Sep 222022
 
 September 22, 2022  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,


Pablo Picasso Head of a woman 1939

 

Russia Will Mobilize About 1.2% Of Her Mobilizational Potential (Saker)
Russia To Begin Partial Mobilization – Putin (RT)
Russia Announces Partial Mobilization (MoA)
Squelching the Noise about the Ukraine (9Bill)
Defensive West Smears Samarkand Summit (Lauria)
The Plot to Seize Russia & Make It a NATO Vassal – Martin Armstrong (G&E)
The Real US Agenda In Africa Is Hegemony (Escobar)
NATO’s “Green” Masochistic EUthanasia (Vilches)
10,000 anti-Russia Sanctions (Vilches)
Europe Implodes (Vilches)
Federal Reserve Chair Announces Another 75 Point Rate Hike (CTH)
The European Central Bank’s Zimbabwean Model (Hayes)
How the West Poisoned Its Money (Varoufakis)
Beyond the Peak (Greer)
House Democrats Take Ownership of Hunter (Turley)
EU Health Regulator Says Covid Pandemic Not Over (R.)

 

 

 

 

Miller

 

 

 

 

Detroit cringe (I can’t even listen to the end)

 

 

 

 

Biden. Trump.

 

 

 

 

“We are talking only about those soldiers who have an official status of “reserves” and all of them will have to undergo a special training before being sent to the Ukraine.”

Russia Will Mobilize About 1.2% Of Her Mobilizational Potential (Saker)

So, after lots of speculation, we now know that the Kremlin has decided to mobilize about 300’000 soldiers from a total mobilizational potential of 25’000’000 soldiers. That’s just a little over 1% of Russia’s mobilizational potential. We are talking only about those soldiers who have an official status of “reserves” and all of them will have to undergo a special training before being sent to the Ukraine. A few comments about this decision: It will take Russia a few months to gather and retrain (refresher courses) these forces and they will not be immediately available to protect the Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhie and Kherson regions during the upcoming referendum on to whether to join Russia or not. The 3rd volunteer army corps is already deployed in the south and could greatly assist in this.

Putin and Shoigu gave several reasons for this decision, including the very long line of contact, the direct involvement of NATO personnel who are now running the Ukronazi regime in Kiev and the threats by the West to dismantle Russia. Shoigu indicated that the UAF lost about 50% of its personnel (over 100’000 soldiers out of a total potential of about 200’000). He also added that most of the Ukrainian weapons systems, which were of Soviet origin, was mostly destroyed. Russian KIAs are just under 6000 soldiers. Shoigu also clearly spelled out that “we are not so much fighting against the Ukraine but against NATO plus the united (collective) West“. Shoigu also mentioned that all of the NATO satellite capabilities (70 military and 200+ civilian satellites) are used against Russia right now.

Finally, Shoigu added that NATO high precision weapons are deliberately used by NATO commanders to terrorize civilians. In other words, Russia is preparing for an escalation of this war in the coming months. She is basically augmenting her forces to a level which could deal with a major NATO escalation in the Ukraine (and elsewhere as not all mobilized forces would have to be combat units; deploying more C4ISR capabilities, logistics/supply forces or civil affairs and counter-terrorism units would also make sense). The other big news of the day is, of course, that Russia will back and accept the outcome of the referendums in the four regions mentioned above.

Read more …

“The Russian leader pledged to support the plebiscites in terms of security and said his government would respect whatever outcomes they produce..”

Russia To Begin Partial Mobilization – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilization during an address to the nation on Wednesday morning. He said the Defense Ministry had recommended drawing military reservists into active service as the country faces a protracted conflict in Ukraine and Donbass. The measure is sensible and necessary under the circumstances, Putin said, considering that Russia is fighting “the entire Western military machine” in Ukraine. He has already signed an order for the call-up to start immediately. The move will see the armed forces draw on military reservists only, and those who have completed national service, the president added. He promised that they would be provided with additional training, along with all the benefits due to people involved in active duty.

Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu revealed some details about the mobilization in a separate statement on Wednesday. He said the ministry wanted to call to arms some 300,000 reservists, or just over 1% of Russia’s full mobilization potential. Putin has accused Kiev of backing away from peace talks with Moscow, which he said it had done on the instructions of its Western backers. Instead, the Ukrainian government has doubled down on military action, he said. “After certain compromises [with Moscow] were reached, Kiev received a de facto direct order to derail all agreements. More weapons were pumped into Ukraine. The Kiev regime deployed more gangs of international mercenaries and nationalists, military units trained to NATO standards and under de facto command of Western advisers,” Putin said.

Russian forces sent to Ukraine in February have secured a large portion of territory claimed by the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as parts of Ukraine, he said. The resulting front line stretches over 1,000km, the president pointed out. He warned the US and its allies against ramping up pressure on Moscow. Western nations are openly pursuing a military defeat of Russia, seeking to push the country into insignificance and to loot its natural wealth, he stated. “Parts of Western elites use every effort to preserve their dominance. That is why they try to block and suppress any sovereign centers of development, so that they can continue to brutally force their will on other nations and peoples, to impose their pseudo-values,” he explained. “Their goal is to weaken, disunite and ultimately destroy our nation.”

Some senior officials in NATO states have even suggested that using tactical nuclear weapons against Russian troops would be justified, according to Putin. The president stressed that Moscow would not hesitate to retaliate to such an attack with its own nuclear weapons. If the territorial integrity of our nation is threatened, we will certainly use all the means that we have to defend Russia and our people. Putin also commented on the upcoming referendums in the two Donbass republics and two regions of Ukraine currently controlled to a large extent by Russian troops. The four entities are putting to a general vote a proposal to ask Moscow to accept them as new parts of the Russian Federation, with polling scheduled to start on Friday.

The Russian leader pledged to support the plebiscites in terms of security and said his government would respect whatever outcomes they produce. Russia’s goal is to protect civilians from the Ukrainian government, which had escalated the persecution of its opponents at home and had been using terrorist tactics against people living in Russia-controlled lands, Putin said.

Read more …

“..we can expect that the Russian forces will start to degrade Ukrainian infrastructure on a large scale.”

Russia Announces Partial Mobilization (MoA)

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said (video, Sputnik report) that 300,000 reservist will be mobilized. Conscripts and people currently studying will not be send to Ukraine. He also said that, so far, 5,937 Russian soldiers have died during the war in Ukraine. (This number does not include the militia of the DPR and LPR, or the Wagner group, who have done most of the frontline work and thus have had higher losses.) Shoigu puts Ukrainian losses at some 62,000 killed and some 50,000 wounded. (I regard this as a low estimate.) Russia’s total military reserve, people who have previously gone through military training, is 25 million. It also has the equipment to arm those forces.

There are rumors that the Ukraine is preparing for an all out offensive, mobilizing and preparing new units from Kiev and further west for one big push against the Russian and allied forces. It will take a few months to prepare for this. The Ukraine will need much more equipment and ammunition from the ‘west’, including ‘western’ tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, and has yet to train troops to be able to use it. It is likely intending to start the offensive only in spring. The call up Russia announced now may have the intent to draw Kiev into a premature launch of its general offensive. The mobilized Russian troops will take about three months to be ready for war. Russia could thus launch its own offensive during the winter season. In the meantime constant defensive work will continue to severely degrade the Ukrainian units which are currently on or near the frontlines.

With a force of an additional 300,000 troops, far beyond the 100,000 to 150,000 engaged now in the war, the Russia forces could change their tactics from the slow grind that is happening now into a larger scale maneuver war with heavy strikes into the operational depth of the Ukrainian army. Belarus, allied with the Russian Federation, is also in the process of getting ready for war. It could, as it had threatened before, cut of the supply lines from the ‘west’ into the Ukraine in the western part of that country. Should current Ukrainian attacks on civilians and infrastructure in Russia and the Donbas regions continue, we can expect that the Russian forces will start to degrade Ukrainian infrastructure on a large scale. The electricity and railway networks would be the primary targets. s

Read more …

“The celebrations that will follow these regions joining Russia are likely to be massive: Crimea 2014 times ten.”

Squelching the Noise about the Ukraine (9Bill)

Earlier this morning, Vladimir Putin gave the order to call up army reservists. According to him, the nature and the goals of the Special Military Operation in the Ukraine remain the same. The reservists will be given contracts (they will in essence become salaried employees). Only those with relevant military experience and training will be called up. Shoigu went into further specifics: just 300.000 reservists will be called up in the first phase (roughly 1% of Russia’s total reservists), which will coincide with the normal, regularly scheduled annual training of reserves. They will be equipped, trained and sent in with the task of shoring up and straightening up the battle front. To be sure, they will also be called upon to provide security and to suppress enemy activity on both sides of the border.

Given the current configuration of the battle front, which includes a toehold on the Kharkov region, all of Lugansk, most of Donetsk, most of Zaporozhye and most of Kherson, their mission could conceivably come to include driving the Ukrainian forces out of the remainder of Donetsk and Kherson regions and perhaps setting up and maintaining a buffer zone to make it impossible for Ukrainian artillery to reach within what will soon become territory of the Russian Federation.
To this end, referenda will be held starting this Friday in all of the above formerly Ukrainian regions except for Kharkov, which is excluded. According to most recent opinion polling, the idea of joining the Russian Federation is very popular in all of the above: 94% in favor in Donetsk, 93% in Lugansk, 87% in Zaporozhye and 80% in Kherson.

And why wouldn’t these people want to be part of a peaceful, stable and prosperous state where their native language is the official language rather than stay within a failed state that has been fighting a civil war against them going on nine years? The celebrations that will follow these regions joining Russia are likely to be massive: Crimea 2014 times ten. Finally, I’d like to add a note on the Russian withdrawal from most of the Kharkov region. The region itself is of no consequence to Russia while the city of Kharkov, with its remaining population of around two million and with Ukrainian heavy armor and artillery hiding among high-rise buildings and using civilians as human shields, would be either a hard target, a humanitarian disaster, or both, were the Russians to try to conquer it. Also, although Kharkov is overwhelmingly Russian-speaking, these are some of the most heavily brainwashed, Westernized, Nazified Russian-speakers on the face of the planet and, from a Russian perspective, just not worth the bother.

Read more …

Good to see people other than Pepe Escobar cover this angle, too.

Defensive West Smears Samarkand Summit (Lauria)

The Shanghai Cooperation Council (SCO)’s summit in the Uzbek capital of Samarkand last Thursday and Friday was a world historical event for the forces creating this separate world representing the majority of humanity. Major economic deals were concluded and Beijing and Moscow further strengthened their budding alliance. In what should be a worrying sign for Washington, many of its Middle East allies, which have also rejected U.S. pressure to sanction Russia, have applied to join the SCO. For years the West rejected overtures from Russia and China to collaborate in a multipolar world. But that would mean giving up its dominant position, maintained from overtly colonial days. Instead the U.S.-led West pushes for total domination. So rather than acknowledge that its attempt to destroy Russia’s economy and bring down its government has instead led to economic chaos in the West and a threat to its global position, Western leaders are doubling down.

By sanctioning Russian energy and other vital exports, and by shutting out its financial system, the West thought Russia would collapse. Instead Moscow has found markets in the world’s most populous nations so that its currency, its industry and its banking system have survived. The Western response to this growing challenge to its hegemony was reflected in the way Western media covered the Samarkand summit. On top of the dismissive tone of its reporting came distortion of facts that misled its Western audiences to the significance of what Samarkand means to the future. The Daily Telegraph began its report, headlined, “Isolated Putin left at Beijing’s mercy as his disastrous war backfires,” with an account about how Putin was humiliated because he was left waiting for the president of Kyrgyzstan. With the headline, “Putin and Xi plot a new world order to challenge America’s might,”

The Times of London took the same line, writing of “Russia’s dependence on China since its disastrous war in Ukraine.” CNN’s report sowed seeds of doubt about the SCO’s unity, writing about the summit from Hong Kong that the “Ukraine war risks exposing regional divisions.” The New York Times report filed from Washington and Beijing, sought to portray the “limits” of “cooperation” between Russia and China. None of these reports focused on an emerging world order that is leaving the U.S. on the outside looking in. Western media instead seized on a few words uttered to try to frame India and China as criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine. They completely took out of context Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s words that “today’s era is not of war.” CNN reported:

“Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to have directly rebuffed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, telling Russian President Vladimir Putin that now is not the time for war. In what was the latest in a series of setbacks for the Russian leader, Modi told him of the need to ‘move onto a path of peace’ and reminded him of the importance of ‘democracy, diplomacy and dialogue.’” After Putin told Modi during their public comments that Ukraine refuses to negotiate, Modi said, according to the English translation on India’s Foreign Ministry website, “I know that today’s era is not of war and we have spoken to you many times on the phone that democracy, diplomacy and dialogue are such things that touch the world. Today we will get a chance to discuss how we can move forward on the path of peace in the coming days.” It is clear that Modi was criticizing Ukraine for not negotiating, rather than criticizing Russia for the war.

Read more …

“The Great Reset is basically a debt default and the EU is a disaster that will fall apart.”

The Plot to Seize Russia & Make It a NATO Vassal – Martin Armstrong (G&E)

Martin Armstrong discusses his new book based on declassified documents where in the 1990s the West, NATO, and Russian oligarchy plotted to seize Moscow, loot Russia, and takeover its natural resources. Yeltsin turned to Putin who was not a communist and is not an oligarch. The Moscow apartment bombings or propaganda surrounding them being a false flag would likely have come from Boris Berezovsky. The Great Reset is basically a debt default and the EU is a disaster that will fall apart. At this point most of the attack on Russia is related to “climate change” and to shut down fossil fuels.

Read more …

I’m not as negative as Pepe about Guterres. Whatever his faults, I think he’s honestly trying to get the fertilizer to Africa.

The Real US Agenda In Africa Is Hegemony (Escobar)

In a rational environment, the 77th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) would discuss alleviating the trials and tribulations of the Global South, especially Africa. That won’t be the case. Like a deer caught in the geopolitical headlights, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued platitudes about a gloomy “winter of global discontent,” even as the proverbial imperial doomsayers criticized the UN’s “crisis of faith” and blasted the “unprovoked war” started by Russia. Of course the slow-motion genocide of Donbass russophone residents for eight years would never be recognized as a provocation. Guterres spoke of Afghanistan, “where the economy is in ruins and human rights are being trampled” – but he did not dare to offer context.

In Libya, “divisions continue to jeopardize the country” – once again, no context. Not to mention Iraq, where “ongoing tensions threaten ongoing stability.” Africa has 54 nations as UN members. Any truly representative UNGA meeting should place Africa’s problems at the forefront. Once again, that’s not the case. So it is left to African leaders to offer that much-needed context outside of the UN building in New York. As the only African member of the G20, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently urged the US not to “punish” the whole continent by forcing nations to demonize or sanction Russia. Washington’s introduction of legislation dubbed the Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act, he says, “will harm Africa and marginalize the continent.”

South Africa is a BRICS member – a concept that is anathema in the Beltway – and embraces a policy of non-alignment among world powers. An emerging 21st century version of the 1960s Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is strengthening across the Global South – and especially Africa – much to the revulsion of the US and its minions. Back at the UNGA, Guterres invoked the global fertilizer crisis – again, with no context. Russian diplomacy has repeatedly stressed that Moscow is ready to export 30 million tons of grain and over 20 million tons of fertilizer by the end of 2022. What is left unsaid in the west, is that only the importation of fertilizers to the EU is “allowed,” while transit to Africa is not.

Guterres said he was trying to persuade EU leaders to lift sanctions on Russian fertilizer exports, which directly affect cargo payments and shipping insurance. Russia’s Uralchem, for instance, even offered to supply fertilizers to Africa for free. Yet from the point of view of the US and its EU vassals, the only thing that matters is to counter Russia and China in Africa. Senegal’s President Macky Sall has remarked how this policy is leaving “a bitter taste.”

Read more …

I took three separate parts of Jorge Vilshes’ latest. Which is very long, I could have picked more pieces. Of course he helps himself by referencing one of my articles. 😉

NATO’s “Green” Masochistic EUthanasia (Vilches)

The German political class has torn up the social contract agreed with its constituents by swiftly ignoring the historical and most successful existential partnership established with Russia since decades ago. In parallel, Anglo-inspired unelected EU bureaucrats take turns to blindly attack Russia with suicidal Wagnerian style based on hollow virtue-signalling nonsense. Now, the German Vice-Chancellor and Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck (a former mediocre poetry translator…) finally and “bitterly” has admitted that Germany — and thus all of Europe — relies on ´cheap energy from Russia´ or else it´d trigger ”the collapse of energy providers” with a dire ´Lehman moment´.

This would crash the German and European economies with widespread bankruptcies unleashed by margin calls as later explained. Thus the “green” solution now found for this Made-In-Europe mess is a deeper and longer proxy Ukraine war, über-high price inflation, $ 500 billion in subsidies for starters with more coming, new ad hoc high taxes and un-applicable price caps in a supply-driven market … with scarcity all around and “no matter what voters may think or how hard their life may get” (sic). So, European businesses will fail per the terrible damage induced all along upstream supply lines including food and fuels. As brilliantly worded by Rachel Mardsen…“The West cut itself off from its sourcing in order to play geopolitics”… and then blame Russia and supposed “extremist enemies of the state”.

So, if recent declarations from German Foreign Minister Annalena (“Kobold”) Baerbock are of any guide, we shall soon witness street crowds blossoming in Europe. With circumvolutionary style, the EU Commission is now also trying to convince everyone that Europe will become “greener” in a hurry. Actually, with its lignite-fired re-commissioned power stations – the largest ever single source of pollution – Europe will turn “browner” fast, not “greener” thus setting the worst possible example to the rest of the world.It also contradicts its supposed ´moral high ground´ Green Plan. Still, EC spokesman Eric Mamer proudly stated that “The Ukraine invasion will help us speed up our move away from fossil fuels”.

Read more …

“And just like small children do, EU leaders still won´t admit it´s bed-time.”

10,000 anti-Russia Sanctions (Vilches)

The EU and the US imposed crippling sanctions on Russia which now finds it impossible – for instance – to comply with energy delivery to Europe. This in turn affects the European entire industry & trade including medicines, fuels, food, heating and everything in between. So the EU complains that Russia is using this energy non-delivery ´excuse´ as a weapon. Actually, sanctions restrict or prohibit trade of anything and everything with Russia from chips to flowers, and also disconnect Russian banks from SWIFT plus block money transfers, penalize all Russian cargo insurance, prohibit Western vessels at Russian ports and access of Russian ships to Europe. So a case in point for nat-gas non-delivery is the NS1 turbines mandatory maintenance/repairs. Contractually, Siemens is the only party allowed to touch them but sanctions do not allow their access per “Contract Violations”.

Europe keeps playing Russian roulette with itself insisting on the game plan of (1) provoking and supporting armed conflict with Russia (2) confiscating Russian assets (2) applying crippling sanctions on everything ´Russian´ (3) betting the farm on militarily winning the Ukraine war — how ??? (4) attempting a regime change in Russia (5) benefit from the spoils (6) simultaneously require Russians to provide whatever the EU may need, or else…??? (7) improvise highly dangerous experiments with well-proven European business models and European livelihoods at stake.

And just like small children do, EU leaders still won´t admit it´s bed-time. So now all that´s left for Main Street Europe is not winning anything other than freezing temperatures, far less food and fuels, ultra high price inflation of anything and everything, and plenty of hardship and discontent. But them all just keep re-arranging the chairs on the deck of an EU sinking Titanic while the orchestra enthusiastically keeps on playing one Strauss vals after another. True enough, Europe is trying its best to unnecessarily divorce Russia. But per Bloomberg – not exactly a pro-Russian mouthpiece — the EU sanctions and new taxes badly hurt Europe while Russia keeps ever improving its geopolitics and finances.

Read more …

“..as per the German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck´s own words, “just expect the worst“. Meaning areas with no energy, no fuels, no power at any price, period. Or as plain Germans would have it, just expect “kaputt”.

Europe Implodes (Vilches)

Very soon EU sanctions on Russia will start consuming the Europe we know with an ever more self-sufficient and growing Russia just watching the unfortunate scene. For instance, German SMB “Mittelstand” (99% of German GDP) will bankrupt or strain badly. The fact remains that no one has explained exactly what is to be finally gained with the EUthanizing sanctions and new taxes which are not really hurting Russia but are very seriously hurting Europeans and — indirectly — the rest of the world. “Russia rakes in more oil revenue than ever” says the Wall Street Journal by exporting almost as much crude as it did before the conflict in Ukraine… but at much higher prices.

“Now Russia has new buyers, new means of payment, new traders and new ways of financing exports”. By the way, current electricity prices in Germany are already almost ten times higher than a year ago — and keep rising – while the EU’s energy market is rattled by fears over whether highly unstable power plants will be able to provide enough electricity this winter. So it´s not just a matter of even higher prices as grid “wherewithal” is at stake with simply not enough energy available. Unmanageable price inflation is thus unstoppable. From fertilizer to aluminum production and every single commodity in between are all being seriously hindered by current ( self-inflicted ) truly soaring European energy costs.

It´s simple, and as per the German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck´s own words, “just expect the worst“. Meaning areas with no energy, no fuels, no power at any price, period. Or as plain Germans would have it, just expect “kaputt”. So this “new” German and European business model does not impress or fly well. And even on the basis of self-righteous exceptionalistic ideologies and newly-found virtuous ´moral´ arguments, current immolation of defenseless Europeans is a nonsensical price to be payed with this freezing green checkmate. Because there are no quick, ready-made, valid replacements of many / most Russian produce Europe depends upon, there is no real grass-roots political support either, and politicians cannot expect people to go along under the extreme hardship conditions soon to come.

Read more …

The central banks are not in control.

Federal Reserve Chair Announces Another 75 Point Rate Hike (CTH)

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced another 75-point increase in federal interest rates today. This is the third consecutive 0.75 percentage point increase. Additionally, Fed policymakers have pledged to continue raising rates as high as 4.6% in 2023. While Powell walked through his reasoning to continue targeting inflation by lowering consumer demand, not once in any of his remarks did he mention energy policy driving up the cost of materials and goods. The Great Pretending continues.:

The Fed chair is trying to manage the economic policy transition by reducing economic activity to match intentionally diminished energy supplies. Lowering economic activity drops demand for energy. Unfortunately, as admitted by Powell on August 26, 2022, in Jackson Hole, this means a period of “some pain” for Americans as the central banks join together in an effort to lower consumption. What does “some pain” mean? It means lower incomes, higher prices, lowered standards of living and more scarce resources. During this transition to owning nothing and being happy about it, the pain is your wealth being stripped as the economy is intentionally diminished.


We will not be able to afford much; we won’t be able to afford the foods we want; we will not be able to purchase anything except the essentials, and those essentials will cost much more; we won’t be able to vacation, travel, or enjoy recreational activities; we won’t be able to afford any indulgences; but at the end of the process, we will learn to live more meager existences based on lowered expectations needed for sustaining the planet. Pay no attention to the elites who don’t have those concerns, comrade.

Read more …

“..Albion is really in squeaky bum time…”

The European Central Bank’s Zimbabwean Model (Hayes)

Though the function of European, German, Japanese and Zimbabwean central banks is to enable the credibility and efficiency of the financial side of their respective economies so that the real side of their economies may achieve the nation’s broader macro economic goals, NATO’s central banks have obviously and disastrously abandoned those tasks for reasons this article makes apparent. Because Zimbabwe, like Germany’s Weimar Republic before it, has reached annual inflation rates of 90 sextillion per cent a year, Europe should not be emulating the financial and economic basket case of Harare. Whatever about Zimbabwe, Germany has been famously down this road before and, in a total reversal of earlier post-war policies, seems determined to traverse it again. The European Central Bank, based in Frankfurt, is printing euros as quickly as their colleagues in Zimbabwe are printing Zimbabwean dollars, as the Confederates printed their Greybacks and as Weimar printed their famously worthless marks.

Although Weimar’s woes were many, two of the most pertinent were that the Kaiser borrowed immensely to fund his armies, whose victories were supposed to enable him to repay his nation’s debts, and that the Western allies bled defeated Germany’s resources dry, thus opening the way for Herr Hitler once Weimar fell. Europe’s central banks are following this very policy today. They are doling out billions to ease energy bills, to bribe farmers and, most notoriously, to feed the money laundering Ponzi scheme that is Zelensky’s Kiev junta. The money supply, at more than 15 trillion euros, is at record levels and real interest rates are in negative terrain, pauperizing pensioners but failing to kick start their fuel starved economies. Inflation,.Germany’s bane, is again on the march as too far much money is in search of far too few bags of fire wood; and English toilet paper has increased in price by 50% in the last few months, Albion is really in squeaky bum time.

As the European Central Bank’s leaders presently have no other card to play, they must think their printing presses are enough to prevail in Ukraine and to allow Europeans to both eat and heat themselves this winter. Not only is that wishful thinking on the part of ECB President Christine Lagarde, the ‘multi cultural’ Parisian, who previously fronted the IMF and who held senior Ministerial positions in the French government but it betrays her fundamental ignorance about monetary policy. The main aim of the euro was to have the stability of the German mark and the Dutch guilder and not to be as volatile as Lagarde’s French franc, which was devalued four times since 1945. Unlike Lagarde, the Central Bank of the Federal Republic of Germany, along with that of Japan, seemed to have understood monetary policy, which is best seen as being like the throttle of a motorbike which must, when necessary, allow more fuel to enter the economic engine but which also must not flood it by drowning it in Zimbabwean dollars, French francs, Confederate Greybacks or Lagardean euros.

Read more …

“Today, there is no optimal interest rate that will restore the balance between money demand and money supply ..”

How the West Poisoned Its Money (Varoufakis)

Negative prices make sense for bads, not goods. When a factory wants to remove toxic waste, it charges a negative price for it: its managers pay someone to get rid of it. But when central banks begin to treat money like car manufacturers treat spent sulfuric acid, or nuclear power stations their radioactive wastewater, one knows that something is rotten in the kingdom of financialized capitalism. Some commentators now hope that Western money is being purified in the flames of inflation and interest-rate hikes. But inflation is not driving the poison out of the West’s money system. After more than a decade of addiction to poisoned money, no obvious detoxification method presents itself. Inflation today is not the same beast the West faced in the 1970s and early 1980s.

This time around, it threatens labor, capital, and governments in ways that it could not 50 years ago. Back then, labor was organized enough to demand wage increases that averted a cost-of-living crisis, and neither states nor private corporations relied on free money to keep going. Today, there is no optimal interest rate that will restore the balance between money demand and money supply that does not trigger a massive wave of private and public bankruptcy. That is the long-term price of poisoned money. The US government faces the impossible dilemma of curbing domestic inflation and forcing Corporate America and many friendly governments into a solvency crisis that will threaten America’s own stability.

Things are far worse in the eurozone, where policymakers refused to do the obvious once Europe’s banks had failed after 2008: establish a proper federation’s foundation – a fiscal union. Instead, they let the European Central Bank do “whatever it takes” to save the euro. Only by poisoning its own money could the ECB keep the euro show on the road. Today, the ECB owns huge quantities of Italian, Spanish, French, even Greek debt that it can no longer justify holding as a means of achieving its inflation target, but which it cannot renounce without calling the euro’s existence into question.

Read more …

The archdruid finishes off nuclear power.

Beyond the Peak (Greer)

Coal had two world-changing effects. The first, the one everyone thinks of, is that it could be used to power steam engines, replacing wind, water, and muscle power first in dozens, then in hundreds, and finally in thousands of uses. The second, less widely known but just as dramatic, is that it could be used via the Bessemer process to produce steel in previously unimaginable amounts. Steel plus steam power drove the industrial revolution, sent railroads scything across continents and steamships driving through oceans, and transformed human life in a galaxy of ways.

Then, about the time coal reserves started to run short, petroleum (and its gaseous form, natural gas) came into general use. More chemically complex than coal, petroleum had even more net energy, and shifted the industrial revolution into overdrive. Airplanes, automobiles, plastics, industrial lubricants, the entire modern chemical industry—the list just keeps on going. Lewis Mumford, one of the twentieth century’s most insightful students of energy and civilization, argued that the distinction between coal-fired technologies and petroleum-fueled technologies was significant enough to define a change of eras: he called the coal period the Paleotechnic Era, and the petroleum period the Neotechnic Era.

The assumption all along was that petroleum would eventually run short and have to be replaced by something else, leading to a third technic era. By 1950 nearly everyone assumed that what would replace it was nuclear power. You have to read books from that time to get a sense of just how inevitable the coming nuclear era was thought to be. Even avant-garde ecological thinkers treated nuclear power as the next inevitable thing. Pick up any of the works of Paolo Soleri, Frank Lloyd Wright’s most innovative student, who imagined humanity settling in gigantic city-sized buildings called arcologies so that the natural world could be allowed to thrive elsewhere. Each of his arcologies was supposed to be powered by its own nuclear power plant.

That, in turn, was where the dream ran off the rails, because it turned out that nuclear power doesn’t pay for itself. It’s not economically viable, because its net energy is so low. Thus it wasn’t Chernobyl or Fukushima Daiichi that brought the nuclear dream to a grinding halt, it was a long series of financial disasters suffered by utilities that got suckered into the nuclear hoopla, above all the bankruptcy of the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS, unfondly remembered as “Whoops!” by the many thousands who lost money on it).

Read more …

“If Republicans take the House as expected in the midterms, the Democrats now effectively took ownership of Hunter — a political proprietary claim that few would relish.”

House Democrats Take Ownership of Hunter (Turley)

House Democrats on the Oversight Committee took a vote on Tuesday that could come back to haunt them. All of the 23 Democrats voted not to inquire into the influence peddling scheme of Hunter Biden and the Biden family. Rep. James Comer (R-KY) proposed a “resolution of inquiry” in light of growing evidence of not just a possible multimillion dollar influence peddling operation by Hunter and his uncle, but the knowledge of his father, President Joe Biden. At a minimum, it appears that President Biden’s repeated public denials of any knowledge of these dealings is false. Yet, the Democrats blocked any inquiry into the corruption. If Republicans take the House as expected in the midterms, the Democrats now effectively took ownership of Hunter — a political proprietary claim that few would relish.

The vote comes after 33 senators asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel in the matter, a call that I have repeatedly made in prior columns for over two years. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, called the resolution a “nakedly partisan effort” and accused Republicans of being “obsessed” with Hunter Biden. The vote, however, reveals a blind avoidance by Democrats of a corrupt scheme that brought in millions for the Biden family and may have benefitted the President himself. Even if no criminal acts are charged, the foreign dealings of Hunter and his uncle were clearly corrupt and leveraged access to Joe Biden to acquire windfall payments from governments and their surrogates. There is no good faith basis to refuse to investigate such a scheme designed to influence U.S. policy and policymakers.

Why wouldn’t the Congress want to know if there was a multimillion dollar influence peddling scheme reaching the very top of our government, including allegations of the involvement of foreign intelligence figures? The vote, however, does bring a modicum of clarity at long last. The House Democrats are now on record as actively blocking efforts to investigate this massive influence peddling scheme. The implications of that vote will likely become more clear if the House switches hands after the midterm elections. The Democratic members are not alone in such a reckoning. The mainstream media has been clearly moving to re-position itself in anticipation of possible criminal charges after years of blocking or downplaying the story.

Read more …

I honestly don’t understand how anyone can promote more vaccines after the New England Journal of Medicine reported Covid Vaccine Destroys Natural Immunity just last week.

EU Health Regulator Says Covid Pandemic Not Over (R.)

An official at the European Union’s drugs regulator said on Tuesday the Covid-19 pandemic was not over, contradicting US President Joe Biden, and that a planned vaccination campaign in the region during the cold season was key to fighting it. “We in Europe still consider the pandemic as ongoing and it’s important that member states prepare for rollout of the vaccines and especially the adaptive vaccines to prevent further spread of this disease in Europe,” the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Chief Medical Officer Steffen Thirstrup told a media briefing, referring to vaccines targeting specific strains of the virus. He was asked to comment on Biden’s remark in an interview broadcast on Sunday that “the pandemic is over”. “I cannot obviously answer why President Biden came to that conclusion,” Thirstrup said.


The World Health Organization has said the pandemic remains a global emergency but the end could be in sight if countries use the tools at their disposal. During the media briefing, EMA officials reaffirmed a call by the agency’s Executive Director Emer Cooke made last week in a Reuters Next Newsmaker interview that people in Europe should take whatever Covid-19 booster is available and recommended to them in the coming months. Apart from the original Covid vaccines, the EMA has in recent weeks endorsed a number of vaccines adapted to the Omicron variant of the virus for use as booster shots to ease the burden from a feared surge in infections during autumn and winter in Europe. The EMA’s head of vaccines strategy, Marco Cavaleri, said the agency was also looking into the use of the adapted shots as a primary course of vaccination and that there were discussions on the types of data that could support such an approval.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Fox MV

 

 

Sociopath
https://twitter.com/i/status/1572284911268003840

 

 

 

 

Hasty

 

 

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle September 22 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 72 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #116498

    Pablo Picasso Head of a woman 1939   • Russia Will Mobilize About 1.2% Of Her Mobilizational Potential (Saker) • Russia To Begin Partial Mobiliza
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle September 22 2022]

    #116499
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Continuing their epic genius: “Ukraine Threatens 5-Year Prison Sentence for Anyone Voting in “Sham Referendums”

    Yup, so if I’m a citizen and I vote wrong, well, no longer a citizen, can never come back. They’ll track and strafe you with F-15s. The 51st state like I said. And this is #Winning? Suppose they join Russia, but as you say, Russia is a terrible, bad country run by dictators and you want to come back, join and strengthen Ukraine. NOPE. You cannot come back and strengthen Ukraine. Ukraine must get only ever-smaller in a spiral of virtue and ascending perfection.

    “France Prepares to Nationalize Its Struggling Nuclear Industry”
    TyrannyPic
    https://i.redd.it/w3fy2lbacrwy.jpg

    Left-Right, of course they nationalize. No bankruptcy. If they were making money, not losing it, they would remain private. It’s only when they lose money that they need taxpayers. Bonus round: Utilities are public-private partnerships. The government is completely in the system, every day, setting rates, overseeing capital investment, following all executive pay. So if they are “struggling”, how can that by except via the direct oversight and knowledge of both Executives and Government? So handing the company to the government that just oversaw all the years of mismanagement will fix…what?
    You see why bankruptcy works now. You both dump all the bad deciders, and create and install a new and different working business approach. …That can also go bankrupt, and therefore has consequences. But we don’t have bankruptcy, which means we don’t have capitalism.

    “Man Accused of Murdering 18-Year-Old Conservative Released on Bail”

    16 out of 19 from the Left. And now includes the President. And AG. Who approve of the Left killing Supreme Court Justices.

    Fed .75 “hike”. Or more like a lackadaisical “wander”, a thousand points behind the curve.

    “”Chair Powell just announced another extreme interest rate hike while forecasting higher unemployment. I’ve been warning that Chair Powell’s Fed would throw millions of Americans out of work…” Says Liz Warren, who not only threw millions of Americans out of work, but shut off all medical screening and stopped kids in school that the CDC said were always perfectly safe. Then printed $3T, which we are now getting reports was stolen using a thousand little (political) scams, that caused the unemployment-making 9% inflation that Powell is addressing. So go on and tell me how it’s not your fault. Or anyone else in Congress or Government. It’s the fault of the poor and powerless, of course! They must pay!

    Speaking of being poor, broke, and powerless, now that Putin is mobilizing for WWIII, Biden has insured there is zero strategic oil reserve. …As predicted and warned against. Perhaps an act of Treason, but hey, I’m generous on these things. Joe has done more to undermine “democracy” and the Untied States than every MAGA voter combined. Good luck with your war, my man.

    “What does “some pain” mean? It means lower incomes, higher prices, lowered standards of living and more scarce resources. During this transition to owning nothing and being happy about it, the pain is your wealth being stripped as the economy is intentionally diminished.”

    Not true. Banks and Speculators make more money on shorts than longs. They get rich, and larger, not diminished at all. So this is merely a wealth transfer FROM the poor, TO the richest, non-working, non-productive welfare queens in world history. …Just like every other inflation from Weimar to Argentina.

    Or to put another way: this is your greatest opportunity in your lifetime to get rich. (With unprecedented risk)

    “Today, there is no optimal interest rate that will restore the balance between money demand and money supply ..”

    Yes, because Keynesianism is a fake system that doesn’t work. As we knew already by 1974 and Keynes himself said before he died. But denial is infinite if it makes me rich at your expense. That’s a win-win: I get rich and you die and leave me to it. This may not be exactly what happened the last time, impossible stag-flation happened against all economic models (except all those like Mises that worked) but it’s exactly the same as those times in that there is no optimal interest rate and all the Keynesian models didn’t work and ran everyone into the ditch. …Except government and traders, which is why we still have a system that failed 100 years ago still being promoted as credible today.

    Not to worry! We have Chicago’s MMT waiting to SUPER-inflate, since only half-inflating got us here. UBI!!! Kamikaze Allah Akbar! Becuase we know that $3T in Covid stimulus definitely did not cause the inflation and collapsing living standards that are killing everyone, not helping them. Just like 100% of times in history.

    Greer has problems here. Yes, electric is expensive. First of all, you have to transmit the grid with billions of wires; that has nothing to do with nuclear or generation. And Nuclear isn’t free: it’s a huge, complex system that has a lot of inputs. However, it does provide a lot of electric at profit compared to other choices. You dig up as much or more coal for example, to have perhaps greater ecological damage. But mainly, nuclear is so, SO large that just a few plants hold up most states. You cannot remove even one of them without blowing a hole back into the 19th century with them.

    The average nuclear plant lights 750,000 homes. So…your plan is to send ¾ of a million people at pop back to 1910? Any thoughts on the cost of ice deliveries, kerosene, house fires and candles? Cost of medical support when there is no hot or running water? ‘Cause those things sound a little expensive to me.

    Worse than this, for technical reasons a “grid” is really sort of a standing wave-form. People who draw on the grid disrupt the wave form. So it is essential to have a stable “flywheel” somewhere setting the baseline for small generation and use to interact with. Nuclear right now provides a lot of that backbone and at the moment nuclear is what makes ANY wind and solar possible. …Unless you want to invent and install an entirely new and different distribution system. So if you stop the nuclear plants, you stop all of today’s wind and solar farms as well.

    Thought of this way, we wouldn’t really care if it WERE a loss, which it isn’t. Or if the State subsidized it, which they sorta don’t. Because without it, you would have zero chance of any electric, solar, wind or otherwise. Yes, they’re expensive, but since they’re a huge portion of the grid we’re aware of how expensive it is. It’s right about this expensive, go look at your local electric bill. Since that means it costs $25 to run your fridge all year, it’s a bargain you would happily pay for at 10x the price. Thanks to the government helping, looks like you won’t have that option. You’ll get nothing instead.

    He may be aware of all this and probably is, but isn’t taking on that aspect in this particular article.

    “After the New England Journal of Medicine reported Covid Vaccine Destroys Natural Immunity just last week.”

    Yes, but it’s the NEJM, so no one believes them. Or shouldn’t, their own editor said there’s no longer a scrap of science between the covers. Kind of kidding though: Schrodinger’s Reality, like everything else, we believe a la carte: when they say one thing it’s true and real, when they print the opposite the next day they are stupid and false. Both sides are happy with this, and both point to the Rag as the “Appeal to Authority” the logical ‘fallacy’, as in “fallacious” “false”, “fake”, “wrong.” Maybe if we stop appealing to authority and think for ourselves this can stop but not ‘til then. Or hold anyone accountable for anything, ever, including fabricating all research and printing known lies, but the former is far more likely. Science hasn’t upheld honesty and denounced fabricators who openly kill people since before I was born.

    Thalidomide! Statins! Cholesterol! MTBE! There’s no mesothelioma! Roundup is safe as Water! Your doctor recommends Lucky Strikes and Coca-Cola for babies! Trust the Science. When have they ever been wrong?

    #116500
    Redneck
    Participant

    I have family members travelling around Europe at the moment. They say everything is normal , no signs of any kind of restrictions or shortages.

    #116501
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    My comment on JMG’s post this week:

    I can’t help but laugh when I remember how in in my twenties I thought that we could just grow hemp plants to provide bio-fuels that would save us from our energy predicament. Of course, back then I knew nothing of net energy or the fact that the world’s arable land was already fully dedicated to the task of feeding the world’s huge present-day population. I was pretty typical though, as such blithe and callow ignorance is pretty common among people in the industrialized world who consider themselves enlightened and educated.

    #116502
    those darned kids
    Participant

    #116503
    John Day
    Participant

    Boscohorowitz was burning some of the remaining midnight oil, coal, and natural gas last night, and quoting Firesign Theater… Michael Reid had posted this, which is actually somewhat similar…

    Beyond the Peak

    #116504
    zerosum
    Participant

    Let’s do the twist.
    Look over here.

    @ Redneck
    Now, I understand “The winners will write history”.
    ———–
    Opinion poll
    Join Russia:
    94% in favor in Donetsk, 93% in Lugansk, 87% in Zaporozhye and 80% in Kherson.
    ——-
    The elephant in the room
    The Shanghai Cooperation Council (SCO)

    ——-
    The Great Reset is basically a debt default/Jubilee (biblical) – and the EU/west/capitalism/NATO is a disaster that is falling apart.
    ——–
    USA Failed attempts at empire building
    “unprovoked wars”
    Ukraine proxy war, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, …..
    ———–
    Energy WAR
    consumption, distribution,
    • 10,000 anti-Russia Sanctions (Vilches)
    NATO´s “green” masochistic EUthanasia

    • Europe Implodes (Vilches)

    “just expect the worst“.
    Meaning areas with no energy, no fuels, no power at any price, period.

    money laundering Ponzi scheme that is Zelensky’s Kiev junta.
    ———-
    Wait, ……. there is more coming
    • The European Central Bank’s Zimbabwean Model (Hayes)
    • How the West Poisoned Its Money (Varoufakis)
    ————
    Justin Trudeau is Canada’s PM, (an elitist, snob, chosen, illusionist, narcissistic, controlling, fascist sociopath)
    ——–

    @Redneck

    I have family members travelling around Europe at the moment. They say everything is normal , no signs of any kind of restrictions or shortages.

    I also have family members that can afford to spent 6 months in Germany and to travel.
    They say everything is normal, and/but cost more.
    They also noticed that there was more unemployed, non-white immigrants in the streets.
    ———

    #116505
    John Day
    Participant

    “We’re the Space Force from On High!” … Scary-Church hymn, scary-church…

    #116506
    John Day
    Participant

    Oops, I see Ilargi put the Ecosophia piece up this morning, with a lot that I have stacked-up, as well.

    #116507
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    By simply announcing that it will guarantee the security of the referendums in the Donbas (etc.) Russia is saying that it has already taken full, permanent and non-negotiable possession of every area that participates in the voting. It’s a done deal, because Russia is explicitly saying, “We guarantee that there will be a safe and secure vote, and we guarantee that if you vote for Russian nationality we will protect you regardless of how people voted individually or how the voting goes overall.”

    Obviously there is only one way to fulfill such a guarantee, and that is by being in complete sovereign control of the regions who participate in the plebiscite.

    In other words, the decision part of it is over. The possession part of it is in progress. The intervening days and weeks before the announcement buys a little more prep time, that’s all.

    #116508
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ D Benton Smith
    Okay
    Does that mean a path to the end of killing and destruction.

    #116509
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Newsweek, September 21, 2022

    … just one snip:

    Strategic partnership with China remains an absolute foreign policy priority for Russia. It is sustainable, long-term, and does not depend on the volatility of the international environment. The relationship between Russia and China is characterized by deep mutual trust, mutual support in the protection of each other’s fundamental national interests, and willingness to expand mutually beneficial ties.

    Intensive and trust-based dialogue between the leaders – President Putin and President Xi – plays a key role. This February, the Russian leader visited Beijing, and on 15 September top-level negotiations were held in Samarkand on the margins of the Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO.

    In the context of heightened international tensions, the responsible approach adopted by Russia and China – permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – towards pressing issues is becoming increasingly relevant. Together with our Chinese friends, we will keep working on improving the world situation, facilitate the creation of a just multi-polar system based on the UN Charter, and, first of all, on the fundamental principle of the sovereign equality of states.

    … reminder at:

    https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-russias-sergey-lavrov-warns-us-it-risks-becoming-combatant-ukraine-war-1745064

    F.S.

    #116510
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @zerosum

    The ball is in Ukraine/NATO hands. Russia will take possession of the voting regions by ordering foreign forces currently on Russian soil to leave, and not break anything on the way out. Those foreign forces then have the decision power of whether to comply with those orders or resist. It’s NATO’s call.

    #116511
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Helmer back from his respite:

    Alas and alack for the Berlin Blockade of 1948-49 (Berliner Luftbrücke): those were the days when the Germans waved their salutes against the unification of Germany demilitarised and denazified; and cheered instead for their alliance with the US and British armies to fight another seventy years of war in order to achieve what they and Adolf Hitler hadn’t managed, but which they now hope to achieve under Olaf Scholtz — the defeat of the Russian Army and the destruction of Russia.

    How little the Germans have changed.

    But alas and alack — the Blockade now is the one they and the NATO armies aim to enforce against Russia. “We are drawing up a new National Security Strategy,” according to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. “We are taking even the most severe scenarios seriously.” By severe Baerbock means nuclear. The new German generation — she has also declared “now these grandparents, mothers, fathers and their children sit at the kitchen table and discuss rearmament.” …

    … continues at:

    RUSSIANS RAISE THEIR GLASSES – THE TOAST IS TO BEATING THE BLOCKADE OF MOSCOW

    F.S.

    #116512
    citizenx
    Participant

    @phoenixvoice

    Regarding commenter Chooch and the vitriolic rails against him and those who stand up for him…

    For as long as I remember I typically enjoy speaking with people who I know hold views that differ from my own. Even when I completely disagree, I am enriched by seeking to understand others’ beliefs and what leads them to that conclusion.

    Have you been ‘enriched’ by the covidian-cult ? How about the #slava ukr/us/nato cult?

    Does listening to ukr/us/nato or covid cult propaganda enrich you? Remind me how many bio-labs were active in UKR? How reasonable, logical, thoughtful and scientific have you found the covid-cult members to be?

    You married your abusive ex and complain about his behavior constantly. I will never marry the covid or nato cult… their abuses are obvious provided you’re not blinded by ones own ignorance.

    Little choo choo is an excellent case study. Choo rarely (if ever) expressed its own beliefs or views and why they were held- but rather copy/pasted #nato propaganda daily. If one did not agree with choo choo’s deluge of daily propaganda one was labeled as a “Z-tard” by choo choo.

    If one expressed any hesitation regarding covid jabs you were immediately labeled an anti-vax trump supporter. Putin apologist, RF disinformation agent, z-tard, Anti-vax, anti-science, pandemic of the unvaxxed, Can you see the connection yet?

    Just as every male is not an abusive asshole as you label your ex- every human not taking the jab is not anti-science. Any one who objects to the history of US/nato crimes is not “un-american”… anyone who calls out UKR is not a putin apologist.

    Do the research yourself- every post by choo choo is on file here- since Feb it has been a near daily deluge of copy/paste UKR propaganda, and if you object- well you’re a Z-Tard.

    Were you able to be enriched by your ex’s reasons, beliefs and actions? Good luck with the covid-cult and #ukr/nato cult. Same abuses, same reasons.

    “Don’t argue with fools” says Mark Twain. I’m not arguing with choo choo or deflatulance, I’m calling them out as the pos they have proven themselves to be. Supporting us/ukr/nato scum is the equivalent of ‘following the science’ by the covid cult scum. The cvd bio weapon kills, the cvd jab kills, the ukr/azov war kills.

    If a few harsh words bothers you in calling out the above- I’d respectfully say you are not prepared for the violence that has been forced upon us by the covid cult or the war cult. Neither cult has a baseline of human decency, they both must be destroyed. It’s going to take more then listening skills and playing nice nice with the cultists.

    #116513
    zerosum
    Participant

    Russia has been making new friends.
    USA has been attempting to poison those new relationships.

    #116514
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Madness is still out there:
    Friend of mine forwarded me this, an excerpt from the add for a small, one-time-contract drafting job posted:

    “Qualification: “Must have a drafting program, must be fluent using this program, must have experience drawing floor plans, No Covid 19 (I will bring a non-contact thermometer with me when we meet), proof of being vaccinated. I also wear mask, show you my forehead temperature, and vaccinating record.”

    “Job creator” was a lady, Chinese national, if one wonders.

    #116515
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    DBS
    Therefore, attempts to get more than one gives, (and I mean EVERY and ALL such attempts) will ever and always end in the destruction of the entity who attempts it.

    I see giving/receiving as a continuum: a yin/yang relationship
    There are many natural states where one entity receives more than it gives.
    The first one that comes to mind is pregnancy.
    The second is parenting.

    The child may have the opportunity later in life to give back to the parent on par with what was initially given…but not necessarily. Or, the child may “give back” as an adult by raising a child. But not necessarily. Declining to give back that initial investment does not lead to “destruction.” (Unless not having progeny is equated to “destruction” — but there are also very giving people who physically cannot have children and suffer the same fate.)

    A parasite takes more than it gives…and can lead to the destruction of the host, which may or may not lead to its own destruction.

    The difference between “receiving” and “taking” can be obvious…but also can be subtle, depending upon perspective. (Does a fetus “receive” or “take?” If the woman conceived willingly and deliberately, it can be seen as “receiving.” If conception was coerced, then it can be seen as “taking.” Regardless, the fetus is a neutral party, lacking any volition in the process.)

    Elderly and chronically infirm folks also take more than they give.

    “To everything there is a purpose
    And a time for every thing under the heaven”

    Human societies function when the young and middle-aged adults work and create more than they need for themselves, so that there is enough for them and for the young, the infirm, and the elderly. It is a moral failing when they do otherwise and leads to systemic breakdown when the problem is widespread.

    #116516
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Eurotardistan will never lower the sanctions, even as Der Winter Kommt forces the rump continent to burn their furniture to keep warm and heat up some hobo soup and bread crusts.

    Russia is done with the Collective West and Eurotardistan in particular.

    It will be an entire generation before relations normalize’, if ever.

    Eurotardistan will never re-industrialize.

    When their factories shut it’s gonna be beyond the memory of the current generation of inhabitants to ever see them open again.

    There’s a song by John Gorka called ‘Dogs & Thunder’

    A lyric from the song sums up the situation.

    There are doors that you walk through,
    that only swing one way,
    And once you cross their threshold
    there’s nothing words can say…..

    Happy Birthday Bruno!

    You are a real prince!

    #116517
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Zerosum, yesterday:
    We survived without food banks

    Before food banks, there were soup kitchens.
    In feudalism there was the woods, and other wild areas where sustenance could be foraged.
    In the Old Testament it was required that farmers not harvest the edges of the fields. The widows, orphans, and infirm were free to glean for their sustenance.
    With all land enclosed, owned, controlled…we have had to create food banks. And what happens? The food that is just past the sell by date, the extra is donated to the food bank which distributes it to the poor and downtrodden, most of whom have to transport themselves to the food bank, and then get home again.

    Is this really all that different from the gleaning by the impoverished of the Old Testament?

    #116518
    zerosum
    Participant

    Why are Our New Media showing images of …. (As if we care. As if its true)
    1. +1,000 arrested for demonstrating against the war.
    2. Airports crammed with rich wanting to escape from Russia
    3. Roads are jammed with rich trying to drive/emigrate to other countries

    #116519
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “Human societies function when the young and middle-aged adults work and create more than they need for themselves, so that there is enough for them and for the young, the infirm, and the elderly. It is a moral failing when they do otherwise and leads to systemic breakdown when the problem is widespread.”

    When 2008 happened i was 23 or 24. By bailing out the banks and the asset values my future was hampered. I count every year since 2008 as having damaged potential by the environment my elders created for me. 2020 can be seen as more of the same, everything had to be shutdown otherwise you were killing grandma. Everything since 2008 has been like Chronos eating his children. Just my point of view, but something to think on. If war breaks out it will just be more of the same.

    #116520
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Another thing: What’s with you guys? Why is everyone at everyone else’s throat?

    #116521
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks, Phoenixvoice, for ongoing thoughtful and insightful comments.

    #116522
    John Day
    Participant

    “Defensible Positions” is up, with a picture of unfinished work at dawn, and a lot of overlap with this blog. I’ll edit what I can… https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/defensible-positions

    Russia has announced the mobilization of 300,000 reservists, who already have a military specialty, from prior training and service. They will receive further training, and many will not be in combat duty, based on their specialties. This is apparently for next spring, and it is explicitly a preparation for major attacks by NATO forces, or Ukrainian forces with extensive foreign augmentation and supply.
    The timing of this announcement, coupled with the referenda in Novorussian areas, including Donetsk and Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson, indicates a sense of urgency, likely the expectation of some sort of fall offensive. (The Ukrainian forces don’t seem to have much more fall offensive left in them, so perhaps some western hybrid-war-false-flag-psy-op?)
    The effect of recognizing all of these regions as “Russia” after referenda declaring that to be the will and determination of their citizens, will be to place the tripwire for “attacking Russian soil” at their new borders with Ukraine, upping the ante for the west. The west has been careful to let Ukrainians do the dying, while arming and paying them. Other effects will include the Donetsk and Lugansk militias becoming Russian regular-army forces, with full benefits, and the removal of any question of negotiation of these territories back to “Ukraine”. Interestingly, Poland is making noises about holding a referendum in the Galician area of Ukraine, Western Ukraine, previously “Poland”.
    Andrei at the Vineyard of the Saker evaluates speeches by Putin and Minister of Defense, Shoigu, while pointing out that Russia can mobilize up to 25 million men for the army, making this a 1.2% mobilization. He gives a lot of other implications, also. The main one is that Russian military advances have been so conservative, that public opinion is now impatiently clamoring for more, and is consolidated behind this effort to defend Russia from a concerted attack by the US/NATO, the “west”.

    Russia will mobilize about 1.2% of her mobilizational potential (UPDATED!)

    Sergey Lavrov gave an interview to Newsweek. I excerpted this from the transcript. It is worth a full read.
    Sergey Lavrov: ​ ​Unfortunately, the global situation continues to degrade. The main cause, and I have had to speak about it repeatedly, is the persistent desire of the West led by the United States to ensure its global dominance, though it is impossible for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, Washington and its satellites do everything to slow down the process of democratization of international relations. They want to replace the UN-centred architecture formed in the wake of World War II and international law with some “rules-based order”. Acting in the worst colonial traditions, they divide the world into “democracies” and “authoritarian regimes”. They try to “press on” those who do not agree with this course, who pursue an independent policy and are guided by national interests, using unilateral sanctions, blackmail and blatant power play.
    ​ ​Today, Western states funnel weapons and military hardware into the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, and train Ukraine’s armed forces. NATO, U.S. arms are used to fire at the Russian territory bordering Ukraine, killing civilians there. The Pentagon does not hide the fact of passing on to Kiev intelligence and target designations for strikes. We record the presence of American mercenaries and advisers “in the battlefield”. The United States, in fact, is teetering on the brink of turning into a party to conflict. This is to your question about the risk of a direct collision between nuclear powers.
    ​ ​Unfortunately, Washington seems to be still living in the day before yesterday, thinking in terms of unipolarity. They cannot accept the fact that the modern world is no longer West-centred. And it will never be again. Today, strong, independent players from developing countries have emerged and they are increasingly visible. These states and their integration associations do not want to participate in the anti-Russian “crusade” instigated from Washington.

    Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Newsweek, September 21, 2022

    ​ I watched the video, with English subtitles, of Putin’s announcement speech, which is here. (He shows determination, and his right hand sometimes shows a little irritation , as well as decisively punctuating his comments. He mostly keeps “tells” like this under strict control, as usual.) ​ An excerpt:
    ​ ​There were over 7.5 million people living in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions before the outbreak of hostilities. Many of them were forced to become refugees and leave their homes. Those who have stayed – they number about five million – are now exposed to artillery and missile attacks launched by the neo-Nazi militants, who fire at hospitals and schools and stage terrorist attacks against peaceful civilians.
    ​ ​We cannot, we have no moral right to let our kin and kith be torn to pieces by butchers; we cannot but respond to their sincere striving to decide their destiny on their own.
    ​ ​The parliaments of the Donbass people’s republics and the military-civilian administrations of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions have adopted decisions to hold referend​a​ on the future of their territories and have appealed to Russia to support this.
    ​ ​I would like to emphasise that we will do everything necessary to create safe conditions for these referend​a​ so that people can express their will. And we will support the choice of future made by the majority of people in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
    ​ ​Friends,
    ​ ​Today our armed forces, as I have mentioned, are fighting on the line of contact that is over 1,000 kilometres long, fighting not only against neo-Nazi units but actually the entire military machine of the collective West.
    ​ ​In this situation, I consider it necessary to take the following decision, which is fully adequate to the threats we are facing. More precisely, I find it necessary to support the proposal of the Defence Ministry and the General Staff on partial mobilisation in the Russian Federation to defend our Motherland and its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to ensure the safety of our people and people in the liberated territories.
    ​ ​As I have said, we are talking about partial mobilisation. In other words, only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, will be called up.

    Address by the President of the Russian Federation

    ​ Moon of Alabama has more perspective on Putin and Shoigu speeches:
    ​ Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said (video, Sputnik report) that 300,000 reservist will be mobilized. Conscripts and people currently studying will not be send to Ukraine.
    He also said that, so far, 5,937 Russian soldiers have died during the war in Ukraine. (This number does not include the militia of the DPR and LPR, or the Wagner group, who have done most of the frontline work and thus have had higher losses.) Shoigu puts Ukrainian losses at some 62,000 killed and some 50,000 wounded. (I regard this as a low estimate.)
    Russia’s total military reserve, people who have previously gone through military training, is 25 million. It also has the equipment to arm those forces.
    There are rumors that the Ukraine is preparing for an all out offensive, mobilizing and preparing new units from Kiev and further west for one big push against the Russian and allied forces. It will take a few months to prepare for this. The Ukraine will need much more equipment and ammunition from the ‘west’, including ‘western’ tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, and has yet to train troops to be able to use it. It is likely intending to start the offensive only in spring.
    The call up Russia announced now may have the intent to draw Kiev into a premature launch of its general offensive. The mobilized Russian troops will take about three months to be ready for war. Russia could thus launch its own offensive during the winter season. In the meantime constant defensive work will continue to severely degrade the Ukrainian units which are currently on or near the frontlines.
    With a force of an additional 300,000 troops, far beyond the 100,000 to 150,000 engaged now in the war, the Russia forces could change their tactics from the slow grind that is happening now into a larger scale maneuver war with heavy strikes into the operational depth of the Ukrainian army.
    Belarus, allied with the Russian Federation, is also in the process of getting ready for war. It could, as it had threatened before, cut of the supply lines from the ‘west’ into the Ukraine in the western part of that country.
    Should current Ukrainian attacks on civilians and infrastructure in Russia and the Donbas regions continue, we can expect that the Russian forces will start to degrade Ukrainian infrastructure on a large scale. The electricity and railway networks would be the primary targets.
    Update:
    Some two weeks ago a successful Ukrainian offensive led to the retreat of Russian troops in the Kharkov region. That at least is the ‘western’ version of that story. A different narrative is that the Russian troops intentionally withdrew from the region to raise Russian calls for an escalation of the war. The Izium withdrawal was thus probably a mere catalyst for ‘starting in earnest’:
    The Russian public, which at first did not fully understand why the war was necessary, has since grown in its awareness. It now understands the big game that is played against its country. It may soon demand to adjust the level of resources put into the war to the one needed for a decisive victory. Polls will clarify if or when that point is reached.
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/russia-announces-partial-mobilization-the-gloves-are-coming-off.html#more

    #116523
    John Day
    Participant

    Novorussia is not Taiwan, but China cannot openly support a separatist referendum.
    ​ ​Various countries around the globe were quick to react (to Putin’s speech), most especially China, which issued a statement within hours after the speech calling for “ceasefire through dialogue”. China has throughout the war defended in various statements Russia’s ‘legitimate’ security concerns about NATO expansion while continuing to tout close, positive ties with Moscow.
    ​ ​But this is perhaps the first time Beijing has so clearly and publicly pushed for a ceasefire after such a key Moscow announcement, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin calling for “a cease-fire through negotiations and solutions that answer all parties’ security concerns,” according to state-run Global Times.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/china-reacts-putin-speech-urges-immediate-ceasefire-dialogue

    ​ ​Ukraine vows to solve ‘Russian question’ by force
    Ukraine has dismissed upcoming referendums on the Donbass republics joining Russia as “manipulation” and “fear of defeat”
    https://www.rt.com/russia/563175-kiev-condemns-referendums-russia/

    ​It was up to 12 years in prison. This is a reduced penalty. (The plural of “referendum” is “referenda”.):​
    Ukraine Threatens 5-Year Prison Sentence For Anyone Voting In “Sham Referendums”
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-threatens-5-year-prison-sentence-anyone-voting-sham-referendums

    #116524
    John Day
    Participant

    ​Bhadrakumar at Indian Punchline has a detailed and nuanced read of Indian PM, Modi’s statements and actions at the recent Samarkand summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization​ heads-of-state. He is critical, because Modi made little in the way of commitments, while pursuing fairly narrow nationalist policy goals.
    ​ ​Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at Samarkand on September 16 after the SCO Summit turned into a media scandal. The Western media zeroed in on six words culled out of context in the PM’s opening remarks — “today’s era is not of war” — to triumphantly proclaim that India is finally distancing itself from Russia on Ukraine issue, as the US and European leaders have been incessantly demanding.
    ​ ​Of course, this motivated interpretation lacks empirical evidence and is, therefore, malicious. Besides, Modi also spoke with a rare interplay of emotions by underscoring the quintessence of the Indian-Russian relationship, as well as his two decade-long association with Putin.​..
    ​https://www.indianpunchline.com/indias-gaffe-at-samarkand/

    ​ Modi is doing a lot for post-colonial India, though…​ (“Petro-Rupee”?)
    ​ ​India and Saudi Arabia are negotiating the “feasibility” of carrying out bilateral trade in national currencies, a statement from the Indian Commerce Ministry said.
    ​ ​Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal concluded his two-day visit to Riyadh, where he co-chaired a ministerial meeting of the India-Saudi Arabia Strategic Partnership Council.
    ​ ​The meeting was headed by Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud.
    ​ ​The Indian statement said the two ministers also discussed the introduction of Indian online payment systems such as UPI (Unified Payments Interface) in the Saudi market. They also discussed working out a way to introduce the New Delhi-backed Rupay card, an alternative to Mastercard and Visa, in the Saudi market.
    https://sputniknews.com/20220920/india-saudi-arabia-discuss-trading-in-local-currencies-as-new-delhi-moves-away-from-us-dollar-1101000692.html

    ​ Starve Africans into submission? Think that will work this time? What’s “Plan-B”? Oh …
    The real US agenda in Africa is hegemony​ ​, ​Pepe Escobar
    ​Forget development. Washington’s primary interest in Africa today is keeping the Chinese and Russians out.
    ​ ​In a rational environment, the 77th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) would discuss alleviating the trials and tribulations of the Global South, especially Africa.
    T​hat won’t be the case.

    The real US agenda in Africa is hegemony

    #116525
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Fed 0.75% rate hike purpose: Elimination of “discretionary spending”. Soak those beans now so you won’t need to open another can tonight.
    ​ ​The Fed chair is trying to manage the economic policy transition by reducing economic activity to match intentionally diminished energy supplies. Lowering economic activity drops demand for energy. Unfortunately, as admitted by Powell on August 26, 2022, in Jackson Hole, this means a period of “some pain” for Americans as the central banks join together in an effort to lower consumption.
    ​ ​What does “some pain” mean? It means lower incomes, higher prices, lowered standards of living and more scarce resources. During this transition to owning nothing and being happy about it, the pain is your wealth being stripped as the economy is intentionally diminished.

    Federal Reserve Chair Announces Another 75 Point Rate Hike

    ​ Yanis Varoufakis has more on that, without the cost-of-energy analysis, just monetary analysis:​
    ​ ​Inflation today is not the same beast the West faced in the 1970s and early 1980s. This time around, it threatens labor, capital, and governments in ways that it could not 50 years ago. Back then, labor was organized enough to demand wage increases that averted a cost-of-living crisis, and neither states nor private corporations relied on free money to keep going. Today, there is no optimal interest rate that will restore the balance between money demand and money supply that does not trigger a massive wave of private and public bankruptcy.​..​
    ​..​The US government faces the impossible dilemma of curbing domestic inflation and forcing Corporate America and many friendly governments into a solvency crisis that will threaten America’s own stability. Things are far worse in the eurozone, where policymakers refused to do the obvious once Europe’s banks had failed after 2008: establish a proper federation’s foundation – a fiscal union. Instead, they let the European Central Bank do “whatever it takes” to save the euro. Only by poisoning its own money could the ECB keep the euro show on the road.​..
    ​..​Socialism for bankers and austerity for most of the rest thwarted capitalism’s dynamism, plunging it into a state of gilded stagnation. Poisoned money flowed in torrents, but not into serious investments, good jobs, or anything capable of reanimating capitalism’s lost animal spirits.
    https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/west-poisoned-its-money-with-austerity-and-negative-interest-rates-by-yanis-varoufakis-2022-09

    ​ John Michel Greer, “The Archdruid” gives the cost-of-energy analysis on wind, solar and nuclear, finding that none of them has ever had enough (if any) excess-energy, after all input energy costs are calculated, to run a society, and none could actually be maintained without massive use of fossil fuels to sustain the advanced economic system that can employ them. Nuclear cleanup will not be possible after economic collapse, as there will be no specialists, technology or resources to do so.​ Thanks Michael R. https://www.ecosophia.net/beyond-the-peak/

    Not even profitable with very high electricity rates: France Prepares To Nationalize Its Struggling Nuclear Industry
    https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/france-prepares-nationalize-its-struggling-nuclear-industry

    #116526
    John Day
    Participant

    Serbia has a special place in modern European history:
    The President of Serbia has warned that the planet is entering into a “great world conflict” that could take place within the next two months.
    ​ ​Aleksandar Vucic made the alarming comments during the first day of the UN General Assembly session in New York.
    ​ ​“You see a crisis in every part of the world,” Vucic told the Serbian state broadcaster RTS.
    ​ ​“I think realistic predictions ought to be even darker,” he added. “Our position is even worse, since the UN has been weakened and the great powers have taken over and practically destroyed the UN order over the past several decades.”
    The Serbian leader cautioned that the war between Russia and Ukraine had moved on to a far deadlier phase.
    ​ ​“I assume that we’re leaving the phase of the special military operation and approaching a major armed conflict, and now the question becomes where is the line, and whether after a certain time – maybe a month or two, even – we will enter a great world conflict not seen since the Second World War,” he said.

    Serbian President Warns of “Great World Conflict” Within Two Months

    ​ NO winners, Mr. Stoltenberg, none, anywhere …​ A world of unfathomable loss and deprivation
    ​ ​NATO has told Moscow very clearly that Russia cannot win a nuclear war and has been amassing troops on its eastern border to “remove any room for miscalculation or misunderstanding,” the secretary general of the US-led bloc, Jens Stoltenberg, told Reuters on Wednesday…
    ..Asked what NATO would do in the event that Russia used atomic weapons, however, Stoltenberg said it “depends” on the circumstances, but that the bloc was very clear in their communications with Moscow that “a nuclear war cannot be won by Russia.”
    https://www.rt.com/news/563266-nato-nuclear-war-russia/

    ​ About this weekend’s rumored “special date and event”:
    ​ In biblical times, the laws of the sabbatical year and the jubilee were created. In the sabbatical (seventh) year there was to be a remission of debts and in the jubilee (50th) year, land, which had been sold to pay of debts, was to be returned to its original owners, and slaves were to be freed. There may be academic debate about the degree to which the sabbatical year and jubilee were a regular part of life in ancient times, but there is no doubting the principles that underpin them. That is, people find themselves in debt for various reasons, often no fault of their own, and it is the duty of an ethical society to ensure that these people are not permanent social outcasts. (or slaves and sex-slaves, as was more commonly their fate)
    https://rac.org/jewish-values-and-debt-relief

    #116527
    John Day
    Participant

    UK population data has shown “negative efficacy” of COVID “vaccination” 5-6 months after series-completion, since at least June 20211.
    Japanese Study Finds In-Vitro Evidence of Antibody Dependent Enhancement of SARS-2 Infection by Moderna mRNA Vaccines
    The study also finds evidence of ADE by the REGEN-COV/Ronapreve monoclonal antibodies
    https://www.eugyppius.com/p/japanese-study-finds-in-vitro-evidence?

    ​ (Finally released) UK data shows higher all-cause-mortality with COVID “vaccinations”, with multiple modes of injury apparent.
    ​ ​It is not precisely known how the vaccine contributes to death in the absence of SARS-CoV-2. A recent paper on 4 deaths (3 sudden deaths at 1, 2, and 3 days and 1 at 10 days post vaccination) involving cytokine storm [Murata K et al., Frontiers in Immunology, 15 August 2022] indicates the KEGG pathways upregulated in blood involved neutrophil degranulation, upregulated cytokine signaling, glycolysis, NFKB1 signaling, FC gamma mediated phagocytosis, myeloid cell activation, and tuberculosis when compared to accidental or homicidal deaths of those who had been vaccinated. Moreover, 6 differentially expressed upregulated genes were FCGR2A (commonly implicated in ADE), S100A8, OLR1, CXCL8, CEBPB, and IGFBP2 which further implied the M1-like lipid body negative, pro-inflammatory foamy macrophages (LB-FMs) in the dysfunction which led to sudden death. Table 9 from the July 6 2022 ONS report shows while most non-COVID-19 deaths occurred at 12 weeks or later, a significant number occurred at 1 week which doubled by 4 weeks.
    https://hervk102.substack.com/p/surprisinglyplain-and-simple

    #116528
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @MrHouse you asked, ” What’s with you guys? Why is everyone at everyone else’s throat?”

    Taking the two questions up in reverse order;

    Q : “Why is everyone at everyone else’s throat?”
    A: Anxiety

    Q : “What’s with you guys?”
    A : The truthful answer will be unpopular, but I think we are well past worrying about something as silly as popularity, so here goes: TAE has drawn the attention of top tier intelligence interests who are applying very sophisticated psychological operations, using duped (for the most part) human operatives, and assisted by the finest AI to disrupt our dangerously fruitful conversation. More than a few of the folks on TAE already know or suspect this, and recognize that it just goes with the territory when you set off to find the truth. Some others (a majority) are smart enough to consider this statement I’ve just made to be theoretical, and will continue sorting through all of the probabilities to make their own minds up about that.
    And finally, of course, there are the poor misguided souls who are so tangled up in all of it that they don’t don’t know what the fuck to think.
    It’s enough to make folks go for each others throats sometimes, ya know?

    #116529
    John Day
    Participant

    DBS said: “It’s enough to make folks go for each others throats sometimes, ya know?”

    Stomp the arch of the foot, instead. What’cha think, Boscohorowitz?

    #116530
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @JohnDay advised, ” . . . Stomp the arch of the foot, instead”

    My preferred method has always been to carve my initials flamboyantly (but bloodlessly!) onto the front of their tunic with my rapier, like Zorro used to do. And let me tell ya, D B S is a very complicated set of initials to carve when engaged in a cogni/spiritual sword fight.

    #116531
    John Day
    Participant

    “D B S is a very complicated set of initials to carve when engaged in a cogni/spiritual sword fight.”

    I’m not that far along.
    Still trying to “know my enemy and know myself”…

    #116532
    John Day
    Participant

    Time to ponder things on a bike ride.

    #116534
    willem
    Participant

    @DBS: ” TAE has drawn the attention of top tier intelligence interests who are applying very sophisticated psychological operations, using duped (for the most part) human operatives, and assisted by the finest AI to disrupt our dangerously fruitful conversation.”

    Or perhaps we think a bit too much of ourselves… (and nothing personal intended in this comment)

    #116533
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Latest message from Mr. Copper [Simon Hunt]:

    Me, paraphrasing the title of following vid [A Global Depression By 2025? Trade Expert Simon Hunt Predicts That’s Inevitable], … Oh God, …we are fucked!

    … anyway, vid:

    F.S.

    #116535
    willem
    Participant

    @phoenixvoice and others: I think humans in functional social groups have symbiotic relationships with one another, e.g., of two that might be in a cooperative relationship, both gain more on an individual basis than either would if working alone. This should be taken over the lifespan of the membership in the social group, not on a short-term basis.

    #116536
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    There are numerous reports about how large parts of German and British industries will be shuttered. Economists forecast a drop in GDP in 2023 : 1% in Germany and 0.5% in the UK!!!!? My guesstimate would be 10% to 30%!

    I regard countries as ‘black boxes’. What happens internally is not relevant, it is what happens at the boundary – the flow of goods, money and people. The export of goods is critical to generate cash to pay for imports.

    I used to work in IT for an American stockbroker. Someone found out we were described as ‘non-productive personnel’! What they meant was that we did make money directly – we were an overhead. Industry, along with farmers, are important in producing goods for export and producing goods to reduce the amount of imports. This supports all the ‘non-productive personnel’ in the country and so could have a wider impact than people may think.

    Another aspect is that a factory may produce components for other factories, which could again cause a wider impact.

    Keynes suggested that building factories increased the number of people employed and increased the amount of wealth to buy other goods which meant more factories could be built, and so on. This will be Keynesian theory in fast reverse!

    #116537
    Red
    Participant

    Dr.D:
    Both sides are happy with this, and both point to the Rag as the “Appeal to Authority” the logical ‘fallacy’, as in “fallacious” “false”, “fake”, “wrong.” Maybe if we stop appealing to authority and think for ourselves this can stop but not ‘til then.

    Stopped appealing to authority a long time ago. It is fun however to used the perceived authority against the cultist’s when it contradicts itself just to watch the facial contortions, back peddling and sputtering that inevitably ensues. I just walk away with a little smile.

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 72 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.