tend to think not b/c of the transparently stupid propaganda and the doubling down on Russia. However, we really don’t know. The propaganda is not transparent to the vast majority and seems to be doing its job.
Agree. There is high awareness of fiscal risk.
Rogoff and Rheinhart, a pair of economists, made predictions about the financial collapse of 2008. They were considered big wheels back then, at least by the Fed watchers. The pair missed on their conclusions but Rogoff continues opining on matters. Credibility is in question.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-reinhart-and-rogoff-controversy-a-summing-up
As far as I know, as change in reserve currency – or even a serious threat that it could happen – has always resulted in a world war type scenario.
Causation is inverted I think………..
no; the dollar will not lose it’s reserve currency status; what will replace it? RMB? Euros? Yen? Pounds? Nothing?
Increased use of national currency benchmarks and exchanges a sort of ERM backed by re commodities or assets. So no one currency would dominate, though some would be used more, there would be effective inter-country trading mechanisms.
The final picture may well have dollar, rmb and a few other currencies forming 50% plus of global trade but other currencies will be in the mix.
Yes. If the US continues to print money to finance stupid crap with no provable positive ROI, then other currencies become relatively more attractive. Also, as the US population dumbs down and key domestic production further suffers as a result, other currencies become stronger v the USD. We are headed there at fighting speed.
“the euro, the yen, the pound, the renminbi (RMB), the Canadian dollar, the Swiss franc, and the Australian dollar” are all already international reserve currencies and have been for some time.
I believe you have the concept of a “reserve currency” (“a large amount of currency held by central banks and major financial institutions to use for international transactions”) and the previous dominance as US$ as the “petrodollar” (“U.S. dollars accepted as payment by an oil exporter”) confused.
Not just oil. Any currency used for international trade.
You are thinking like a westerner ;). There is no need for a reserve currency – if Saudi Arabia wants to sell oil to China, it can do it in yuan. If it wants to sell it to USA, it can do it in USD. If Russia wants to trade with Turkey, it can be done in rubles and liras and if India wants to do the same with Russia, it can be done in rupees or rubles. This way USD, EUR etc.are just one of the currencies. Of course, with time a currency such as a BRICS based one can emerge if necessary. Look at Brazil trying to start a shared currency with Argentina, called “sur”. Whatever happens, this conflict has shown the world that USD is not safe as a currency.
I think you’re basically correct, in theory, Oddo. However, since the end of WW2 countries and business preferred US$ b/c the US economy was the biggest, most stable and most secure. In order for other currencies to be seen as viable for international trade the US would have to decline in terms of economic strength, stability and security and/or other countries would have to rise to the US’ level. You probably know that and assumed that we all do it. When those conditions are met, there will still be a few preferred currencies used as reserves, but more than one, which will do some damage to the US economy. So yes, the US, Chinese, Russian, maybe EU, Maybe Japanese, Indian currencies could eventually see equal use as reserves, but many other countries’ would not as they are less “safe” into the foreseeable future. No one wants a bank full of currency that swings wildly in value or could even become valueless due to a coup or some other complete economic crash
Eric, from a strategic/long term perspective, the reason why an exchange such as lira/ruble works without the dollar is because gas/oil/electronics/textile/raw materials trade is a long term commitment. Only USA/EU/UK think of these things as short-term (as in, use someone while looking at someone else as the next target). In the latter frame of mind, you want a permanent currency (ideally yours). In other words – if you and your wife decide to get married for life, you can come up with your own language or learn each other languages and use them till end of life. If you get married with an eye on one of the bride’s maids, however… 😉
31 TRILLION dollars in debt and counting. A debt ceiling that’s by force not choice raised twice a year and accelerating. What DON’T you understand about this looming monster behind the curtain?
I am afraid many don’t understand what’s going on. The breakdown of the west is not an accident. It is the goal. How do you get a worldwide Great Reset and the destruction of billions of people if not by an allout crash of western civilization.
Read the Georgia Giudestones. The manifest of the current good doer loonatics. Let’s safe the planet by killing almost all of it’s population. That’s their plan. And everything that bring them closer to that goal is appreciated.
I fear another option is the suicidal psychos will double down by unleashing bioweapons.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ethnic-Bomb-Feared-as-US-Air-Force-Confirms-Collection-of-Russian-DNA-20171102-0028.html
“…will the western cheerleaders for Ukraine ever admit that Ukraine is losing?”
No.
Their pay cheques, literally, depend on not admitting this.
They can’t handle the shift to Eurasia?
Since they believe words are actions then it must be sad trombone time when the hashtags, blue and yellow profile pics, and vodka dumping are just flatulence in the wind.
Just for fun I typed is Russia Orthodox Christian in a not starting with a G search engine.
The fusion center will froth and foam over that query.
These types of narratives are far more common thru out the entire media than your 2 examples. This is because the profit model of the media is no longer subscribers who want some truth/facts, but government and institutions who want/pay for their narratives read by media consumers.
It works too……………. because most people I talk to about what is happening in the Ukraine, repeat these narratives. “Russia is so corrupt, their economy is in ‘tatters’, equipment is all broken down and they are sending waves of young men to their deaths in a desperate attempt to not lose the war – Ukrainians are true heroes!!!!!!”.
I see many Ukrainian flags flying in places I never expected to see them.
If you want to read anything else, you have to expend effort/time to search for it……..and if you do, you will be one-of-those reading ‘nutters conspiracies an mis-dis-mal information’. That is why censorship is needed!
Accepting what you are told is far easier than challenging/questioning a narrative…….and repeating the same narrative over and over does work.
To be honest, I don’t know how the facts will ever be allowed to change the narrative.
Until a war hits home and people have to ‘live it’………..a far-away conflict will always be the easiest and most common narrative that is repeated to them.
Dumbing down education and exploiting human nature, I suppose. Sad!
Spot on ! , “… until
It hits home…”
A customer is someone who pays for something. If you’re getting something without paying for it, you aren’t a customer – you’re the product.
When I get to the type of people that you are describing, I ask them “can you read a map”? I Tell them to go to a pro Ukraine map site like liveuamap.com and look at the territory Russia has conquered and explain to me how they are losing badly but gaining huge amounts of territory?
Answering yor last question, i don’t thinks so. But hope so.
The MSM will never admit 404 is losing. They’ll celebrate once Russia completes the objectives of the SMO and return back to the borders of their new provinces.
The Big Serge provides clarity, piercing the fog of war.
The Trumpet and the vaccine done it, at last, but so sorry all the dead and all the destruction from the Doodle Dandy ‘elite’[sic indeed]
Professor Lipson seems to be engaging in what the psychologists call projection. Everything he claims about Russia is actually what’s occurring for Ukraine. Forced conscription with people, even those incapable of holding a rifle, being dragged off the streets of every major Ukrainian city. Human wave tactics, where whole battalions are being destroyed every day in what even the West is now admitting is a meat grinder in Bakhmut.
Dwindling supplies of weapons; it’s the US that is raiding its stockpiles in South Korea and Israel to feed the war, and the US that is putting pressure on places like Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua (yes really) to give up their Russian and Soviet made weapons for transfer to Ukraine. The lady four star general in charge, Laura Richardson, is even offering to swap them out for American weapons (yes really) if they come to the party. Don’t know how that’s going to work.
It’s the West that is squabbling about who is going to send main battle tanks to Ukraine, while the Russians just go on building as many as they need.
You could call it copium or reality denial, but in fact it’s just good old-fashioned lying dishonesty that lets an ignoramus like Lipson even have a job or a media outlet for his BS. The guy is a fraud and a shill of the first magnitude.
You, like many others, have noticed that the USA – the EU and the UK do not maintain reality, and what is really terrible is that they do not try to adapt to reality, just the opposite. They are indeed in the chaos in which they are lost. And they are afraid to come face to face with reality, and they cover it with a curtain of lies and imagination. And they don’t care that they don’t reflect the truth, they use lies as the defensive trenches of their existence, they are truly a scarecrow that chased away reality. And the lie is important to them, and it has dragged them away from themselves, and they find themselves in anxiety, which is part of their actions. It is both fateful and ironic how the lie they need to live condemns them to a life that is never real.
Two countries with the biggest Advertising firms on the planet.
Advertising moved from Products to Politics
Advertising fashions the Politician and moulds his Policy Offerings
In an electorate largely female Sentiment shapes and Rationality offends
Jeez. You think women are the cause of this? You have serious mental issues. How’s about all the men? Straight, gay, wearing LGBTQ badges. All these movements are white male funded and driven. Trans activism all.white wealthy American male funded and driven.
What a cop out. The quality of men in the West is shit. They are busy watching porn online, taking drugs, drinking and buying designer sneakers. What’s worse is like Muslims extremists they blame women for their own weakness. Pathetic. You are responsible for what you become. No one else.
Your language is intemperate and your verbal comprehension poor.
In an electorate largely female Sentiment shapes and Rationality offends
Electorate is largely female – we call that demographics
Sentimentality is how the AD industry is packaging matters. – FACT
The use of “sentimentality” to focus towards female voters attracts a lot of others……..
Why you are so hidebound and narrow-minded is for you to reflect on. I merely commented on HOW the Advertising sector is projecting THE MESSAGE
Fair enough. I apologize for the language but not the sentiment.
Men have no one to blame but themselves. This has been a long time coming. A society of pass the buck take no responsibility will always fail.
Too many men are backing each other I’m corrupt groups that is what is the cause of social decay. The mafia, paedos in Church positions, corrupt political cartels and old boys networks and revolving doors are the major reason of collapse of western religious values and society.
And the quality of women in the West hasn’t declined? Short purple hair, nose rings, fat, sandals, covered in dumb tattoos, foul mouthed, high body count, kids with multiple men?
But she still thinks she deserves 6 figures, 6 pack and 6 feet.
Below average women think they’re entitled to an exclusive relationship with above average men. Sorry, doesn’t work that way.
How is this relevant to the topic?
Who are the main sellers and producers and pushers of those drugs? Who destroyed religious and ethical values when in leadership positions? Who fails to marry women they impregnate and walk away from responsibility to children and family?
Most men have lost any sense of honor, decency and courage. This is replaced with money, freedom from responsibility, escapism, selfishness and cowardly behavior.
Modernity has escalated this by exposing the rot in religions and systems, drugs, alcohol, Hollywood and music industry normalised loss of ethics, and the state has backed the decline through law. Men have choices still. They just chose the easier paths as honor means nothing compared to success and survival.
“Below average women think they’re entitled to an exclusive relationship with above average men. Sorry, doesn’t work that way”
Agreed.
In the Europe of the Middle Ages, only one in every five men had kids that were biologically his own. Today, men in the much-desired top 10% have kids with multiple wives – serial monogamy. The women in the top category only have one or two kids because they refuse to go “go down market”. It is so obvious. Just look around you.
As a result of the processes above described. The English of the 18th century were a lot more intelligent than the English of today. They were the smartest people on the planet and that is why they ended up controlling 1/4 of it.
My old university, Imperial College, has increased the length of its engineering course from 3 to 4 years – because the intake is of a lower quality than was the case when I was there in the 1960’s. The first year is spent catching up. The end-of-school exams have been dumbed down in all subjects. Not just in math, physics and chemistry.
You made it relevant Ash. Did it not occur to you that men aren’t stepping up to the plate because there’s absolutely nothing for them?
> Who fails to marry women they impregnate and walk away from responsibility to children and family?
LMAO. The type of guy that does this is the type of guy most women want: 6 pack, 6 figures, 6 feet. He can get away with this because he has choice.
Of course, the obvious solution is to simply not give it up before marriage…
The terms of the social contract have changed without our consent. Don’t be surprised that we’re ain’t signing
So my issue with this is in the Army now, these young guys some of them are snowflakes. And they always have an excuse. I don’t believe in excuses. I follow the old thinking that you alone are responsible for what you become. If people can take a pass from responsibility they do. Blaming society,mum, dad, women for failing to step up is a cop out in my book that too many people are given. If men are weak it’s because they are weak men who blame others for their weakness. So then it’s no longer your problem. So why bother.
Ken Rogoff is also a chess grandmaster, In addition he is the infamous author of an economics paper that showed that the way to overcome financial problems is for countries to implement austerity measures. Only problem with his paper – the raw data he used to arrive at that conclusion don’t support the conclusion. The main issue is that many countries and organizations used that paper to impose austerity measures on countries such as Greece, about 10 plus years ago, leading to a lot of harm to the population.
Being associated with the IMF is not something you want on your resume in the multipolar world.
Ah, Kenneth Rogoff, the man who has trouble driving a spreadsheet.
https://retractionwatch.com/2013/04/18/influential-reinhart-rogoff-economics-paper-suffers-database-error/
To be fair he had a co-author. Neither noticed the problem.
This was exactly what I was going to comment. Ken Rogoff is most famous for driving austerity politics at exactly the wrong time, using a spreadsheet where he’d tinkered with the formulas to ensure it had the answers he wanted. The data he was using didn’t support his claims at all, when the “errors” were revealed.
Good for a faux-nobel though, from our friends at the swedish central bank.
Listening to anything this revealed conman has to say is thoroughly pointless.
In my culture, lying is considered a childish and a very juvenile act.
We consider it a gross form of disrespect when someone deliberately lie to us.
We view such behavior contemptible, hence my Yoruba people saying: Eniti o ba nparo ma jale / The one who tells lies will also steal.
Among the things that shocked me the most when I sojourned in Europe was the ease with which people accepted being lied to.
We all can understand that politicians tell lies, but what future does a society have when those in charge of its education brazenly tell stupid and blatant lies?
What type of graduates will these professors, including the emeritus, produce when it is clear that they are either unpardonably uninformed, or they are capable of making things up.
How would these professors mark students who turn in papers they concocted?
I think a lot of Americans and Ukrainians would be disgusted to hear that the US provoked this war with lies. I was totally disgusted.
McFaul at the Munk debate in Toronto (It is on Youtube):
“So our diplomats were lying (when offering #Ukraine #NATO membership in 2021?”
Former U.S. Ambassador to #Russia @McFaul
“Yes!”
Then he tries to redefine ‘lying.’
https://twitter.com/mcfaul/status/1528404483016822784
“Lying is a strong and inappropriate word. My emotions in the moment compelled me to affirm Walts word. I apologize & retract that. But were NATO leaders declaring publicly aspirations about Ukraine’s membership without actually wanting them to join? Yes. And EVERYONE knew it.”
I have had several occasions to question the qualifications of McFaul as a diplomat or a scholar.
The type of emotional effusions he post on his Twitter belies his title of a Professor!
The suppose the act lying is appropriate but using the word itself is inappropriate. Hmmm..
Maybe a new word needs to be alloted to the act of lying 🤥.
Which war has the United States not provoked through lies ?
Spanish-America War perhaps…….USS Maine ?
Rebellion 1775 – “Massacre” of 5 persons ? Hardly My-Lai !!!!
“Tyrant George III” ? The man who had a Treaty protecting Native American territories ?
US has ALWAYS fabricated lies to justify predatory warfare and the last time it declared war was 1942 against Hungary
“The one who tells lies will also steal.”
South Slavs have the exact same saying. I guess they lack the equivalent in The West.
just saying,
definitely we don’t have that saying in Spain, I don’t think in whole western Europe ..
But I honestly I do not think that neither south slavs nor north slavs have better ethics than we … (in my experience, german people, northic people, yes).
Best regards.
PS: the saying is great. It’s totally accurate.
Just as an interesting fact, this saying “He who lies also steals!” is often used in Central Europe, i.e. Hungarians too ! Well, since we became an ally of the USA, we have learned several new sayings, such as “When does a politician lie ? When his mouth moves ! But what we have learned to our own chagrin ” He who has such a friend does not need an enemy !
Which is somewhat linked To Henry Kissinger’s quote” To be an enemy of America is dangerous, to be a friend is fatal.”
Since living in same geographical area results in mixing of cultures (and other things), I guess all European versions have the same origin. Similarity with the African one is more interesting, and is probably the case of “great minds think alike” phenomenon (which is also pretty common).
No. That’s fine.
No need to change them.
Their bubble of delusion works to the advantage of Russia.
Delusion is not a winning plan for war.
We must allow them to slumber and stumble and be stupid.
Let it be.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Those two ‘academics’ are genuinely certifiable.
Someone probably sent Mr. Harvard (BTW: I’m an alumnus unfortunately) this vid but titled it ‘Russian conscript roundup’, just ignore the spoken Ukrainian.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/KAd1CVzuDggz/
mr. Johnson- they cannot accept the fact that the narrative is crumbling. As Mr. mercoulis said the percent europe gdp to world gdp is know half of what it was in 1980. TheUSA which could be just as economically independent a place as russia if its resources were properly utilitzed in partnership with canada, mexico ;central and south america is instead being turned into a green snake eating its own tail.
as for the ukraine , yu published this article from serge recently.
https://open.substack.com/pub/bigserge/p/russo-ukrainian-war-the-world-blood?r=7ct73&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
it looks like military summary took this and put together the blueprint for the russians to surround and destroy 200,000 ukrainians in the donbass just like the Falaise pocket which was the final engagement of the battle in normandy after D Day.
https://youtu.be/aES277w1lOI?t=1018
i think if the russians sit on their laurels and do not take the final inititive this winter to kick the ukrainians out of the donbass once and for all when they are this weak is almost criminal negligece on their part. if they essentially end this know in my opinion many lives on both sides will be saved especially teenage ukrainian boys and older 50 plus ukrainian men who according to one of Gonzalo liras roundtables if my recollection is correct are being drafted as cannon fodder to fill the front lines.
as for the trans agenda from what i can tell this agenda goes back thousands of years and originated in egypt and babylon. Eventually solomon brought this into israel because of his acceptance of foreign pagan practices due to marrying many foreign wifes. In those days if a king married a wife from a bigshot family from another land usually for economic purposes ; he had to accept or at least tolerate her religion. This eventually resulted in the destruction of israel. After the time of Christ when allot of the world accepted christianity this pagan trans movement went underground but in the last 100 yrs. especially through hollywood has raised its ugly head again. This is why i think we live in the age of mystery babylon shown in revelation 18 where all of their occultic and pagan practices including child sacrifice through abortion are being practiced all over again.
yu may or not find these 3 vids interesting. i certainly did.
Transpocalypse Origins Part 1 – The Whore of Babylon
https://www.bitchute.com/video/R248CtjzDH20/
https://seed200.bitchute.com/tHz5XlKTffhH/R248CtjzDH20.mp4
this video gives a great guide of telling who is who especially for mtf–male to female . after coming across this type of info awhile ago do not look at hollywood . politics and television the same way.
The Transpocalypse That Is Going On Right Now Under Peoples Noses
https://www.bitchute.com/video/jiHEUYyzrLDo/
https://seed132.bitchute.com/NYZMjDr6JOG3/jiHEUYyzrLDo.mp4
orson wells verbal quote – 1 minute
“Actors are neither men nor women, they belong to a third set” Truth bomb from 1974
https://www.bitchute.com/video/28vIjgrOc01n/
As many know earlier this week ivan provorov of the philadelphia flyers did not participate in a pregame skate to honor the lgbqt movement due to his russian orthodox faith. the rumor is know he going to be traded to a team in canada where he can be forgotten about. i checked and he did play tonight .
I listened to the commentators inbetween the periods who discuss nhl news and his name was not mentioned at all on the national broadcast. i guess after his jersies immediately sold out due to his fan support the nhl want to cancel out this incident ever happening. His coach much to his credit supported ivan`s descision. If they could cancel out ivan; am sure they would.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pro-hockey-player-takes-rare-stand-against-woke-nhl
regards,
ralph
percent europe gdp to world gdp is know half of what it was in 1980
That is not the whole picture. GDP globally (China, Japan, USA, UK, Canada, EU) is inflated by DEBT – and GDP nationally.
It is requiring $10 Debt to leverage $1 GDP growth because of skewed economic structures and productivity collapse. Certain sectors are heavily over-invested – whether in China or Japan – or in USA (Defence industries) or UK (FIRE), or Germany (STATE) – and capital is being consumed not invested
“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” George Orwell
As for losing their minds…
Madness is not the loss of reason, it has been said, it is the loss of everything but reason. First and foremost is the loss (or suspension) of judgment regarding veracity of data and premises. Disabling the negative feedback loops that correct thinking allow one to proceed, however rationally, to conclusions totally disconnected from reality.
This isn’t a rare phenomena or restricted to intellectuals. Your previous article on Ryan O’Leary is a case of exactly the same thing. Nor is it new, even Aristotle repeated the prevailing notion that men had more teeth than women without bothering to simply count them.
Then there’s the fact that the Lipsons of the world derive their income from renting out their credentials to somebody who wants to push a narrative/agenda. If loss of judgment pays, you can be certain many/most “intellectuals-for-hire” will line up to lose it.
“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” George Orwell
I had already written this chapter when I came across Anthony Storr’s ”Feet of Clay : A Study of Gurus” (HarperCollins, 1996), which is a virtual textbook on this depressing subject. It is hard to believe that one holy fraud, by the time the US Marshals belatedly arrested him, had accumulated ninety-three Rolls-Royces ! Even worse – eighty-three per cent of his thousands of American dupes had been to college, and thus qualify for my favourite definition of an intellectual:
”Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence”.
Arthur C. Clarke, ”3001 The Final Odyssey”, paperback, p.263, Voyager of HarperCollinsPublishers (1997)
When I was studying marketing many years ago (in South Africa) a voice from the back asked: “Surely clever people will see through this?” Our very politically incorrect lecturer replied: “No. On the contrary. Clever people are the target audience. They suck up the BS faster than most and then convince the slow people for us. That’s why you can sell anything to anyone if you pitch it right.”
Indeed.
“As education is primarily preconditioning for propaganda, those most educated are most easily propagandized.” – Jacques Ellul
Thanks for that anecdote. Your marketing lecturer was oh so right.
In Orwell’s 1984, the Inner Party didn’t care what the Proles thought. Politically disempowered, satiated with porn and alcohol, they were allowed to entertain all manner of politically deviant ideas. OTOH, the Inner Party was very concerned about what the Outer Party thought and managed every aspect of every Outer Party member’s thinking and even life.
If the “Deep State” is today’s Inner Party, the political, journalist, professional and academic classes are today’s equivalent of the Outer Party.
When one considers how it works, one comes to realize that those classes have the most invested in the system. They built their lives and careers by internalizing and filling the system’s requirements. In return the system has treated them well, and so their very lives have come to depend utterly on its continuation. They are the ones who have the most to lose if the system goes down, and so the Inner Party can rely on them to fight to keep the system alive.
It all works well enough until the system starts to fail to deliver the goodies to the Outer Party. That’s where we are now.
“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” George Orwell
What is truely awful is that none of these politicians or their militery generals/advisors who are so po faced and sactimonious when they swear in on their bibles or other religeous instrument believe for one moment that Russia will lose this war and once again this reaffirms my belief that none of them believe in any type of god or in any religeon except for the gods of power and money so once again they will sacrifice a million or more people on lies.
“… none of these politicians or their militery generals/advisors… believe for one moment that Russia will lose this war”
I don’t think most of them are lying in any normal sense. Rather, (to continue channelling Orwell) they believe what they’re saying in the same way that members of Orwell’s Outer Party believed 2+2=5.
The magic of 2+2=5 is that it demands of the Outer Party member that he invests everything, including his own experience and reason itself to replace them with an Inner Party meme.
They believe what they’re saying more ardently than had they come to those conclusions via disciplined research and reason. Those who study the situation and are aware of the limits of their research and reason, qualify their conclusions accordingly. The true believer doesn’t have to.
Whether it’s about climate change, or systemic racism, or Vaxx hysteria, or this war, it doesn’t take more than a few words of conversation with such a person to realize they’ve bet the family farm on a meme and have no option but to hold it as an absolute truth.
Yes. And going against the Inner Party gets one labeled as something akin to being a social leper or a witch in Ye Olde Time Salem; A “denier” an “insurrectionist” a “racist”. Which is doom for social standing and career. So there is a form of coercion, by the inner party, it this little game. If you’re invested in the materially successful aspects of society, or trying to be, going against 2+2=5 is to risk being thrown out of the Garden Eden.
To some extent, ALL groups/organizations/societies are like this. However, healthy ones develop mechanisms to intake and adopt outside ideas that make sense and that will further the success of the group, while still filtering off crazy thinking. Unhealthy cultures squash all outside ideas and are doomed to fail miserably b/c they do.
GDP figures that you have posted are old. Now Russia is USD 2.1trillion economy. This rise is mostly due to currency appreciation without damaging exports which is a good news for russia. Much bigger surprise is Iran rise in GDP calculation suddenly from USD 651 Bn 2019 to 1.5 Trillion in 2021 and currently it is bigger than Italy now sitting at 1.9 trillion USD. How did IMF calculations changed for these countries very quickly despite trade war and COVID is fascinating. For Iran, is it because of introduction of Toman or did IMF calculate Iran’s gray market. Will Iran replace South Africa in BRICS? Your views on this.
https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/iran
https://www.populationu.com/gen/countries-by-gdp
GDP was developed to make the US look good and thus it is an exercise in mirror gazing.
Here is Michael Hudson explaining just what GDP is and how useless a figure it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ock3144BKG4
There is a reason universities keep the business school away from the economic school – preferably off campus.
Great update. However it’s more meaningful to use Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) to compare the GDP of nations. Using PPP China is way ahead of the US according the IMF, World Bank and CIA.
Exclude gov‘t spending from economic figures like it was before the 1930s.
Big dramatic change in the GDP figures
“I suppose I should not be surprised that people who embrace transgenderism as normal and declare that men can be pregnant will eagerly embrace nonsense about Ukraine winning the war as reality” – on the nose.
I went to see a 96 year old friend in the hospital. There is a Vienna-wide demand that you wear a mask on public transport and in the stations. Now, I wasn’t alone in not wearing them, but statistics would have ruled my group insignificant and thrown it out of the calculation. It was a very vivid depiction of our truth-tellers lives (Ok, we’re not perfect -nobody’s perfect). People resent us for being truth tellers, as well as for introducing cognitive dissonance into their minds for not wearing the actually harmful masks. The hospital demands that you wear a mask all the time – the frigging hospital – the supposed bastion of medical science promoting witch medicine. It all wove together into a Kafkaesque scene. It gelled in my mind how futile what we are doing is. No amount of forewarning will work. The vast majority have heard the warnings from so many sources that the boy has cried wolf too many times. We are just another yellow ribbon in the Leprechaun’s pot of gold forest.
The mask is the burka of secular humanism.
“Thank God that the “ex-IMF chief” is no longer in charge of the IMF” They are the enemy – every country they or the World Bank helps, goes bankrupt, into poverty. They will never put anyone in charge of either who is not a shill
Jacinda Ardern the ex NZ PM is now available.
NAZI PM.
I read about the Vietnam or Korean war that “the war isn’t over until CNN said it’s over.” Fat chance CNN/MSM/Government will ever admit Russia won the war. I think they’d just pretend that Ukraine never happened, or say they “did absolutely everything” but Zelensky turned out to not be not who they thought he was, or they’d just martyr him, or let him escape and form the Ukrainian government in exile in Maimi/ Hollywood/wherever.
I spoke to my friend in Ukraine and was told that men are being grabbed when walking the streets, or when driving cars by the traffic police, and even at the co-op garages. In Ukraine, many keep cars at places like cooperative garages, sometimes a few miles away from home, and men usually linger there to socialize, and now are being grabbed there and sent to the front. Just like in Dr. Zhivago – a man went to his garage and didn’t come home…
In its hubris, arrogance, decadence, and wokism, the West relentlessly destroy itself and we are both; the terrified participants/ innocent passengers of this Titanic, voiceless/deprived of any power to stop the collision…
Now, the Democrats rabidly scheme to get rid of Biden, I bet to replace him with yet another walking corpse they can manipulate, for 2 more years… They say that an optimist is a well-adjusted pessimist, but sometimes I envy those who know nothing, see nothing, understand nothing, and mindlessly wave the yellow/blue flag.
P.S. Did anybody wonder where such a huge quantity of these flags surfaced from right at the beginning of the war? We couldn’t even get the production of the masks when Covid began, but “spontaneously” an ocean of yellow/blue flags…
Lika writes: “P.S. Has anyone wondered where such a huge number of these flags came from at the very beginning of the war? We were not even able to establish the production of masks when Covid began, but an ocean of yellow-blue flags appeared “spontaneously”…”
A very good question. I would expand: why has the tradition of wearing yellow-blue flags several hundred meters long on the streets of cities formed in Ukrainian culture? What kind of fetishism is this? Substitution of the concept and feeling of patriotism with flags, painted fences, slogans, billboards, flavored with torchlight processions…
Love for the Motherland is a tattoo on the whole body.
At the same time, in the first days of the military operation, when there was no destruction of civilian objects, there were no hardships, when columns of Russian armored vehicles stopped at traffic lights and traffic rules were observed, millions of Ukrainian “patriots” – “refugees from the war” rushed to explore and occupy Europe. Probably, they brought the pre-prepared flags in rolls in railway cars with them.
So who is really threatening to conquer Europe – Russians or Ukrainians?
To paraphrase the popular slogan in Ukraine: “America is with us!”, it’s time for Europeans and Americans to adopt the slogan: “Ukraine is with us!”.
Actually, this is what is happening – the Ukrainization of Europe and the United States is proceeding at an accelerated pace. I advise the European Parliament to switch to Ukrainian.
This is the only way to defeat Russia.
“Why has the tradition of wearing yellow-blue flags several hundred meters long on the streets of cities formed in Ukrainian culture?”
It did not form by itself, but was copied from USA (where they put flags on everything, including underwear). It’s all part of brainwashing campaign planned and financed by USA, trough various NGOs. Same goes for those rainbow flags, and parades.
Lika. Here is some observations on the ground from where I reside. From the land of Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister. Even when this fiasco started the flag’s seemed to be only flown at government buildings and most individuals flying them were of non Ukrainian descent. Was at a function last February and not one flag and I tell you I was in a crowd of 98% with that particular ancestry. NO talk of the war was even mentioned. I did see something strange the other day that I cannot seem to understand. In 2 different locations where once the Ukrainian flag was flown have now been replace by solid red flags. What is the meaning of that if anything? Tell your friends most on the ground Canadians are over it. IMO
In answer to your question: “will the western cheerleaders for Ukraine ever admit that Ukraine is losing?” Not until the facts on the ground prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, like Russian troops all the way past Kiev to the Polish/Romanian/Transnistia border, if not inside of Kiev (much more difficult task). IMHO, The real questions are, will NATO/US do a nuclear false flag to justify a 1st strike against Russia – and will it be successful?
A nuclear false flag requires the notion that Russia is losing and desperate. Laying the groundwork may be the purpose of the idiotic messages.
So, are these pundits from the halls of academia stupid, misinformed or shilling on behalf of the State Department, CIA or some other US Government agency? Mind you, the three choices are not mutually exclusive.
I used to subscribe to both The Telegraph and The Spectator.
Frederick Barclay owns both. Many people in the west similarly poke Russia in the eye over oligarchs (most of whom Putin does not seem to be overly fond of) but ignore the ones here.
Most U.K. newspapers these days derive a large portion of revenue from government sources, including state funded adverts, which are themselves propaganda. There is a commercial incentive to toe the line. Ideology and self interest have a habit of going together.
The hypocrisy is also demonstrated by the apparent boast that Cuba, Venezuela and Cuba are poor because of US / puppet state sanctions. How is keeping populations moral? To the rest of the world this sums up so called western values.
To answer your rhetorical question, defeat will never be admitted either. Whatever happens will be spun to compliant masses as “victory”. Mainly by ascribing Putin all sorts of objectives (eg the conquest of Europe) that he has never had and never will have.
I agree. I don’t believe it is in Russia’s best interest to take ALL of Ukraine, especially what will be the rump state in the west of Ukraine. Wherever that end line is (to be Russia’s new western border), the US/UK/EU will spin it as their “victory” line of keeping Russia out of Europe. I can imagine the headlines now….LMAO in anticipation.
mr. johnson- totally offtopic; was just sent this link from an earl grey video.this is sickening.the zelensky regime and the usa pharma companies that did this are a bunch of f–king bastards who deserve immediate psalm 83 hellfire.
if this also does not explain why russia had to go into the ukraine to stop the genocide of these people and having these weapons used against russia itself nothing will. this makes me wonder as well if experimented ukrainian survivors that have fled their country are carrying a ticking time bomb inside them wherever they have gone.
Inside Pfizer and AstraZeneca’s UKRAINIAN BIOLAB!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpNNDj4T0q4
hav put in a bitchute link in case yt deletes it
https://www.bitchute.com/video/CjQZXqHAWOIt/
right click to download
https://seed306.bitchute.com/hYAwjR83sVSl/CjQZXqHAWOIt.mp4
i wonder if that seal who died and the other foreign mercs who are fighting for ukraine would still do it if they knew the above
very pissed off
ralph
When populations loose connection with their Creator, they tend to manufacture other gods. It usually ends up with worshipping one’s fantasies.
Thank you for another great article! Your opening paragraph is brilliant!
your question: – will the western cheerleaders for Ukraine ever admit that Ukraine is losing?
My 2-cents: not publicly and sincerely, not as long as they can get away with it. But even the most spoiled kids get over a long temper tantrum when they go hungry and desperate, and loose the desired attention.
The undeclared problem is that in the minds of “western cheerleaders” it is not Ukraine losing, but their hopes and investments are being destroyed. They have no regard to anyone’s life, including their own electorate (= consumers/domestic serfs). The west is sick in body, soul and mind, and this self-inflicted sickness started decades ago. Today it trends towards palliative care status.
The western cheerleaders have invested a fair bit in the exploitation of the natural wealth of Ukraine, propped up local henchmen (oligarchs or entrepreneurs), and much of this is dissipating in front of their eyes… Most of the profitable economy is located east of the Don River… Understandably the looting by the west is done and over with. They are not used to be stopped stealing by a firm grip or force. This justifies some of their hysteria. The process of looting post USSR Russia in the 90’s came to an abrupt end after 1999, but the dream lives on in the west.
Whoever advocates a “blitzkrieg” for SMO is/was an impatient shallow thinker hoping for instant gratification. The S = SPECIAL should start taking a broader meaning in our minds, which goes beyond demilitarization and denazification. The situation is extremely special =complicated, and the Russians are methodical, circumspect and patient dealing with it. None of these attributes exist in today’s west.
Some years from now we’ll be looking back thinking, thank God the SMO wasn’t rushed, as it gradually forced millions to realise how mislead/misguided they were. Presently we are gradually going downhill towards bankruptcy in the west, but the slope is becoming steeper by the minute…
I feel terribly sorry for the innocents forced into the meatgrinder by the ukie government to prop up the west’s wet dream against their best judgement and self-preservation instinct.
“looting Russia in the 90s came to an abrupt end”
The neocons always hated Russia. After the looting was stopped, then they were really mad at it too.
I read the nonsense spewed by the likes of Rogoff and Lipson, and I end up in a quandary: do these fools really believe the nonsense that the spew, or are they deliberately singing for their supper?
If the latter then there is at least some hope that Washington elites retain some grasp of objective reality, no matter how much they deny it to their readership.
So there is at least a hope that when push really does come to shove they’ll act rationally and just walk away from the mess that they have created.
But if it is the former then God help us all, because they’ll simply keep escalating and escalating and escalating under the entire world is in flames.
This is, indeed, the question of the age: is Washington ruled by knaves, or by lunatics?
Ruled by demons whose only allegiance is Satanic.
is Washington ruled by knaves, or by lunatics?
Equal proportions of each.
I read the nonsense spewed by the likes of Rogoff and Lipson, and I end up in a quandary: do these fools really believe the nonsense that the spew, or are they deliberately singing for their supper?
I have been asking the same question. My first assumption was “supper” but if our host is correct and Washington is getting its “intelligence” only from Kiev, then it is possible that they really do believe it because they are getting their information from Washington.
This may account for a couple of dissident opinions out of Berlin in the last few days. German intelligence may have their own people double-checking things and saying, “We are up the creek witout a paddle”. It may also, at least partly, account for Sholtz’ reluctance to send Leopards.
The US General Milley’s statements in the last few days suggest that while the Washington cliques are still believing CIA reports. the Pentagon knows better but still are concerned about “supper.
This is their job and they do their job well. Lying is their business.
“will the western cheerleaders for Ukraine ever admit that Ukraine is losing?”
Karl Rove once proclaimed (I paraphrase): “We [the political elite of the USA] create our own reality, and by the time others have discovered this, we have created a new reality.”.
So to answer this question, we must understand that by the time the reality hits that Ukraine is losing, the US and its allies will have created another reality that covers this one over.
“People like you are still living in what we call the reality-based community. You believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world really works anymore.
We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you are studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
According to a 2007 Newsweek article, the quote originated in a 2004 New York Times piece about the Bush presidency. The author, Ron Suskind, attributes it only to an unnamed “senior adviser to Bush,” who was later said to be key Bush architect Rove (though Rove denies ever saying it).
A rather fitting and appropriate definition of reality from a powerbroker`s perspective nonetheless.
I don’t think they (our government/our media) will ever admit that Russia is winning. They will just memory hole the whole issue and move on to the next topic. Maybe Taiwan. Maybe the coming real estate collapse. Maybe something else.
But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that much of the world realized that one can successfully oppose us, and be ok. There is now a Plan B for any country that doesn’t want to be a our vassal anymore. That over time will make the world a better place.
I don’t think they (our government/our media) will ever admit that Russia is winning. They will just memory hole the whole issue and move on to the next topic. Maybe Taiwan. Maybe the coming real estate collapse. Maybe something else.
But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that much of the world realized that one can successfully oppose us, and be ok. There is now a Plan B for any country that doesn’t want to be a our vassal anymore. That over time will make the world a better place.
I think those ‘professos’ they are making a paramount for the Westerners inhabitants for the post war. They are well aware of the next future, they knows exactly, in maths/statistics terms, the forecasts. They are settings a wide Shadow strenght Corral. A nasty future for the People who is based (territory and social behaviours) in AUKUS+allies zone.
The empire of lies does not falter, on the contrary, it kicks Western madness into high gear. Expecting these psychopaths to admit defeat is insane. The Americans decided to confirm the Ukrainian figures on Russian casualties. Even “strengthen” them a little.
According to some American estimates, the number of Russian victims may reach 188,000 since the beginning of the invasion, it was announced. The figure was revealed to the Sun newspaper at a summit at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Journalists attributed those figures to American “defense sources”.
And American General Mark Miley said that Russia suffered “a huge amount of casualties… well over 100,000”.
I think those ‘professos’they are making the paramount for the Westerners inhabitants for future of the post war. They knows exactly in maths/statistics terms the rock solid numbers, and they are well aware of the forecasts in the close future. In that way they are making a strenght Corral for the People who live in the AUKUS+allies territoriale.
Will the west admit Ukraine lost? No. even if every single Ukraine troop is destroyed they will just cope words and say something like ” the real winners are Ukraine because they stood up to the big bully Russia, winning isn’t about who lost the most soldiers it’s about who stood up for what they believe.” or the classic ” Ukraine will go down in history as the hero because they did what the west was scared to do and that was take on Russia ”
So basically they will do like they always do and change the definition of what is considered to ” win”.
Also, after the war is done and Ukraine lose mainstream news will quickly move on to the next “current thing” while bringing up how bad of a guy Puttin is every few weeks. I imagine they will either go back to talking about covid or there will conviently be a tragic event that happens that they will try to turn into a political argument for weeks (gun laws, abortion rights, transgender ideology, celebrity scandal)
Propaganda works as it is grounded in mass ignorance and a delusional sense of global supremacy deeply rooted in the collective West.
On the other hand, wars usually produce landslides and other outcomes difficult to disguise. The current Ukrainian war is in the process of doing just that.
While I urge people around me to pay attention to the facts, I am aware that most of them are not equipped to sort out the conflicting narratives and thwart the propaganda machine of the MSM.
The people running the collective West are a dangerous sect able to devise strategies and misuse human and financial resources.
Should they take a heavy defeat on the ground in Ukraine, they will resort to globally dangerous policies to conceal the fact and up the ante. I don’t expect them to admit the loss, shake hands and quit the poker game.
We will see.
About the video, well, there are much better supermarkets here is Russia, but is very common for foreigners to get “positively impressed” by the way they look, clean, well organized, with a lot of products and very good prices. In less than a month, after some companies left the Russian market, there were already replacements with Russian, Belarusian, Turkish… products and now with “parallel imports” I can buy cheaper CocaCola brought from Azerbaijan.
mr. Johnson- this is totally unrelated to the above and is about health. this is something completely new. was going to send in a few weeks after testing it more ; am sending know cause yu never know what will happen tomorrow.
there is a new remedy am trying for general health. Am not claiming any miracles from this. this is from a japenese december study . i think if it can get the graphene oxide out of the body;it may help some of the jabbed keep their health
channel
https://www.bitchute.com/channel/q2K1sr7KzBaC/
video
FIREMEDIC8 – PERACETIC ACID (PAA)
https://www.bitchute.com/video/9g5bOpppxeWm/
download
https://seed122.bitchute.com/q2K1sr7KzBaC/9g5bOpppxeWm.mp4
Sources:
Expert Information on Peracetic Acid
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36613459/
this is what i do
I have tried this for a week and it seems to be helping in a few areas. Seems to help in sleeping.
Stuff he did not mention
My mix is 2 oz of white vinegar and 2 oz of 3 percent hydrogen peroxide together in a empty glass . let sit for half an hour in a dark place out of the sun to form the acid. Then add another 4 oz of distilled or pure water. Put this into a glass jar- dark if possible and leave inside a dark place like a cupboard.
Take on an empty stomach 2 hrs before eating or 2hrs after eating to avoid oxidization of any food in the stomach.
I use 10 drops a day before going to bed put it in 4 oz of distilled water and consume . I Have not tried to go higher than that so far. I would not advise using in large amounts for obvious reasons.
regards,
ralph
Could Apple cider vinegar work for this concoction?
not recommended- i only use pure white vineger. the organic compounds in the apple cider vinegar could be oxidized by the peroxide when mixed and ruin the formula.that is why you want your stomach to be totally empty before using it
i only use this type of vineger.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/white-vinegar
regards,
ralph
Thank you
It’s not graphene’s fault, it’s fault
your immune system, which is now destroying you.
The sword and the snake is a big enough sign. If you are bitten by a snake, your blood can turn into gelatin. A drop of snake venom and your blood stops flowing.
“WHY ARE WESTERN ESTABLISHMENT AND PUNDITS LOSING THEIR MINDS”
In a previous thread it was observed that in discussions in 1969 the concensus was that “American intelligence” would not be a good thing.
Your blog and outcomes for over a year have confirmed the validity of that concensus.
There are many modes of communication including designing strategies and implementing them leaving opponents to “interpret” motivations, outcomes and purposes thereby increasing noise/signal ratios.
Answering your question quoted above would limit the usage and outcomes of such modes of communication – answering and being complicit in the outcomes of your question quoted above is now reserved for those immersed in the self-misrepresented coercive social relations “The United States of America”.
Others have already answered your question quoted above and have communicated their views in various ways over many years, predicated on resolve not to tell others what to do, since that is part of the reasons why they have and are co-operating for mutual benefit to transcend “The United States of America”.
Your professional acumen in realising that broadcasts are broadcast on transmission not “publication”, and that portals are pathways of transmission not destination, and hence “censorship” is a self-delusion, is acknowleged.
Your social roles in offering a home and succour to the frightened, startled, and those immersed in puffery in pretence of “knowing” deserves recognition, but as noted in a previous thread the home offered is more vox pop than agora; more “Noisy American” than “Quiet American” and hence no longer fit for purposes of some, Mr. Marx’s edited by Mr. Engels Theses on Feuerbach refers.
Thank you for the interactions afforded to date.
This excellent article and the thoughtful inspired comments below it should be required reading for all msm emplyees so that they can see that there are still plenty of people in the West capable of perceiving objective reality in the midst of their shitstorm of ”cognitive infiltration” delusional propaganda. I can only add that in a world where Saudi MBS champions OPEC+ , wants to buy Russian Air Defenses and join the SCO which already has their arch enemies Iran as members we can expect US dollar to collapse as its only future international use will be to pay back existing dollar denominated debt
https://southfront.org/war-to-last-ukrainian-as-it-is-violent-handout-of-draft-notices-january-2023-videos/
This Charles Lipson must have been talking about Ukranians when he wrote about that Rusins are drafting people from the streets.
They will keep this narrative in play as long as possible. Reason being that the european people have to be kept away from taking to the streets as long as possible while the economies collapse.
Poor old Ken Rogoff. He probably has no choice. He was a chess player of note but has the heritage of many Russophobes and that clouds judgment.
That he is wrong is patently obvious. A non-ideological position would be that Russia would have been the richest economy on earth but the German Reich feared it might be and had to take it down in 1914. The sale to Western economies of energy resources at below market prices – after using the method to subsidise CMEA countries – simply ensured huge trade surpluses for Germany but with the passage of the generation affected by war – ie up to and including Gerhard Schroeder (father KIA listed as MIA and childhood in poverty) – Germany had gratitude.
Postwar generations like Merkel – had none.
Anyway, Russia can now build a serious economy with China – it can create high value-added jobs outride the Defence sector and use resources for its own people instead of funding imports for the moneyed rich to indulge in ostentatious Western frippery.
Russia can build its chemicals industry, boost engineering, develop consumer goods, and textiles and trade directly with India and China and Iran and Egypt and Turkey………why buy the finished goods from Germany or France or Italy ?
I believe Putin has set Russia on a path to the economy that Witte and Stolypin might have achieved without German calculation and fear of British Empire and Russian dynamism.
How many people know that Russia had the fastest growing economy pre-1914 and was THE major export market for Britain – not only textiles but warships from Sir William Armstrong’s Armstrong-Whitworth shipyards – supplying both Japan and Russia ?
Poor old Ken Rogoff. He probably has no choice. He was a chess player of note but has the heritage of many Russophobes and that clouds judgment.
That he is wrong is patently obvious. A non-ideological position would be that Russia would have been the richest economy on earth but the German Reich feared it might be and had to take it down in 1914. The sale to Western economies of energy resources at below market prices – after using the method to subsidise CMEA countries – simply ensured huge trade surpluses for Germany but with the passage of the generation affected by war – ie up to and including Gerhard Schroeder (father KIA listed as MIA and childhood in poverty) – Germany had gratitude.
Postwar generations like Merkel – had none.
Anyway, Russia can now build a serious economy with China – it can create high value-added jobs outride the Defence sector and use resources for its own people instead of funding imports for the moneyed rich to indulge in ostentatious Western frippery.
Russia can build its chemicals industry, boost engineering, develop consumer goods, and textiles and trade directly with India and China and Iran and Egypt and Turkey………why buy the finished goods from Germany or France or Italy ?
I believe Putin has set Russia on a path to the economy that Witte and Stolypin might have achieved without German calculation and fear of British Empire and Russian dynamism.
How many people know that Russia had the fastest growing economy pre-1914 and was THE major export market for Britain – not only textiles but warships from Sir William Armstrong’s Armstrong-Whitworth shipyards – supplying both Japanese and Russian Imperial Navies ?
If you want a sense of what’s happening in Russia there’s an easy way to do that. Google Maps street views. Surprisingly the coverage is very good. I’ve spent hours wandering around Russian towns and cities, and what I’ve seen is lots of shops, restaurants and cafes, plus plenty of new construction, both commercial and residential.
Now I have to say, the areas I’ve looked at were mostly in Krasnodar Krai – mainly around Novorossiysk and Anapa, because that’s where we’re thinking of moving to. We’d have paid our first visit already if not for the pandemic and then the war, but the plan is still on the table.
Novorossiysk is a port city and there’s a major expansion going on, which fits nicely with my plan to start a small trucking company (one way to emigrate to Russia is to start a business). The city itself is really nice and very well kept. Once you get out of the city center it’s a bit rough by our standards, but again, a lot of new homes being built and they’ll eventually get around to fixing the roads. One of the strange things you’ll see is gas lines and water mains above ground. That’s Soviet era construction and I’m not sure why they did that – to save money? Because of the cold?
Overall, it doesn’t look like a place that’s in decline so much as a place that was in decline, but is quickly recovering. There’s a lot of work still to be done, but that means there’s a lot of jobs as well, so overall I’d say conditions are rapidly improving, but again, that’s just the area I looked at. Might be a different story elsewhere.
You are not alone. We would like to buy a property in Mineralnye Vody. Healthy area with fresh mountain air and healing waters. The country is self sufficient in food, energy, and raw materials and it appears can defend itself quite well. Top income tax rate is 15 percent. Sounds like a good place for investment and settling down. Best of luck to you.
Small world! I’m a westerner living in Anapa. It’s a well managed and walkable city right on the water with great access to nature. There’s a neat bay with sandy beaches then cliffs start rising up into the caucuses. Vineyards and wineries all over the place. Paragliding, kitesurfing, mountain biking, spearfishing you name it.
We got a new mayor a few years ago and the city has modernized a lot. Seasonal flowers and holiday decorations, festivals, farmers markets, city theater, food trucks, new infrastructure, long promenade with street artists and musicians, parks.
Please do come visit!
Loss of reality
The inconceivable tragedy of the European countries is that their societies are in such a state of rot that they are no longer able to adapt their actions to reality.
Excessive and hardly concealed corruption, men can get pregnant, one can also be a woman with a penis, mismanagement and nepotism, enforcement of self-destructive measures, if necessary by force against the will of their populations, a parallel world of politics and government media, resulting in dystopian plans to change the human individual and his community, which contradict human nature, and much more.
The most important industrial productions and energy and raw material deposits are in the future rapidly growing sphere of influence of BRICS+ and SOC as well as create these functioning instrumentalities, which in the foreseeable future will no longer need those of the West.
And what does the West, the USA and the slavishly behaving European followers think of as an antidote? Chaos, coups, agitation, hate propaganda, enemies, enemies, war, war, war and even a “limited nuclear war might be winnable”.
To engage in peace, understanding, to accept that other countries decide for themselves how they live. Not to mention the gigantic civil economic possibilities of the BRICS+ projects, from which also the potential Western partners could profit for centuries.
No, the West and its followers are unrestrained and must now realize with horror that after centuries they can no longer assert themselves even militarily with impunity and that their competitors are overtaking them technologically in more and more areas. I mention it again, with exception of North America the raw material deposits are increasingly outside of the west.
When I look at the hatred and agitation in German politics and government media, I see that the West is in no way capable of peace and this will inevitably be its civilizational downfall.
You describe USA more than Europe
https://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2013/09/16/jennifer-pritzker-becomes-first-transgender-billionaire/?sh=40c515767424
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-money-behind-the-transgender-movement/
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/billionaire-family-pushing-synthetic-sex-identities-ssi-pritzkers
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3154039/7-richest-transgender-millionaires-and-billionaire-ranked
https://newamericangovernment.org/the-pritzkers-and-transgenderism/
Excellent article (as usual) Larry and thought provoking comments (also as usual).
Big Picture: WEF (Wealthy Elite Few…. or Fools) meet in Davos to a review that their one world project is crumbling or at least not progressing as they had hoped.
WEF convinces No. 1 World Power (US) to provoke the No. 3 World Power (Russia) into an economic and military conflict with an intent to weaken them and eliminate them as a World Power. Economic sanctions have had minimal effect on Russia and actually inflicted more damage on the US/EU economy. Ukrainian proxy’s original military combat capability severely reduced. Russia appears to have more military production capacity than NATO countries which does not bode well for NATO if the conflict continues.
WEF convinces US to begin provoking the No. 3 World Power (China) toward economic and military conflict encouraging Russia and China to form stronger relationships. Other important countries and groups (India, OPEC, etc) resist joining the US in their efforts.
WEF appears to want to continue to double down on all their efforts, apparently convinced that they just need to put more pressure on their ‘weakened’ opponents to achieve their goals. More sanctions, more weapons, more money.
US neocons have no apparent intention to back off and have significant influence on policy. Just one example is John Bolton urging NATO to dismiss Turkiye from the organization. Turkiye has maintained relative neutrality by brokering grain shipments, providing Ukraine with drones and procuring energy in the form of a new oil pipeline and 2 new Nuclear Power plants from Russia. They have the 2nd largest army in NATO. If they are also pushed to align with Russia and China, it’s game over for NATO in Ukraine.
In Ukraine, Russia is beginning a push to claim the entire territory in former Ukraine they have annexed in Lugansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia. NATO seems to have deployed materiel to Poland, Romania, Odessa to defend it and possibly use it as a springboard to attack Crimea. Russia has deployed military assets in the Belarus and Kerson to fortify their defense in preparation for a possible NATO attack in Western Ukraine or Crimea.
This does not appear to be going as WEF planned.
Several of the big players have significant nuclear arsenals that adds an extremely dangerous element to this exercise.
This Big Picture is not comforting for anyone.
“How do you know they’ll print it?”
Last scene of Three Days of the Condor (5:33) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZNnDiDSUiI
It’s amazing to me how little has changed since 1975. Resource wars, Deep State “games,” Big Media collusion, etc., I could’ve pulled a Rip Van Winkle 50 years ago and woken up today, and been incredulous that I had ever gone to sleep, because everything is EXACTLY the same.
Geo-politically speaking.
What was Hitler’s biggest blunder? Well, there are a lot of candidates, letting the Brits go at Dunkirk, decaring war on the US four days after Pearl Harbor, giving us an easy in, and many others, but to me, the biggest one by far, was splitting Army Group South in the spring of 1942, and instead of taking the Stalingrad on the march, and/or cutting the Volga anywhere along the line of advance, delayed, and then sent the majority of Army Group South’s mobile divisions on a mad, southward plunge into the Caucasus, in a search for the Holy Grail of modern civilization, oil.
Army Group A, the forgotten army, packed a lot of punch, but unfortunatley, it’s role at the most crucial moment in World War II, was to spend 8 or 9 months wondering around down south doing not much of anything, until it was recalled too late to save von Paulus and 6th at Stalingrad.
As such is history, as they say. The lesson? If you do decide to gamble and split your army in the face of a potentially superior enemy, don’t send one of the two halves off on a goose chase so wild it takes it right off the battlemap.
Which reminds me, has anyone seen the Russian army? I know its out there, and I am quite sure it is on all the battlemaps that matter (da Pentagon), but alas, in the Age of the Satellite and wall to wall 24/7 global media coverage, we no longer seem able to find anything.
Especially reality.
Hitlers biggest mistake was thinking he could rule the world with his military.Romans,Spanish,Brittish,Mongols,All the Chinese emporors and warlords,America,they never thought of their rule as fleeting.We are there again.The difference this time is the Russians know history.This time really is different.I am more hopeful now than I have been in my memory.The eastern cooperation is something new to the world,not a power alliance,a cooperation.
the ironic thing about hitler going for the oil in the caucasus is that in libya where rommel was fighting the brits; all of the oil germany needed for the war effort was lying there underneath their feet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Libya
regards,
ralph
It is indeed ironic. It is also one of those historical “what ifs” that I find for one fascinating.
It has always been my contention that Hitler’s main obsession, particularily after the war started, wasn’t world Jewry or the Slavic menace or Lebensraum or any of those type of things, or even “resources” in a general sense, which he did have a tendency to prattle on about, but oil.
Without oil, and plenty of it, Hitler was fully aware his 1,000 year Reich would be snuffed out long before its adolescence.
It was always about the oil, in both of the great wars of the 20th Century and several others too. Without the Devil’s excrement (oil) and his flatulent emissions (gas) there could be no modern industrial society and certainly no way of sustaining a global population heading for 10 billions. One day they either run out or poison the atmosphere to death; nobody wants to face that, so we fight over the best deckchairs on the Titanic instead. Human nature, alas.
The “Russia is losing” delusion might be a major factor in reducing the possibility of a nuclear exchange; don’t knock it.
Similarly, the SMO “slow and steady “ is carefully designed not to inflict sudden surprises on the rabid lunatics leading the West in order that they do not indulge in a reflexive unthinking planet immolating response.
“If you have trouble with math let me help you out.”
Larry, please don’t talk like this to your readers. The preachy, didactic, condescending and patronizing attitude expressed in the above comment is both rude and obnoxious.
I went all the way through Calculus in college and still have to maintain a budget and write it all down in order to keep it all straight.
Having taken a full semester of computer programing while at the university, hearing these blowhards hectoring Americans to “learn to code” is right up there with your offensive comment.
Thank you.
I could be wrong and perhaps it’s not my place, but I don’t think when Larry writes in such a way that it is intended to belittle his readership.
The words, clearly dripping with bountiful amounts of sarcasm, are intended to be absorbed by others.
Whether they will be absorbed or not by these others is of course, an entirely different matter.
I for one enjoy sarcasm, I’ve always found it good for my “mental health,” for the reason it often makes me laugh, and as Ben Franklin (or was it my Mother?) informed me when I was young, “laughter is the best medicine.”
He was obviously wishfully directing that comment at the knucklehead class that is the subject of this article.
Sounds like a bunch of WOKE,”You hurt my feelings” BULLSHIT.Like your name was in Larry’s article.
“Larry, please don’t talk like this to your readers. The preachy, didactic, condescending and patronizing attitude expressed in the above comment is both rude and obnoxious.”
Wow, that’s some serious whining. Telling a bloke how to express himself on his own blog!
You obviously aren’t a native English speaker as the phrase that triggered you “If you have trouble with math let me help you out” is commonly used English.
And BTW a lot of people do have trouble with maths.
In other words: Get ready, Zelensky. Here comes Russia’s Operation Uranus…
Apart from laughing out loud after reading the excerpts from Charles Lipson’s article, what I would like to know is what was the guy smoking? Seriously. Even one of my fanatic pro-Ukraine compatriots here in Europe couldn’t help chuckling and asked if the Professor has been living in the bunker with no contact with the outside world. Wow! I wonder how much the man was paid to commit such intellectual suicide. But then, I don’t think he would lose anything on the account of it. After all it is the USA.
The Russians have always liked British warships. After all, with the blessings of HM Government, Peter the Great disguised himself as a common labourer so that he could more closely observe their construction at Greenwich dockyard.
As for the scribblers, they will say anything, do anything to retain the ‘honour’ of eating their scrap laden trencher from the bottom of the table, whilst smugly gazing at the ‘peasantry’.
In the opening link to the Daily Telegraph (UK) article on speeches made to delegates in Davos, the following is reported…
“Mikuláš Bek, the Czech Republic’s minister of European affairs, warned the audience in Davos that sanctions “are not a goal in itself and they will not win the war in Ukraine”, adding “they are a way to buy time”…”
We all now know that the Minsk2 talks were a sham, courtesy of ‘Mutti Merkel’ and confirmed by Macron, designed to buy time for Ukraines forces to get in position. Are the no consequence sanctions and bulling up of Ukraines chances just another way “to buy time”.
The west is still winning the propaganda war amongst its own citizens, and the claims Ukraine is winning seemingly nothing more than a constant doubling down, is there a game plan being prepared to put NATO/West/EU boots on the ground. A mission creep that could end up with nuclear consequences.
They may not have the resources to put and keep boots on the ground, but unless West Point invites some Taliban Generals on a lecture tour, the memo won’t arrive.
Keep in mind, we have Russia, UK, France and the USA sniffing around this conflict. That’s half the worlds nuclear powers who control about 95% of the worlds nukes. But don’t let me put you off your Sunday dinner…_
I don’t think people comprehend how misleading the prevalent rotten trash talk a la Rogoff is. What grandiose bullshit!
GDP (PPP parity) is the more correct measure given education and health care cost cost peanuts, energy is cheap, compulsory insurance costs minimal, in large swathes of rural areas abundant firewater and water are free etc etc.
Russia is top 6 in the world on this measure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
Health care is world class. Kids in public Russian schools learn the same math as they do in classes five years later in the UK. Taxation is a simple straightforward process and is either 13% or 6% for individuals and cash registers are hooked up to the tax authorities direct. Crime is very low, major cities fully covered by cameras. Online one-tap banking prevalent.
Prior to the war fake news blitzkrieg, Moscow was getting the recognition it deserved.
https://discovermoscow.com/en/news/v-oon-priznali-moskvu-luchshim-razvivayushimsya-gorodom-mira/
There is an autobahn that runs Moscow to St Pete
(or you can catch the bullet train from Moscow to St Pete in under 4 hours). These freeways are being extended to Kazan and Urals and ultimately to the Far East. Moscow and St Pete are now wired by a myriad of freeways and train routes that have alleviated infamous traffic problems. Four modern, fast, international airports in Moscow – out in 15-30 minutes.
There’s been zero change in life since the sanctions. Although all domestic flights to the south near the conflict are cancelled. Anything that really needs to be imported into the country from EU finds its way in via Armenia, Belarussia, Kazakhstan.
The shopping centres are 80% full and everything is in abundance. Alibaba from China delivers quickly and is damn cheap compared to the absent Amazon. Domestic firms have replaced McD’s with identical products, or, foreign firms have restructued to become domestic like Zara.
Russians can travel anywhere (except the freak show vassals Latvia, Lithuania etc) by obtaining the same tourist visa as always – Italy and France sure aren’t backing away from the lucrative tourist dollar! Transit flights go through Turkey, Hungary or Sebia if flying west.
Russian grandparents have told all and sundry about having to boil leather boots and wallpaper to survive the Nazi siege of Leningrad. People are stoic, know history and laugh at these Rogoff poseurs.
It is Mirror Propaganda gone totally over the top.
It has always been like that.
I recall a pro-Russian claim that Maidan protesters were going to German banks to get paid for their protests.
It lead to the only ever Western mention of the Anti-Maidan when promptly reports emerged of anti-maidan protesters collected money from Russian banks.
Unbelievable this is how the (London Sunday) Times reports the meat grinder that is Bakhmut. (current day link)
https://www.frontpages.com/the-times/
“As Ukraine fights from the trenches, waves of Russian troops are routinely sent over the top to their deaths.”
The subhead of the piece would be funny if for the fact that is beyond comical. The reporter must be diligently watching WWI movies for source material, although it couldn’t have been the recent Academy Award winning film 1917, which had no over the top scenes.*
Probably the all-time classic in genre, Paths of Glory, where Kirk Douglas leads his men up and out of the trenches with the aid of a whistle, was the primary source.
You know, it’s from that movie that I believe the Western media got the idea that it could push the narrative that the Russians absolutely LOVE to bombard their own positions with terminal malice, and people would buy it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Mvs5Ic8us
Which they did, for the most part.
Now I admit that it is conceiveable that at some point in recorded history, an army has shelled it’s own postions on purpose for one reason or another, but for an army to intentionally rain down munitions on their own positions for months on end?
In the era of braindead narratives, that’s my number one. You could not slip such an absurd narrative past a kindergartner back in my day. No way, no how.
*Or did it? I have to watch that movie again.
max 24- they probably watched this lol.
from what i have read in real life know especially for the ukrainian kherson offensive and other ukrainian counterattacks for the below the germans would be the russians and the russians the ukrainians .
Enemy at the Gates Soviet Charge Scene (High Quality)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8fWp-i-BGA
regards,
ralph
False narratives serve to deceive a public that has been asleep since the military operation in Ukraine began. For example, this one appeared on Sky News: in front of a huge map of Ukraine, a supposed war analyst said that Russia was continuing the war because it was now receiving weapons from North Korea, that is, «the Russians no longer have weapons and they have to ask the countries that we say to be the bad ones in the world».
Not only is it ridiculous, but at the same time childish and made for an audience that just digests all the entertainment cult that comes from the US and England.
Ukraine should just fully transition into the metaverse – down the virtual “street” from FTX’s accounting firm. There Ukraine’s PR team can complete their victory over Mordor/Russia and if we don VR gear we can watch Putin’s war crimes trial and execution. Meanwhile in the US – we will continue our descent into Ayn Rand’s America in “Atlas Shrugged” merged with 1984
The Ukrainian PR team buried Putin two weeks after the start of the special operation.
Then she buried the twins – the first and the second.
Who are they going to try-execute for war crimes?
We don’t have so many Putin’s.
In my opinion, Western countries were so convinced that they had absolute financial supremacy over the rest of the world that they concluded that there was no longer a need for armies to crush and subjugate any “recalcitrant” countries. and that “Armies of operetta” were more than enough to ensure the show.
This explains the continual degradation in equipment and investments other than that of the profit motive of the Western armies.
What paved the way for ideologues of “diversity” to make the army one of the showcases of “Western values”
Their arrogance made them forget “si vis pacem, parabellum”
Exactly…I can talk until I am blue in the face and the average American still thinks there are bread lines in Russia and the Communists are still in power. It make sense that even the “elite” in America are morons, since Mark Dice on his Youtube channel revealed how stupid people are in the US who don’t even understand their own history, but could recite verbatim a South Park episode. American needs to, as Colonel Hackworth said years ago: An About Face!
For centuries, the people of the west have been constantly lied to by the church, their governments, universities, scientists, politicians, the media. Lying is so ingrained into our society that any truth which is beyond obvious can easily be discounted by the above mentioned institutions.
Add to the mix our entertainment industry, music, movies, fiction etc, the levels of deception are multiplied to the nth degree.
This manipulation of the people will never end and will only increase.
The only thing we can do is educate our children and hopefully they’ll influence their peers.
This Ukrainian conflict seems to me to be the end of western dominance of currency, culture, politics and philosophy. I am only disappointed that this end has come so late in my life.
Ex-IMF chief, ‘Russia faces extreme poverty’, you mean like the 1990’s?
Sounds more like projection, reminiscing about the good old days when Russia played ball with the west.
———————————-
I do not consider Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela failed states or economically deprived because their their own actions. The U.S. has been imposing economic isolation onto them.
Does socialism work? If we are so certain that it creates poverty then let’s test that theory. Remove all sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela, especially the absurd desgination of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. Then look at their economy 5yrs from now.
BTW not claiming socialism is good, just noting that we show fear by having to tip the scales.
Hi Christian.
Your post shows a lot of common sense.
I think it is more important the people, than the system.
I’m sure that in Denmark or Sweden, they could implement socialism/communism, and things still would work quite well.
In Spain? No matter which system we have …
(I would like to use other example better, but because I do not want that anybody thinks that I’m insulting his/her country, I have chosen mine).
Best regards.
A big problem is a lack of liquidity and investment in top down state planned economies (e.g. socialism). China is growing to economic levels close to the US and will probably become an equal in the not too distant future, but will still struggle to have their currency as a global reserve due to the liquidity and investment issue.
At the end of the day, all of this is about the USA’s dollar (= power) and upstarts like Russia and China challenging that economic hegemony. The US on its current trajectory would be destroyed if the dollar was replaced as the reserve currency of the world.
But the US is relatively safe from that event until China becomes a freer society/economy, which it probably won’t – or joins forces with other countries, especially energy producers and techno mergers (e.g. BRICS). Russia, while growing, is still too small all on its own to be a threat. However, their defiance cannot be tolerated and an example must be made of them. Unfortunately, the sanctions are failing and so is the proxy war. Hence the spastic western reaction.
None of the above could occur under socialism.
Note; I am expressing the attitudes of our leadership, not necessarily my own
“China is growing to economic levels close to the US and will probably become an equal in the not too distant future …”
China bends more steel every 5 years, and pours more conctrete every two, than the United States has in its entire existence, and all that bending and pouring is showing tangible results. Modern China is creating a civilization that in so many aspects, already resembles something right out of a Jetson’s episode.
It is no longer a contest Eric. China bestrides the US like a colussus, and has for some time.
Whatever we choose to call China’s current economic model, which they (not so?) humbly call “Socialism, with Chinese characterisitics,” it works like none other in history.
Personally, I believe the magic formula at the heart of this unprecedented explosion of development is simple really, unlike all other nation-states past and present, China owns its banks, and not the other way around.
China’s state run banks operate only in the interests of China, and that fact alone is what makes China a sovereign nation, and that sovereignty allows them to do things that the “neo-liberal privateers” of the West could only dream of.
Note: Not that these “neo-liberal privateers” would ever dream of doing anything positive in regards to their respective nations. Nations, their’s or anybody else’s, if they are to be considered at all, only exist to help fascilitate the transfer of all wealth directly to them, so they can then off-shore it.
Attempt to do that in China, off-shore money made in-country, and you will be terminated. Another thing I respect about China. The treasonous are not to be feted and proclaimed demi-Gods of international business, they are to be rooted out and executed.
No disagreement, but it goes farther than the banks. The Chinese believe in strong education, do not allow dissent, are anti-immigrant, are anti-liberal/woke and generally insane weaklings. The Chinese also stole a lot of technology and ideas from the US b/c they are not so good at original thinking.
While I would welcome a USA without liberals and insane weaklings (redundancy alert) I would not like to live in a top down authoritarian state, like China. The USA used to have the same hyperactive productivity without the authoritarianism. It could again, but for the liberal cancer that hates the ideals that once made it strong. It was and would be better than China is today b/c of the entrepreneurial spirit and original thinking.
“The Chinese also stole a lot of technology and ideas from the US b/c they are not so good at original thinking.”
Ecclesiastes 1:9: There is nothing new, under the sun.
I won’t argue too much with body of your text, I’m old leftist dog* who knows that even though my people have never had any real positions of power in the West, and have been all but stamped out in the 21st century, we will be blamed for all the failures that lie ahead.
It is as it was always fated to be. I am at peace with this.
On a more cheerful note, getting back to Ecclesiastes, I will say this about China; yes, the Chinese steal ideas, they also borrow them, ask for them, look for them in every crack and crevice in the recorded history of man, then liberally implement them, test them out, take them for trail runs, and will freely give the ones that work to others, should those others have courage and foresight to accept them.
It’s all so fantastical to me how many ideas are aggressively nurtured and allowed (forced?) to flourish in China, it’s like all the ideas there ever where, are at play in China at the moment.
And yes, this nurturing and flourishing process is quite often a legal requirement of central command in Beijing, perhaps best exemplified by China’s 5 year plans, 10 year plans, 50 year plans, and so on into the future, which must be executed at least in some small way by all of its citizens, to the best of their abilities.
*A leftist dog that from as far back as I can remember, believed sovereignty is the issue, everything else, is deflection.
also, the Chinese govt is free to shoot any politician or other appointed official who becomes a corrupt failure. A Chinese versos of Pelosi would have been 6 feet under a long time ago. That’s a big boost to a successful country.
Questions for Larry:
1) Will the US/Nato attempt regime change in Saudi Arabia, to prevent de-dollarization?
2) Will the US/Nato attempt regime change in Qatar to divert natural gas from China to Europe and to undermine the agreements between Qatar and Iran regarding their joint gas fields?
The US has substantial military assets in both Saudi Arabia and Qatar, so is regime change a possibility?
GDP is a terrible metric since in the west it includes government spending as part of it, so it does not represent “product” or any sort. Government spending is overhead at best and double counting since it was counted when the taxpayer earned the money and counted again when the government passed it away. ( think $6000 toilet seats and $1200 coffee pots )
PPP – purchasing power parity is a better metric and by that reckoning, Russia is about equal to or better than most European nations. And current trends continue, the USA very soon.
Larry, you touched a nerve. GDP. ‘Murica’s got the biggest GDP! Uh huh. How much of that GDP is the self-licking ice cream cone of the American medical establishment? Do you think Russia has drastically less doctors than us? It’s just a job over there. Not one that comes with a $500,000 student loan debt. Our for-profit prison system. The CIA brings drugs into the USA to finance its black wars. The police get government subsidies to fight the war on drugs. The prisons are then turned into profit centers for either government unions if public, or corporations if contracted out. You see my point? How much of American GDP is actually MADE shit that can be sold? How much is raw minerals and fuel that can be sold? The finance centers. We bought your mortgage. Which we sold to him. And then he sold it to that guy behind the tree. And then it was repackaged with 100,000 others and sold back to the original lender. Paper contracts on gold and silver that you cannot actually call. That you THINK will protect you. Bitcoin. Let’s burn electricity so we can financially speculate on an imaginary product. Russia’s GDP is fuel and steel. Strip off the bullshit and see what the numbers are for reality economy.
The pundits will really lose their minds once the Ukrainian army collapses and surrenders. And all the mayhem and bloodletting for what? The neocons will then slink off, pretend nothing happened, and start a war some other place.
These clowns are irrelevant, just background noise to mollify the chattering classes and to use as an excuse to send more money. Nothing they say has any value. There are people at the CIA and the Pentagon that know the real story, but they are not decision makers but hopefuly might be able to exert some influence.
The dangerous waters ahead seem to be in the very strong signals that they are getting ready for the Great Jettison, the grand exit for Brandon. This opens many questions. Who steps up? Does Harris take the chair? It looks to me like she is afraid of it, but the powers would want a good servant who can read a telepromter and sign on the line when directed so in that way she is perfect, but she is not smart enough in my opinion to stay on message and not blurt out the wrong thing.
It is unlikely Newsome or Buttplug would pass a confirmation hearing, so does McCarthy as speaker step in? So far, McCarthy has been doing ok, but could he stand up to the pressures the Deep State will put on him? The neocons jumped to the Dems, but having no discernable principles they would eagerly jump back especially with the controlled media cheerleading the whole thing.
So then what? After an undeniable victory, the neocons would want the ICBM’s in the air and Russia knows this. The Bullshit Factory would run 24/7 telling about the evil murdeing Rookskies, especially after a few engineered incidents in what is left of Kiev.
The future of the world will rest on the strength of McCarthys backbone. Thats is not a bet I’d like to be on the other side of.
I was surprised to learn that Kenneth Rogoff is a chess master.
Based on his grasp of economics I would have said he was more attuned to tiddliwinks…..
In response to your final question let me pose a corollary. If the answer is that they will not ever admit Ukraine is and has been losing, doesn’t it follow that they will literally stop at nothing to maintain that fantasy?
I wish that I could cite good examples where a narrative like this has ever been retracted. Russiagate does not bode well. Instead it exemplifies the lengths to which the sponsors of important lies will go.
It is impossible to wait for the truth to emerge as events in the ground play out without a corresponding sense of growing trepidation that we are all at risk.
Please don’t forget: There is an appalling amount of propaganda here in the western media. This is correct. But: Russia has not yet won the war. This war is not yet over. Be careful.
It’s politics all the way down, but it’s economics all the way up.
Like the gut and the head.
The gut decides, the head advises.
Russia is the richest country in the world, in terms of natural resources…….
That’s why the US/globalists want to defeat it. Globalism itself is the plan to own all the world’s natural resources, as expressed by the ‘cabal’ of Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie, Rhodes, Rothschild, etc., at the beginning of the 20th century.
Great update. However it’s more meaningful to use Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) to compare the GDP of nations. Using PPP China is way ahead of the US according the IMF, World Bank and CIA.
The leadership of the West believes that they can win the Ukraine War with an internet propaganda campaign, plus some obsolete weaponry transferred from their boneyards. But Russia recognizes that they are really just stupid cowards who would shit their pants if an actual bullet whizzed past their forehead. They remain in power because the voters have not yet reached the limit of their patience. That will change as hardship escalates. There will be a regime change coming soon, but it will happen in the West, not Russia.
Projection. For the last 30 years the quickest way to understand what the US is up to is to simply listen to its accusations and claims about other nations. Ukraine is kicking this into overdrive. And the best example is casualty figures. It’s almost certain that the claims about Russian losses are the closely estimated Ukrainian losses.
As far as economics go, the western system is pretty well dependent on what Marx called “primitive accumulation”. There needs to be new capital entering the system. We’ve gotten pretty good at creating it out of thin air in the form of debt, but eventually something real needs to underpin it. And if other nations stop playing the game by our rules, then it won’t work. There’s a deep fear of the multipolar world because of this. As a republic the US doesn’t need the current system, but the finance capitalism that rules the US does.
It’s the video games …..and a society where the young eat tide pods and gender confused boys use turkey basters to squirt V8 tomato juice cocktail up their asses to mimic menstrual flow. Reality means nothing…as far as the mainstream media pushing the same unrealistic narrative….they do as they are told and as a German in the 40s said…not paraphrasing…..repeat a lie enough and it becomes the truth eventually.
“State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect. It was a lesson learned by Hitler and many others, and it has been pursued to this day.”
― Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
“The more educated you are the more indoctrinated you are. And you believe you are being free and objective, whereas in fact you’re just repeating state propaganda.”
― Noam Chomsky, On Fake News and Other Societal Woes
I have two questions:
1) Why is Ukraine existential enough that the Nationalist Alliance [Russia and her allies] can compel NATO to destroy itself economically and militarily to defend Ukraine? Is NATO even in control any longer?
2) What comes after NATO has no more weapons? This seems more like an opening maneuver vs a war. Russia’s 1.5m man force won’t be ready until next year and Ukraine will likely be over by then.
My current best guess is the US will stage a massive force ostensibly to defend Europe against Russia, then pivot and join Russia to liberate The Continent from NATO and the EU.
Trump instituted Devolution so neither Biden or NATO has nuclear capability. France and UK are independent but are likely already politically subdued.
Afterward Iran will join to liberate Palestine.
‘Saving Israel for last for reasons not mentioned anywhere before’
SA –> US –> ASIA –> EU
That’s my current Strategic assessment.
Part of the reason for the insanity is a very sane explanation: Money. Let us go back to Russiagate. Lots of people and organizations made money off Russiagate. Pentagon budget increase funding disinformation groups, authors who wrote evidence -free books, pundits got appointed, research projects funded, YouTube sub rates soared, seminars and classes taught by whack jobs, massive profits for cybersecurity firms promising to stop Russkis, money for opinion pieces, money for election databases to stop Russkis, consulting fees up and yin yang on non-existent threats, and prize monies for exposing those Russkis.
Well, with Trump losing election and now the revelations by reporters examining Twitter leadership emails from the FBI, DHS, etc. Russiagate as a grift not particularly profitable. Instead the grifter crowd have moved to fill in similar holes for the Ukraine/Russian war. English and history majors waxing expert in the ways of military conflict, pundits paid by think tanks to create fiction, self proclaimed geopolitical experts charging thousands for seminars, fees for writing CNN opinion pieces, researchers not even out of their 20’s doing research on Russia and proclaiming their military training incompetent (and who speak no Russian).
The grift for the SMO is a field a bit more closed but the rules apply as in Russiagate. Any lie, distortion, and exaggeration is acceptable if it is against Russia.
BTW the anti-Russian grifters produce literally on a daily basis BS.
It’s not just Americans who embrace transgenderism as normal who support the war in Ukraine and believe the insane propaganda. The Republican Party majority in Congress too! As for the insane propaganda itself, it will continue because it is the only way to continue to support Ukraine without the populations questioning this support. And in the case of the US, was it always the main strategy with which they thought they were overthrowing the Govt in Moscow?! What is even crazier than the insanity of propaganda Ukraine is wining! Hundreds of KIAs every day!
…just take a good map with political limits from the european continent and watch it for 5 minutes. 😉
Hegel said: ‘When you study history, your only conclusion can be that nobody learns from it’.
Hitler said: ‘The world wants to be fooled, let us fool it’.
Sir, deep Thanks again for your Blog,
We could ask ourselves, – shall we admit defeat ?
or, -are we going to admit defeat ?
-We never did and for sure we will never do…
What would happen if a poor South-American country try to seizure of USA assets and foreign USD reserves from Banks all around the world ? it would be -of course- a surreal and laughable act, wacky antic and comical… some Babylon-Bee humor…
No, People are not “psychological and moral cowards”…the thing is that we don’t have -always- the ability to recognize or understand or manage our emotions…
still… “thinking like a pessimist”… Yesterday, Atlanta protests turn into riots, what started as a peaceful protest…
More on Kenneth Rogoff related to that UK The Telegraph article here:
https://abeldanger.blogspot.com/2023/01/everything-can-be-sanctioned-except-oil.html
Do Americans realize even though there are sanctions the US continues to import oil from Russia?
I sincerely hope that if there is an equivalent of Operation Uranus in the works, I hope someone in the Russian command is inspired to call it “Operation Upuranus.”
Operation “UpUrAnus”!!! A really GOOD one!!! 🙂
Excuse me, what is Upuranus? In the Russian segment, I did not find a definition of this word.
It’s an allegory, in English, for what would be happening to the Ukrainian forces in the Donbass.
@Gera – “Up-ur-anus” is a wordplay for “Дадут пинок под зад”
For the mantra to change: If the neocons and their henchmen had any honor…they would publically announce their shame for this fiasco and then… seppuku. It will take 200 yrs for pathetic smart phone generations to realize that they have been turned into serfs, so no revolutionary change in the near future. Internal collapse is a possibility, but then…all bets off.
Good afternoon Larry,
This was a quality article and I love the sourcing.
To answer your question:
NO. Some Englishmen still believe that the British Empire is a thing. As for the NEOCON/RINO/Ultra left crowd, I believe that any admission of failure would be impossible because at their core they are basically children. I have three kids, You know how hard it is to get them to admit to ANYTHING?
Jokes aside, I think the only thing that would “wake up” the aforementioned groups would be a complete and total defeat in Ukraine. What I mean is, they would have to lose whatever force of Americans that they clearly want to send. I do not think there will be a small nuclear exchange but I’m pretty convinced that there will be some sort of US troop presence/contingent that will at some point enter Ukraine. If that happens, I think the US troops involved (overtly involved, not the volunteers) would suffer heavy casualties. Perhaps, sadly, if that happens something akin to the Vietnam fiasco would occur? I am thinking about Hanoi Jane and the body bags on the 6 o’clock news type of thing. Thoughts, anyone?
I can’t wait to see the remake of The Bunker, the scene where Z anticipates the breakout of Ukie Army Detachment Steiner to beat the Russkies back to the gates of Moscow.
In that video whereby Sen. Lindsey Graham is standing there in Ukraine with the late Sen. John McCain saying that the Ukrainians “die to the last man”, should tell Americans that our government knew Ukraine would lose the war from the beginning.
It has to be one of the greatest tax payer heist of the century, and perhaps it is all geared to drive the US and maybe the EU too into digital currency. The ultimate act of total control. A staged western bankruptcy.
the only “rational” reason i can see for continuing the lie is justify a false flag. “putin desperate so will do desperate thing.” primo projection every day of the week. ty for your work.
In that video whereby Sen. Lindsey Graham is standing there in Ukraine with the late Sen. John McCain saying that the Ukrainians “die to the last man”, should tell Americans that our government knew Ukraine would lose the war from the beginning.
It has to be one of the greatest tax payer heist of the century, and perhaps it is all geared to drive the US and maybe the EU too into digital currency. The ultimate act of total control. A staged western bankruptcy.
Oh sorry, posted twice.
Yves Smith at Nakedcapitalism took the measure of Rogoff a long time ago over his famous study that was used to justify government austerity after the banking collapse:
“Ken Rogoff has just shown how out of touch he is with reality and basic standards of professional accountability, as demonstrated in an interview published in the Frankfuerter Allgemeine, which is best thought of as a center-right New York Times. He’s come as close as Serious People do to foaming at the mouth, accusing those who criticized the discovery of errors in a widely cited austerity-supporting paper he wrote with Carmen Reinhart as being on a “witch hunt” and engaging in an “orchestrated attack…as in the 1950s under McCarthy.””
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/ken-rogoff-loses-it-calls-criticism-of-errors-in-debt-paper-a-witch-hunt.html
Losers keep failing upward in the Liberal pecking order.
Hi, Larry,
The whole GDP comparison by Rogoff is a typical example of an American “economist” primitivism.
Andrei Martyanov likes calling political “scientists” as complete frauds. I can add (and, unfortunately, have a first-hand traumatic experience with these frauds) that the American “economists” are complete and utter imbeciles. They are indoctrinated to believe (in their “Chicago University” and other sewages) that a “service economy” (which 85% of the the US now is) is as good as or better than… hold your breath… the “manufacturing” one (a la China, Russia, or Germany).
An example would be — imagine two simple economies:
(1) One has 1,000 barber shops and (2) another has 10 manufacturing plants producing, say, cars. Barber shops sell $25 cuts to 1 million people and hence have a GDP of $25 million (which approximates the US economy). The other one produces, let’s say, 1,000 cars and sells them at $10,000 each, thus generating “only” $10 million GDP. According to the “Rogoffs” and “Lipsons” of the world the Barber Shop economy is much more superior to the manufacturing one, as it is nominally “bigger”.
A well known UK economist, Tim Morgan, once estimated that only about 15% of the US economy is what can be qualified as producing “world marketable goods”. In Russia that’s about 75% and in China probably close to 90%. But the primitive intellectual midgets a la Rogoff will keep yapping about “Russia being only 2% of the their beloved metric — “Global GDP”.
Dumb does not even begin to describe the depth of primitivism these poor chaps are…
Right on.
Wealth is things, and there’s only 3 ways to generate it. You can dig it out of the ground, you can grow it out of the ground, or you can add labour to the previous 2 to make them more valuable.
That’s it, there is nothing else. A nation cannot get rich giving each other haircuts because nothing is created.
There are consumable goods, and there are durable goods. An economy needs both to create wealth. Consumables such as food and fuel allow labour to be added to the materials that came from the ground. That adds value. Durable goods such as washing machines, cars, and houses are more valuable than the oil, metal ores, wood and limestone they started out as. A nation that has these things is wealthier than a nation that doesn’t.
All service activity not directly related to that process is ultimately dependent on a surplus of wealth. Hair dressers, nail salons and resorts exist because we can produce more wealth (things) than we can consume, and they serve to “bleed off” the excess wealth. Arguably, they enhance life for those that use them and they serve to spread the excess wealth through the society.
It’s all quite simple really, but economists are trained to produce all manner of graphs and analyses to obfuscate the simplicity. They do that because, to a man, they are trained to enable the so-called “financial industry” that’s grown up around the wealth generating sectors to “bleed off” far more of the excess wealth than an infinite number of nail salons and resorts could imagine. So, here we are.
“Here” is at war. The financial industry needs to bleed off even more to keep going, and the only way to get it is to bring Russia and China under its consolidated control. To that end, they’ve sicced the nations they do control on them.
Unfortunately for them, war is like wealth. You win it by applying weapons (things) to the enemy. No things, you lose. The West is discovering that if you can’t produce things, not only do you get poor, you lose wars.
Larry, I respect you and I’m deeply grateful for your work. But, Larry — for the sake of the clarity and the perceived validity of your (otherwise) well-grounded commentary, KEEP your TRANS-PHOBIC thoughts to your SELF. You hurt your own credibility when you make self-indulgent comments like, “people who embrace transgenderism as normal … will eagerly embrace nonsense about Ukraine winning the war as reality.”
I am NOT denying your right to harbor transphobic thoughts, but, for Christ’s sake, when you’re talking about grave issues of war and politics, ask yourself, “How is this snide wisecrack about transgenderism going to enhance my own gravity and credibility?”
Dave, I believe in science. You obviously don’t. There is male and there is female. If you want to believe you are an avocado that does not make you an avocado. I do not fear transgenders. I feel sorry for them. If you can’t see the role of delusion about biology and fundamental science and its relation to delusion about Russia’s economy and military strength then I don’t know what to say.
You don’t get to control the debate by accusing me of being transphobic. You have no evidence to back that up. I believe that transgenderism is psychological disorder and is not based in any biological science. Hope this helps
This is an issue that needs to be clarified. There is freedom in nature to act according to our desires. However, there is also a natural design regarding male and female. Consequences are readily available to those who pursue an unnatural or natural path. We have been given a rational mind to seek and find the truth. It is our personal responsibility to seek the truth. If we decide to act according to our desires even if it contradicts the natural design, then we must we ready to accept the natural consequences.
mr; johnson-am totally with you regarding your reply
regards,
ralph
Exactly wasn’t it Biden who said he would “follow the science”, that went down the testtube.
The point is that truth is objective not subjective and opinion cannot override truth or the entire foundations of society collapse.
Trans ideology makes people pretent a lie is true, it distorts reality and makes fiction real, forcing adults to play let’s pretend like children. That is what is dangerous.
A man cannot be a woman. True.
A man can have gender dismorphia want to be and pretend to be what he thinks is a woman. Also true.
This is a mental illness. Not a lifestyle choice. And pretending a mental illness is a “right” that changes reality is an abuse of the patient, denial of truth and a danger to society.
To deny the perverted and twisted woke tranny agenda is not phobic behaviour DC. You want to be gaslit that’s your prerogative. But you do not have the right to control the thoughts of us that are not brainwashed and recognise gender dysphoria for what it is.
Here’s a little riddle: Q. If a command from a warped totalitarian agenda declares that henceforth a dog’s tail is to be referred to as a leg, than how many legs does that dog have? Five you would say.
However the answer is four; just because someone commands the tail to be called a leg does not make it a leg.
I don’t detect any fear of Trans in Larry’s commentary, but kneejerk accusations of Transphobis do tend to trigger Transmisia when I hear them.
mr. johnson- am not sure if you can post this. i think is another big huge reason why the woke west hates russia. they cannot stand any country that stands up for traditional values.
this is a western documentary showing the plight of gays in russia. will leave the description at that.
if russia made a documentary of the west i suspect it would be the plight of straight people. lol
Hunted: Being Gay In Anti Gay Russia -Russia handles this problem much differently than most
https://www.bitchute.com/video/8z86rvGd7me6/
It’s probably just co-incidence that the Program on International Politics, Economics and Security founded by Prof Lipson has the acronym PIPES but one might wonder what he is smoking in those pipes.
Even a busted clock is right twice a day which is 200% more accurate than the threadbare claim made regularly since early March 2022 by the usual suspects that Russia is been running out of …insert… weapons.
I am not a friend of personality cults. That in advance, so as not to be misunderstood. But I have been following Putin’s activities for about 10 years. In short, here is my assessment of his personality. I do not go into the western propaganda. It is too stupid for me.
Putin is extremely self-disciplined. He has a large workload, and he is not a dumb talker like his Western colleagues. The Russian president has very great powers. But he is not a dictator or a tsar. He delegates a lot of responsibility to other people and he makes sure that the tasks get done. But here’s what struck me the most.
Putin says beforehand what he will do and he does what he said beforehand.
Example. A few years ago he spoke that Russia will never again allow Russia to be devastated by aggressors. Even at these words it had to be clear how Russia will react. At the same time, he told an anecdote from his school days. When he and friends were threatened by thugs at school, he did not wait for them to be beaten himself. Instead, he went up to the leader and hit him so hard that there was silence afterwards. When he says these things publicly as president, he knows beforehand that his words will be closely analyzed and heeded in the world. This was a direct warning to the U.S. and NATO.
The U.S. and NATO ignored it. Until February 2022.Ok, they provoked the Russian invasion. But they probably thought that Russia is afraid of war against USNATO. I think Russia has been preparing for the possibility of such a war since 2001 and they are not afraid.
Moscow communicates today through various channels that the victory over Nazi Ukraine will not be the end of the war. The end of the war can be only if Russia has security guarantees from the West. And not only on worthless paper. Buth rater through action. At the same time, Russia says that there will be no compromises that exclude that. I take these statements absolutely seriously. As I said, Putin is not a talker.
Yep, spot on. There are those of mediocre to low IQ that talk shit as 99% of prostiticians do, and then there is VVP, Lavrov, ect.
Only fools do not heed their words.
“But they probably thought that Russia was afraid of a war against the USNATO. I think Russia has been preparing for the possibility of such a war since 2001, and they are not afraid.”
Putin, if he is not sure of the result, does not start.
In the comments to the last article, I recalled the submerged submarine Kursk (probably an American torpedo). I said that Putin did not forget, could not forget (he does not forget anything). I hinted that from that moment Putin was preparing for an act of retaliation. It took 22 years.
Before that, there was also the provoked war in Yugoslavia and the bombing of Serbia. We haven’t forgotten that either.
The opponents disagreed with me. They said that the destruction of an American aircraft carrier is 100% a reason to start a war. But I wasn’t talking about the traditions of the USA, I was talking about the character and behavioral traditions of Russia. The time has come not to spare American ships.
Why can’t the USA deny itself the pleasure of gloating, humiliating, mocking? This is the behavior of a stupid bandit.
If you act like a bandit, you are a bandit. Hitler was a monster. But the USA has murdered more people to this day than the monster Hitler. One must also add the indirect victims of the wars and terror. With this I do not want to relativize the crimes of Hitler’s Germany in any case.
An important aspect is that until today the same circles control everything, which organized and financed the world wars at that time. As long as these leaders and organizers are not eliminated, history will repeat itself. This means that a systemic change is absolutely necessary. Persons, on the other hand, are replaceable. However, the system remains untouched.
Now mankind must first survive this war.
“I think Russia has been preparing for the possibility of such a war since 2001 and they are not afraid.”
At least from 1968 although some say 1969.
Soounds like someone either forgot to copy and paste properly from a report on the situation on the Ukrainian side or they have a Doctorate in Projection Studies!
“He [Putin] has secretly begun another round of mobilization, despite the political dangers. It’s one thing for him to round up men from outlying areas. It’s quite another to drag them off the streets in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the political heart of the country”.
Uh, Professor Lipson, I hate to break this news but you’ve somehow confused Russia with Ukraine. It’s Ukraine that has a man power shortage and has been dragooning any able warm bodies off the streets (age 16 to 65 or more) and throwing them into battle with almost no training.
And you hold a fancy, tenured, namef-chair professorship at one of the most prestigious universities in America???
Russia is mobilising again though. They need more men to complete the job.
https://southfront.org/all-masks-thrown-off/
If Russia is successful the win will be stopping Putin in his desire to conquer all Europe and recreate the USSR.
Ukraine will be seen as having successfully stopped the Russian advance before EU borders by making the victory so expensive.
Boris Johnson was in Kiev signing bullets yesterday. He is an extraordinarily dangerous man because he understands the reality perfectly but will use the deaths to further his political and financial aims.
That is a happy thought, Ash. The West could get out of this mess it created by declaring Ukraine successfully bled Russia to the point where Europe is safe from the Russian scourge. Not bad!
Is that how they’ll play it, though?
At any rate, it means Ukraine will have to fight to utter destruction. Similarly, the Nixon admin. knew Vietnam was lost soon after taking office. However, it allowed the war to drag on a few more years while looking for a politically feasible off-ramp. Sad that so many must die and suffer for political cover and to salve the minds of the populace.
But this is why the propaganda must continue. When the people believe the lies and there are no obvious alternatives to the lies, you own them and the narrative, which, in turn, means you can twist the narrative as needed to meet the realities and needs on the ground (e.g. Russia stomps the guts out of Ukraine at some point in the future and the war ends that way = Russia was bled dry and Europe saved). By owning the narrative, you never lose.
This GDP thing is bullshit.
– Russia 145 million people; GDP = US$1.78 trillion
– Australia 25 million people; GDP = US$1.55 trillion
Russia has 5.8 times as many people as Australia, sells shitloads of wheat, coal, oil, gas, fertilizer, has an aircraft industry and car industry, puts satellites into space, developed its own GPS, builds its own military equipment. Yet Russia’s GDP is virtually the same as Australia’s. Yehh right.
Australia does nothing but sell coal, iron ore and about the same amount of wheat as Ukraine. How can Australia’s and Russia’s be the same?
Can anyone explain this?
Yep, voodoo economics. And Australia doesn’t sell as much coal and iron ore, wine, and many other products as like all obedient children do, it obeyed it’s master and spat in the eye of it’s largest trading partner.
My mother in love just arrived from Moscow to visit my wife in Chester UK. She is a pensioner with a income of the equivalent of 400$ per month living in the house of property.
Prices of food increase a bit but not significantly, and as before if you go to local market you find a lot of products at a very acceptable price. She bring some confiture made locally and some honey that is really good. The price to heat the house and electricity are very low and are not going to have an impact on her pension. Being a centralized heating serving more than one block of building she spend 120$ per season. The electricity is individual but she spent few dollar per month. She barely notice any change in the life since the beginning of war. Obviously the war is the main topic on television and at the market, but she said that almost all she talk to are with Russia and Putin. The market opinion are in my opinion more important than the so called expert opinion passed on TV. If the west wait for a regime change in Russia I am sorry but that will not happen soon.
As it was pointed out, GDP is better measured on PPP (ie. Purchasing Power Parity). The “Big Mac Index” is a simplified, “laymans” version of it.
However there is another, more direct comparison. Take the Kornet (9M133), one of the priciest anti-tank guided missiles, with a good combat record practically against any MBTs on the market.
Wiki puts its export price tag in 2019 to 26.000 USD.
The premier US “equivalent” is the (in)famous Javelin (FGM-148) with a 2019 price tag for export: 240.000 USD.
Yes, almost TEN TIMES.
Also, the profit on Javelins goes into Raytheon budget.
In case of the Russian missile, it is manufactured by a subsidiary of Rostec, a state owned corporation, with some private ownership. At least some of their profit goes to federal budget.
Larry, we can agree or disagree about transgenderism.
(And I will admit that I am NOT an expert.)
THAT WAS NOT MY POINT. My point was that you were mixing up TWO issues
in a SINGLE sentence: (1) transgenderism and (2) the shameless MENDACITY
of the corporate mass-media, on the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine.
I love your spirit. But why not keep the issues separate? For example:
“I suppose I should not be surprised that [the corporate mass-media] …
eagerly embrace nonsense about Ukraine winning the war as reality.”
Well if you disagree with Larry’s sane belief that there are only two genders then your’e welcome to jog on.
The US govt. and “NGOs”run many websites where the deluded can find fellow travellers, and there one can gaslight each other about the merits of “dudes that look like ladies”.
Eighty years ago, one of the German pockets was about to collapse in Stalingrad…
The article draws very accurate parallel with Operation Uranus and the surrounding defeat by the Soviet Armies of German 6th Army in Stalingrad November 1942. What is happening right now in Ukraine / Bakhmut is almost identical replay.
Late November 1942 northern and southern Soviet forces linked up at Kalach encircling 290,000 Axis forces including 6th Army; and just as the lunatic Hitler refused sensible request of General Paulus to breakout, when it was still possible to do so, and retreat from Stalingrad to save the Axis armies to fight another day, so the lunatic in the pay of Washington, Zelensky, has just as insensibly refused reported request by Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Valerii Zaluzhnyi to evacuate Ukrainian forces from Bakhmut so as to avoid their being surrounded, captured and destroyed.
So similarly the imbecile Neocon Nazi political leaders in Washington, London and EU/Brussels HQ carry on just like those German generals obediently obeying insane orders of the Fuhrer as they continued conducting battles even though they knew they would ultimately be defeated by the Soviet armies – while all the way through their slow agonizing slaughter, all the way back to Berlin, they were proclaiming eventual triumph of the Reich, too afraid of the Fuhrer’s wrath to do otherwise – all the while, the Fuhrer’s mind had succumbed to chronic debilitating delusions of grandeur and megalomaniacal hallucinations of his supreme Aryan Deity and ultimate victory; and all they had to do was to “will it so”.
Ukraine, along with the Anglo-American-EU-NATO Fourth Reich will end the same way if they persist with their delusional belief systems and hate-fuelled Nazi comic-strip propaganda. Watch this space.
The writing is writ large on the tombstone of future history, just as it was so indelibly scribed in the haunted skeletal faces of the defeated, surrendering Wehrmacht soldiers of the German 6th Army as they were herded out of the rubble of Stalingrad by the victorious Soviet army. Soon we will witness the Neoliberal Nazis hunkering down, way below ground, in their massive underground bunkers that they have spent years and hundreds of billions preparing for their doomsday Valhalla scenario – the only difference between the mythological fairy tale epic and the soon-to-unfold reality is that it will not be strong courageous warriors inhabiting the great hall of the einherjar it will be criminally-insane, effete cowering fools of dubious gender struck down by the blinding light of reality – the deer in the proverbial headlights frozen in terrified puzzlement, fear and confusion that they will have brought on themselves by their insane perfidy, insatiable greed and hunger for unchallenged global power and dominion over the earth and over all peoples in it.
If they do don’t desist from their madness then soon the Neocon Nazi’s dreams and ambitions will eventually become to them like the ashes in the gaping mouths of the frozen Wehrmacht corpses that were strewn across the rubble of Stalingrad 1942 and early 1943.
May real freedom and peace prevail soon for all people everywhere. The multipolar world.