Apr 132023
 
 April 13, 2023  Posted by at 8:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


John William Godward Dolce Far Niente (Sweet Idleness, or A Pompeian Fishpond) 1904

 

Waiting For The End of The World (Pepe Escobar)
Zelensky, Team Stole At Least $400 Million Of Western Aid – Seymour Hersh (RT)
US Admin Losing Trust Among Its Intelligence Community – Seymour Hersh (TASS)
Musk Calls Out BBC Reporter Over ‘Lies’ (RT)
Six Things We Learned From Elon Musk Interview (BBC)
Ukrainian Counteroffensive Could Be Postponed – PM (RT)
US Planning For ‘Wild Card’ Scenarios In Ukraine – NYT (RT)
Xi Warns Armed Forces To Prepare For ‘Actual Combat’ – Chinese Media (RT)
Putin Warrant Could Derail BRICS Summit – South Africa (RT)
Joe Biden Boosted Ukraine Gas Industry As Hunter Took Burisma Role (NYP)
Trump Files $500 Million Lawsuit vs Michael Cohen (RT)
Ten Men, $1 Trillion, and the Personalization of American Capitalism (Schultz)
The Retreat From the Enlightenment Can be Stopped (BI)
The COVID Vaccines Were Never Tested for Safety (Kirsch)
Doctors Received Millions in Bonuses for Vaccinating Medicaid Patients (CHD)
US Government Borrows $6 Billion a Day (Whitehead)

 

 

Polish PM Morawiecki visited the White House

 

 


According to Russia, the Ukrainian biolabs were/are testing 200+ deadly pathogens

 

 

Ritter Geneva

 

 

 

 

Agenda21
https://twitter.com/i/status/1645581639119151105

 

 

Candace
https://twitter.com/i/status/1645870936959389700

 

 

Trump Tucker

 

 

Surovikin : I don’t want to sacrifice any more Russian soldiers in a guerrilla war against hordes of fanatics armed by NATO. We have enough forces & technical means to bring Ukraine to complete surrender”

 

 

 

 

“Xi and Putin, with one Sun Tzu move, immobilized Orientalism, Eurocentrism, Exceptionalism and, last but not least, Neo-Colonialism..”

Waiting For The End of The World (Pepe Escobar)

We cannot even begin to fathom the non-stop ripple effects deriving from the 2023 geopolitical earthquake that shook the world: Putin and Xi, in Moscow, de facto signaling the beginning of the end of Pax Americana. This has been the ultimate anathema for rarified Anglo-American hegemonic elites for over a century: a signed, sealed, comprehensive strategic partnership of two peer competitors, intertwining a massive manufacturing base and pre-eminence in supply of natural resources – with value-added Russian state of the art weaponry and diplomatic nous. From the point of view of these elites, whose Plan A was always a debased version of the Roman Empire’s Divide and Rule, this was never supposed to happen. In fact, blinded by hubris, they never saw it coming.

Historically, this does not even qualify as a remix of the Tournament of Shadows; it’s more like Tawdry Empire Left in the Shade, “foaming at the mouth” (copyright Maria Zakharova). Xi and Putin, with one Sun Tzu move, immobilized Orientalism, Eurocentrism, Exceptionalism and, last but not least, Neo-Colonialism. No wonder the Global South was riveted by what developed in Moscow. Adding insult to injury, we have China, the world’s largest economy by far when measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), as well as the largest exporter. And we have Russia, an economy that by PPP is equivalent or even larger than Germany’s – with the added advantages of being the world’s largest energy exporter and not forced to de-industrialize. Together, in synch, they are focused on creating the necessary conditions to bypass the US dollar.

Cue to one of President Putin’s crucial one-liners: “We are in favor of using the Chinese yuan for settlements between Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.” A key consequence of this geopolitical and geoeconomic alliance, carefully designed throughout the past few years, is already in play: the emergence of a possible triad in terms of global trade relations and, in many aspects, a Global Trade War. Eurasia is being led – and largely organized – by the Russia-China partnership. China will also play a key role across the Global South, but India may also become quite influential, agglutinating what would be a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on steroids. And then there is the former “indispensable nation” ruling over the EU vassals and the Anglosphere rounded up in the Five Eyes.

The Hegemon, under its self-concocted “rules-based international order”, essentially never did diplomacy. Divide and Rule, by definition, precludes diplomacy. Now their version of “diplomacy” has degenerated even further into crude insults by an array of US, EU and UK’s intellectually challenged and frankly moronic functionaries. It’s no wonder that a true gentleman, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, has been forced to admit, “Russia is no longer a partner of the EU… The European Union ‘lost’ Russia. But the Union itself is to blame. After all, EU member states… openly declare that Russia should be dealt a strategic defeat. That is why we consider the EU to be an enemy organization.” And yet the new Russian foreign policy concept, announced by Putin on March 31st, makes it quite clear: Russia does not consider itself an “enemy of the West” and does not seek isolation.

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“..Zelensky “was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals..”

Zelensky, Team Stole At Least $400 Million Of Western Aid – Seymour Hersh (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his senior officials are skimming American taxpayer dollars by the hundreds of millions, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claimed on Wednesday. The alleged grift even includes schemes involving trade with Russia itself. Zelensky and his entourage embezzled at least $400 million from US funds meant for diesel procurement last year, Hersh claimed in a new article on Substack, citing a CIA estimate. Meanwhile, Kiev has allegedly been buying diesel fuel, which is essential for the war effort, from Russia itself – and in the process skimming large sums of US funds earmarked for diesel payments. Reports had earlier surfaced about how oil products originating in Russia had made their way to Ukraine through Bulgaria and Latvia. The scheme involving the Baltic state, which was reported in detail by the Latvian television program Neka Personiga, may have violated the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions.

An expert cited by Hersh compared the level of corruption in Ukrainian procurement to what was seen in Afghanistan, when a US-backed government was in charge in Kabul. According to his sources, ministries in Kiev compete to set up front firms in order to export weapons and ammunition, with the relevant officials profiting from kickbacks. The US government , meanwhile, has stated that it has seen no evidence of Western-supplied weapons in Ukraine being diverted elsewhere. Hersh cited an intelligence source who referred to the January meeting between Zelensky and CIA Director William Burns. The US official allegedly presented a list of 35 generals and ministers known to the CIA to be corrupt. Senior Ukrainian officials also complained that Zelensky “was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals,” the source explained, comparing the meeting to a scene from a 1950s mob movie.

Hersh contends that the Ukrainian leader’s response was to fire staff from the Cabinet of Ministers, regional administrations, and other parts of the Ukrainian government. Kiev claimed the move was part of its anti-corruption strategy. Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov, who became mired in a scandal over purchases of overpriced food for troops, was widely expected to be sacked at the time, but he survived the purge. Hersh’s sources blamed Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan for the ongoing crisis in the US government, which allegedly suffers from discord between the White House and intelligence community. The two top foreign policy officials have shown “strident ideology and lack of political skill” over the Ukraine conflict, according to the sources.

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“..depicting Blinken “as little more than a ‘jumped-up congressional staffer’ and Sullivan as ‘a political campaign manager’.”

US Admin Losing Trust Among Its Intelligence Community – Seymour Hersh (TASS)

The indecisiveness and indifference of US President Joe Biden’s administration on a number of issues is leading to a breakdown in trust between the White House and some arms of the intelligence community, US investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh said in an article posted on the Substack subscription network on Wednesday. A lack of leadership is “leading to a ‘total breakdown’ of trust between the White House and some elements of the intelligence community,” he wrote.


Among other things, the work of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is a source of dissatisfaction for the intelligence community, since “the president and his two main foreign policy advisers ‘live in different worlds’ than the experienced diplomats and military and intelligence officers assigned to the White House,” he wrote. Hersh quoted “a prominent retired American diplomat who strenuously opposes Biden’s foreign policy toward China and Russia” as depicting Blinken “as little more than a ‘jumped-up congressional staffer’ and Sullivan as ‘a political campaign manager’.” The diplomat qualified them as ‘decent pols’ who “suddenly find themselves front and center in the world of high-powered diplomacy ‘with no empathy for the opposition’,” Hersh said.

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Apart perhaps from global political leaders, Musk is one of the most interesting people for a news outlet to interview. The BBC gets the chance, and what do they do? They send in amateur hour.

BBC: “Hate speech has risen on twitter. I’ve seen it personally” @elonmusk “Can you name an example”. BBC reporter: “No, because I don’t use that feed after you took it over..

Musk Calls Out BBC Reporter Over ‘Lies’ (RT)

Elon Musk has accused a BBC reporter of lying about hate speech on Twitter. An audio excerpt from a Twitter Spaces discussion showed US-based tech journalist James Clayton struggling to justify his own questions on the alleged rise of offensive content on the social media platform. At one point in the interview, Clayton asked Musk to respond to claims that hate speech had become more prevalent on Twitter, and that there was not enough moderation staff after Musk admitted to laying off over 80% of the company’s workforce since his takeover last October. After Musk asked the reporter to clarify the allegations, Clayton claimed that he had personally seen more “hateful content” in his ‘For You’ feed since the billionaire took over the company.

Musk BBC

The Twitter CEO then asked the journalist to define what he meant by “hateful content” and to provide at least one example of an offensive post he had seen. Clayton replied that he views “hateful content” as “slightly racist” and “slightly sexist,” but struggled to provide any examples, admitting that hadn’t actually used the feed for several weeks. “Then, I say, sir, that you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Musk interjected. You can’t provide a single example of hateful content, not even one Tweet. And yet, you claimed that hateful content was high. That is false. You just lied. The BBC reporter insisted that there are “many organizations” that have noted a rise in offensive content on the platform. Musk dismissed that notion, stating that “people say all sorts of nonsense,” which prompted Clayton to move on to the next topic.


The journalist then asked Musk about Twitter changing its Covid misinformation rules. The billionaire replied that “Covid is no longer an issue” and argued that the BBC itself could be accused of spreading misinformation about the virus and failing to report on the side-effects of vaccinations. “And what about the fact that the BBC was put under pressure by the British government to change their editorial policy?” Musk asked. Clayton deflected by saying the interview “wasn’t about the BBC.” The British broadcaster later aired parts of the interview and simply ran with the headline: “Elon Musk speaks to the BBC.” Despite his criticism of the broadcaster, Musk said during the interview that Twitter will change the BBC’s recently added “government-funded organization” label on the social media platform to say that it is “publicly-funded” instead.

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And no, BBC, you can’t make up for that interview disaster.

Six Things We Learned From Elon Musk Interview (BBC)

1. He denies hate speech on Twitter has spiked. Mr Musk refused to accept there was more hateful content on the platform since he took over. Speaking to the BBC earlier this year, some Twitter insiders have argued that the company is no longer able to protect users from trolling, state-coordinated disinformation and child sexual exploitation, following lay-offs and changes under owner Mr Musk. In March, Twitter said it removed 400,000 accounts in one month alone to help “make Twitter safer”. In order to assess Mr Musk’s claims fully you’d need two things which we don’t have at present – access to Twitter’s data before and after his takeover and, crucially, a clear understanding of how he defines misinformation and hate speech. There is no blanket definition of hate speech under American law, which is generally much more permissive than other countries because of the first amendment to the US Constitution.

[..] 3. He says Twitter is beating the bots in war on disinfo. Mr Musk claimed his efforts to delete bots – automated accounts – had decreased misinformation on Twitter after his takeover. “My experience is there is less misinformation rather than more,” he told our reporter. Some outside experts disagree. A study from Newsguard which tracks online misinformation – and there are quite a few other studies along the same lines – found that engagement with popular, misinformation-spreading accounts spiked after Mr Musk’s takeover. In the week following his acquisition of Twitter, the most popular, untrustworthy accounts enjoyed an almost 60% increase in engagement in the form of likes and retweets, according to the survey. The BBC has also independently analysed more than 1,000 previously-banned accounts that had been let back on Twitter after Mr Musk’s takeover, and found that since being reinstated, over a third of them had spread abuse or misinformation. This included false anti-vax claims, misogyny and anti-LGBT rhetoric, and the denial of the 2020 US election result.

4. He’s against banning TikTok. Mr Musk says he doesn’t use the most downloaded app in the US but he is against any moves to close it down. The US is considering a ban due to security concerns over TikTok’s Chinese ownership. Some other countries have banned it from the phones of government employees. “I’m generally against banning things,” said Mr Musk, although he says a ban would benefit Twitter because it may mean more people spending time on his platform.

5. He would turn down $44bn for Twitter. Mr Musk initially claimed in the interview that if someone offered to buy Twitter right now for what he paid for it, he’d refuse. If he did sell, he said it would be more important to find a buyer who cherishes the “truth” rather than how much they’d pay because, as he says: “I don’t care about the money.” But is that true? Remember, he desperately tried to back out of the deal. Mr Musk said Twitter had just months left to live when he took over and was being run like a non-profit. Twitter’s costs were outstripping the amount of revenue it was generating. In its last full-year results published before Mr Musk took over, total sales hit $5bn in 2021 but costs and expenses reached $5.5bn. In fact, it has only had two profitable years since 2012. He reckons Twitter is now close to breaking even. No wonder – sacking 6,500 workers does tend to lighten one’s costs.

But he has also been proactive in finding ways to boost sales through things such as changing Twitter users for “blue tick” verification. So yes, Twitter might be nearing breaking even now because of drastic cost-cutting. But the question is whether it can sustain that path to profitability and make the company worth that $44bn price tag.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1646152389122981888

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“..Kiev faced significant “force generation and sustainment shortfalls.”

Ukrainian Counteroffensive Could Be Postponed – PM (RT)

The much-touted Ukrainian counteroffensive may not get underway until this summer, the country’s prime minister has told The Hill. Denis Shmigal also called on Kiev’s Western backers to provide it with more weapons, including fighter jets, to ensure that Ukraine prevails on the battlefield. In an interview published by the US outlet on Tuesday, Shmigal claimed that Ukraine does not “feel the pressure from our friends and partners vis-a-vis the start of the offensive.” Instead, he argued it is the Ukrainian public that is demanding decisive action soon. The senior official noted that there is consensus among Kiev’s backers that it needs to be “100%, and even more percent prepared” before launching its push.

“To be prepared for [a] counteroffensive, we need more artillery, ammunition. We need more middle, or average and long-range missiles, we need tanks and we will need fighter jets,” Shmigal asserted. While expressing gratitude for the defense aid already provided by the US, the premier did criticize Washington for its reluctance to consider Ukraine’s accession to NATO in the foreseeable future. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing alleged leaked Pentagon documents, that US intelligence had been skeptical in February as to whether Ukraine would be able to make significant territorial gains with a counteroffensive. According to a supposedly classified document, Kiev faced significant “force generation and sustainment shortfalls.”

A separate part of the leaked trove suggested that five out of the 12 “combat credible” new brigades expected to spearhead the counteroffensive had yet to start training at that point. Half of those fresh brigades badly lacked the necessary equipment as of late February, the paper claimed, citing supposed analysis by the US military. The Pentagon is also said to have raised the alarm over the depletion of Kiev’s air defenses – another factor that could prevent the anticipated counteroffensive from being a success, the Post reported. While some of the documents from the trove appear to have been doctored, US defense officials have acknowledged that at least some of the information could be “sensitive and highly-classified material.” An investigation has been launched to establish the source of the leak.

Ritter Wagner

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“The four outcomes considered by the DIA are the deaths of either Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky or Russian President Vladimir Putin, the removal of leadership within the Russian Armed Forces, or a Ukrainian strike on the Kremlin.”

US Planning For ‘Wild Card’ Scenarios In Ukraine – NYT (RT)

The Pentagon has gamed out four “wild card” scenarios that could affect the conflict in Ukraine, including the sudden deaths of the presidents of Russia or Ukraine, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing a leaked document. According to the NYT, the document was compiled by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in February and published on social media in recent weeks, along with a trove of other classified files, most relating to the US’ involvement in the Ukraine conflict. The four outcomes considered by the DIA are the deaths of either Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky or Russian President Vladimir Putin, the removal of leadership within the Russian Armed Forces, or a Ukrainian strike on the Kremlin. The DIA reportedly believes that a Ukrainian strike on the Kremlin could lead to “a full-scale military mobilization” in Russia or a threat by Putin to use tactical nuclear weapons.

Alternately, the American planners think that such a brazen escalation by Kiev could force Putin “to negotiate a settlement to the war.” The NYT did not elaborate on which outcome the Pentagon views as most realistic, or on the likelihood – in Washington’s eyes – of a Ukrainian strike on Moscow. The newspaper also declined to spell out the consequences of Zelensky or Putin’s deaths, or a leadership rotation within the Russian military. Original copies of the document appear to have been scrubbed from the Discord server where they were initially posted, leaving this article the only immediately-available source. US officials did not confirm whether the document was genuine, but did not dispute its authenticity, the NYT noted. The Pentagon has taken a similar stance on all of the recent Ukraine-related leaks, acknowledging that some of the material is “similar in format” to its intelligence briefings, without issuing a direct confirmation.

Other files in the leak detail the US’ war plans and the number of NATO special forces on the ground in Ukraine, Kiev’s rapidly deteriorating ammunition situation and military readiness, and other “sensitive” material related to Ukraine, China, the Middle East, and terrorism. Moscow is considering the possibility that the documents could be forgeries, disseminated to the media in order to lull the Kremlin into a false sense of security about Ukraine’s military capabilities. “Because the US is a party in the conflict [in Ukraine] and is essentially waging a hybrid war against us, such tricks to deceive the enemy, meaning Russia, are possible,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Wednesday.

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“Formally, Washington still professes to adhere to the ‘One-China’ principle.”

Xi Warns Armed Forces To Prepare For ‘Actual Combat’ – Chinese Media (RT)

President Xi Jinping has urged the Chinese military to prepare for real combat, national media reported on Wednesday. The remarks came days after Beijing held massive military drills around Taiwan which reportedly involved the simulation of precision strikes on the self-governing island. Addressing military personnel at a navy base in Southern China on Tuesday, Xi called for the strengthening of “military training oriented toward actual combat,” as quoted by the state-run CCTV channel. The Chinese leader is reported to have named the defense of Beijing’s “territorial sovereignty and maritime interests” as well as the protection of “overall peripheral stability” as the navy’s core mission. On Saturday, China launched three-day military exercises codenamed ‘United Sharp Sword’ in the vicinity of Taiwan.

According to Taipei’s military, it detected nine warships and some 71 warplanes in the area the following day. Senior Colonel Shi Yi, spokesman for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command, described the vessels and aircraft as “encircling” the island. He clarified that the drills were meant as a warning “against the collusion between separatist forces seeking ‘Taiwan independence’ and external forces, and against their provocative activities.” The military maneuvers came on the back of a visit by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to the US last week, when she met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The meeting was the second time Tsai had sat down with a US House speaker in less than a year. A visit by McCarthy’s predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan in August infuriated Beijing, which responded with its largest-ever drills in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan has been de facto independent since 1949, when the losing side in the Chinese civil war fled to the island and established its own administration. While only a handful of nations have recognized Taiwan as a sovereign state, the US has long maintained close, unofficial ties with Taipei, both militarily and economically. Formally, Washington still professes to adhere to the ‘One-China’ principle. Beijing considers the island to be an inalienable part of its territory that has been seized by separatists, and accuses the US of meddling in its domestic affairs and encouraging “secessionist” politicians. While the Chinese leadership says it prioritizes a peaceful ‘reunification’, it has not ruled out military options.

Maersheimer

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“..South African officials applied to withdraw from the court, a decision that was later reversed after a High Court ruling determined that such a move was unconstitutional..”

Putin Warrant Could Derail BRICS Summit – South Africa (RT)

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin has thrown a “spanner in the works” of an upcoming BRICS summit in South Africa in August, a spokesman for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Wednesday. As a signatory to the 2002 Rome Statute, South Africa is obliged to enforce the ICC’s warrant for Putin’s arrest. However, the country is also hosting this year’s BRICS summit, at which the leaders of the world’s largest emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are due to meet. “All heads of state would be expected to attend the summit. But now we have a spanner in the works in the form of this ICC warrant,” Ramaphosa’s spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, told reporters.

“What that dictates is that there be further engagements in terms of how that is going to be managed, and those engagements are underway,” Magwenya continued. “Once they’ve been concluded, the necessary announcements will be made.” Ramaphosa’s government has been aware of the dilemma surrounding the warrant since its issue, with Magwenya last month declining to say whether Pretoria would enforce it. Ramaphosa announced on Tuesday that he would dispatch an envoy to Washington to clarify his “non-aligned” stance on the Ukraine conflict. South Africa and Russia have been close partners since the Soviet Union backed the anti-apartheid African National Congress, which today is led by Ramaphosa. Under his leadership, South Africa has refused to condemn Russia’s military operation in Ukraine or impose sanctions on Moscow, while the country’s military took part in joint exercises with Russian and Chinese forces earlier this year.

Pretoria has its own issues with the ICC, and was chastised by the court in 2017 for failing to arrest former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir when he visited the country in 2015 for an African leaders’ summit. Following the incident, South African officials applied to withdraw from the court, a decision that was later reversed after a High Court ruling determined that such a move was unconstitutional. In issuing the warrant, the court accused Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova of the “unlawful deportation” of children from “occupied areas of Ukraine.” The charges refer to Russia’s efforts to evacuate civilians away from areas – mostly in the predominantly Russian-speaking region of Donbass – shelled by the Ukrainian military. Russia – which like the US, China, and India, does not recognize the court’s authority – has dismissed the warrant as “null and void from the legal standpoint.”

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Looking at Biden and Trump, it’s clear there’s no such thing as equal justice in the US. That is a threat.

Joe Biden Boosted Ukraine Gas Industry As Hunter Took Burisma Role (NYP)

Then-Vice President Joe Biden visited Ukraine on a mission to bolster the country’s energy industry days after his son Hunter joined the board of natural gas company Burisma in 2014 — which a former White House stenographer claims implicates the now-80-year-old in a foreign influence-peddling “kickback scheme.” Mike McCormick says he was with current national security adviser Jake Sullivan — then a Biden aide — in the press cabin of Air Force Two en route to Kyiv on April 21, 2014, as he outlined how the world’s wealthiest country would help the deeply corrupt post-Soviet state build its gas industry. Giving a rundown of Biden’s priorities for the trip, Sullivan — described as a “senior administration official” — said the then-vice president would “discuss with [Ukrainian officials] medium- and long-term strategies to boost conventional gas production, and also to begin to take advantage of the unconventional gas reserves that are in Ukraine.”

Asked for details, the Biden aide said the US was interested in providing “technical assistance to help [Ukraine] be able to boost production in their conventional gas fields, where presently they aren’t getting the maximum of what they could be” while offering “technical assistance relating to a regulatory framework, and also the technology that would be required to extract unconventional gas resources; and Ukraine has meaningful reserves of unconventional gas according to the latest estimates.” In December of that year, amid broader Obama administration support for Ukraine, Congress approved $50 million to support the country’s energy sector, including the natural gas industry. McCormick, who worked more than a decade at the White House, told The Post this week he believes the timeline of events demonstrates Joe Biden was using his position to help his son’s foreign business interests.

“Joe Biden was over there telling them, ‘You can’t be corrupt! You can’t be corrupt!’ while he was corrupt,” McCormick says. “Look, this is Air Force Two. This is Joe Biden’s plane. He’s in control of it. Jake Sullivan was in the front of the plane with Joe Biden in a meeting and then he walks back in the plane to talk to the press.” Now, McCormick tells The Post that he wants to testify before the federal grand jury in Delaware considering charges against Hunter — saying he has relevant information that the FBI ignored. “They’ve been looking at Hunter Biden, but this ties Joe Biden and [Sullivan] into promoting a kickback scheme with Ukraine,” he said. “It’s the timeline that does it.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1646292358055559168

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“..the former president and “those in his orbit” should be held accountable “because it saves and it preserves democracy.”

Trump Files $500 Million Lawsuit vs Michael Cohen (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has sued Michael Cohen for more than $500 million in damages, saying his former lawyer damaged his reputation by spreading falsehoods about him and releasing confidential information that he was contractually and legally required to keep secret. The lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday in US District Court in Miami, accuses Cohen of violating attorney-client privilege and breaching a confidentiality agreement “with malicious intent and to wholly self-serving ends.” The filing comes one week after Trump was arrested on a 34-count criminal indictment in New York City, where Cohen is expected to serve as a key witness to allegations that his then-boss falsified business records to cover up violations of election laws during his successful 2016 presidential campaign.

Cohen began breaching his fiduciary duty as Trump’s lawyer and violating his confidentiality agreement around 2018, when he was facing federal charges for tax evasion, fraud and campaign finance violations, the lawsuit claimed. The most “egregious” breaches occurred in Cohen’s two books and his podcast, the filing said. He also made multiple media appearances, accusing Trump of being racist and suggesting that he might turn over state secrets to America’s enemies to ward off prosecution. The lawsuit claimed Cohen used insider information about Trump and “numerous inflammatory and false statements” to unjustly enrich himself. He also allegedly overstated his expenses as a Trump employee, claiming $74,000 in fictitious costs.

A $130,000 hush-money payment that Cohen allegedly made to porn star Stormy Daniels on behalf of Trump is at the center of the New York criminal case against the former president. Prosecutors claim that Trump falsely reported the cost as a legal expense. Trump’s lawsuit alleged that Cohen decided on his own to pay off Daniels to keep silent about her claims of an affair with the billionaire real state mogul. Trump said he relied on Cohen’s legal advice and acted out of a desire to protect his family from “malicious and false claims” by Daniels. Cohen told CBS News earlier this month that the indictment against Trump is about accountability. “I should not be held accountable for Donald Trump’s dirty deeds,” he said. He added that the former president and “those in his orbit” should be held accountable “because it saves and it preserves democracy.”

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“.. it has fallen to become one of the least equal among any countries in the world that likes to consider themselves democracies.”

Ten Men, $1 Trillion, and the Personalization of American Capitalism (Schultz)

Capitalism has always been about the accumulation and the concentration of wealth. Marx and Engels first described that phenomena in their 1848 Communist Manifesto. Thomas Piketty has also reminded us of that. But what they never focused on was the personalization of wealth in capitalism and what that means for society. The latest rankings of the richest individuals in America reminds us of the persistence and personalization of wealth. Forbes just released its ranking of the richest individuals in the world. Topping the list is Frenchman Bernard Arnault of LVHM, the fashion and cosmetics empire, with a net wealth of $211 billion. Yet if we focus simply the ten wealthiest in the world, seven of them are located in the US, with a combined wealth of $786 billion. The ten richest Americans, including the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, and Michael Bloomberg, total $1 trillion dollars.

And this list does not even include the Waltons who own the Walmart empire or the Koch family. Of the twenty-five richest individuals in the world seventeen are American. For some this is God Bless America! It is the story of the American dream where any of us can become billionaires, or if all else fails, at least millionaires. Yes while the US has the greatest number of billionaires in the world and perhaps the greatest density of billionaires per capita, it’s Gini coefficient, which measures economic inequality on a scale of 0 (totally equality) to 100 (extreme inequality), has fallen from 0.39 in 1970 to 0.43 in 1990 to 0.49 in 2022. While the US was never an economically egalitarian nation, at least in recent history, it has fallen to become one of the least equal among any countries in the world that likes to consider themselves democracies.

Combine this with the decline in social mobility in the US that is getting progressively worse by generation, and it is hard to conclude that the American Dream does exist except for a few. Capitalism has always been personalized, especially in the US. It was once the story of the Vanderbilts, Duponts, Carnegies, and the Rockefellers who made money in railroads, finance, or oil. They made billions at the expense of the workers whom they exploit, and then we lionize the latter as heroes and beg for their money when they created charitable trusts or foundations. We view them as benevolent and generous, forgetting how they made their money. They were literally the faces of nineteenth and twentieth century American capitalism. Today’s personification is Silicon Valley, social media, and tech. In addition to Musk, Bezos, Ellison, and Bloomberg, it is also Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, Larry Page, and Steve Ballmer. It is still an American plutocracy, except the nature of the capitalist wealth and their faces have changed.

But we should not forget the other faces of American capitalism These are the faces that John Steinbeck talked of in his Grapes of Wrath to Michael Harington’s The Other America to Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed to apropos Faces of Povertythe documentary. We have nearly thirty-eight million people officially in poverty, each a story of how the American dream is merely a dream for them. It is no coincidence that there is a connection between poverty and billionaires. The more that a fewer and fewer number of individuals are rich the greater the number of individuals who will be poor. Compare the $1 trillion in wealth for ten Americans to the fact that the bottom fifty percent of Americans—roughly 165 million individuals—have a combined wealth of $4.1 trillion. If your net worth is between $43,760 and $201,800, you are in the middle class. Once you get below the middle class, there is no net worth—individuals are in the hole and owe more than they own.

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Enlightenment vs globalism.

The Retreat From the Enlightenment Can be Stopped (BI)

The war that the Enlightenment is now having to fight to defend itself against the globalists seems like a David and Goliath match-up. Western state bureaucracies and the big companies that have infiltrated them are encircling their populations with propaganda, digital money, travel passes, renewed and more abhorrent sin stories and deepening poverty for the many, while ‘the bosses’ get richer. Mainstream media colludes by vomiting out a steady stream of exaggerated emergencies, ranging from climate change to Chinese hegemony to nitrogen pollution, to keep the population distracted, fearful, and docile. Our health systems push anxiety and big companies’ specious products rather than helping populations to become healthier, while our educational institutions have embarked upon an all-out war on patriotism and cultural unity, which ordinarily would be natural counterbalances to globalism. Our schools produce traumatised children, alienated from each other and their parents, unable to engage in critical thinking. Social media circuitry wires it all together by enabling rapid communication of agitprop and fear. The Enlightenment is in full retreat.


Bright spots exist. We’ve seen Elon Musk break ranks with other billionaires by opening the door just a crack on Twitter to permit reasoned debate. But even this was a pyrrhic victory, considering that Twitter’s advertising revenue dropped 71 percent in December 2022 when more than half of the company’s top 1,000 advertisers pulled the plug amid a concerted pushback from Big Business. The EU turned its censorious Twitter thumbscrews tighter, with not a whimper of protest from the US government for this blatant disregard for the US Constitution. Indeed, it is clear Washington is telling those EU bureaucrats what censorship to enforce in the US. Still, scratch a little deeper and you will find reasons for optimism if you, like us, are working and hoping for a new Enlightenment. Here we discuss five.

Read more …

“The tests are cheap and dispositive. We can fix this in a New York minute, but nobody wants to know the answer.”

The COVID Vaccines Were Never Tested for Safety (Kirsch)

There were 31.2% higher deaths in the “gold standard” Pfizer Phase 3 clinical trials. There is only one way to know whether or not the vaccine caused any of the deaths in the 21 vaccinated patients who died: proper histopathology. Pfizer never did it and the FDA never asked for it. This was the biggest mistake in the pandemic and nobody has acknowledged that or lifted a finger to correct it (as I point out below). Had they done the proper testing on the 21 deaths, the vaccine would never have been approved. In lieu of the proper tests, there were assurances from Pfizer that nobody died from the vaccine. That’s absurd. We need the tests, not assurances. The tests are cheap and dispositive.

We can fix this in a New York minute, but nobody wants to know the answer. Today, only Ryan Cole is doing the proper histopathology and in 100% of the cases he’s been asked to look at, he can attribute the deaths to the vaccine. Someday, I hope that we’ll have leadership at the CDC that is not corrupt and that will ask Medical examiners to do the proper tests. This can literally happen instantly. For example, the CDC says that tomorrow, every Medical Examiner in the US should do histopathology looking for the vaccine as a cause of death on the next person who dies. This is no big extra burden for a medical examiner… just a few extra steps.

Or they can ask just a few medical examiners in highly vaccinated regions to run the extra tests on everyone who has an autopsy for the next 30 days (and to make sure that everyone who “dies suddenly” gets an autopsy done). The bottom line is this: we could almost instantly have proof of whether the vaccine is safe and effective or not and the costs in time and money is de minimis. The CDC is simply not interested in finding the truth about the vaccines, even though their job is to protect America from health threats.

Read more …

But the oath… Sue them all.

Doctors Received Millions in Bonuses for Vaccinating Medicaid Patients (CHD)

The federal government and insurers incentivized healthcare providers in Kentucky and California to vaccinate Medicaid patients against COVID-19 by offering bonuses based on the percentage of patients successfully vaccinated. “[This is] truly sickening and I am embarrassed for my profession by this,” Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist and biological warfare epidemiologist, wrote on her Substack, where she posted several documents relating to the COVID-19 vaccine provider incentive programs. The documents help to draw a picture of the broader effort at the federal, state and local levels to unleash a range of strategies targeting low-income and people-of-color communities, which tended to have lower vaccination rates.

The strategies included providing hundreds of millions of dollars for the creation of “culturally tailored” pro-vaccine materials and for training “trusted” and “influential messengers” to promote COVID-19 and flu vaccines to communities of color in every state. Nass’ revelations showed these efforts went beyond advertising, fear campaigns, payments to patients and payments to trusted community actors and included, in some cases, direct financial incentives to healthcare providers. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Medicaid in Kentucky told physicians in 2021 it would “recognize your hard work by offering incentives for helping patients make the choice to become vaccinated.” The more people vaccinated, the higher the per-person incentive.

For physicians who treated an Anthem Medicaid cohort with a minimum of 25 patients in their practice, Anthem Medicaid offered incentives for vaccination by Sept. 1, 2021, that ranged from a $20 bonus per vaccinated person for physicians who vaccinated 30% of the cohort, to $125 per vaccinated person for those who vaccinated 75% of the cohort, with several incremental steps in between. As time went on, the rates increased. Between Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, 2021, physicians received payments ranging from $100 per newly vaccinated person for those who vaccinated 30% of their patient cohort, to $250 per newly vaccinated person for those who vaccinated 75% of their patient cohort.

In 2022, the Anthem provider incentive program changed to a flat rate. Providers received $50 per newly vaccinated Medicaid patient. This included children ages 6 months to 4 years and kids 12 and older vaccinated between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2022, and children ages 5 to 11 vaccinated between June 1 and Dec. 31, 2022. The California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) on Aug. 6, 2021, announced $350 million in incentive payments — $250 million to providers and $100 million for direct non-monetary payments, such as gift cards, to vaccine recipients — to encourage vaccination among Medi-Cal’s 14 million beneficiaries. Of the $350 million, $175 million came from state general funds and $175 million from federal funding. The funding period lasted from Sept. 2, 2021, through Feb. 29, 2022.

Read more …

“The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) is $31 trillion and will grow another $19 trillion by 2033.”

US Government Borrows $6 Billion a Day (Whitehead)

We’re not living the American dream. We’re living a financial nightmare. The U.S. government is funding its existence with a credit card. The government—and that includes the current administration—is spending money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford, and “we the taxpayers” are the ones being forced to foot the bill for the government’s fiscal insanity. According to the number crunchers with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the government is borrowing roughly $6 billion a day. As the Editorial Board for the Washington Post warns: “The nation has reached a hazardous moment where what it owes, as a percentage of the total size of the economy, is the highest since World War II. If nothing changes, the United States will soon be in an uncharted scenario that weakens its national security, imperils its ability to invest in the future, unfairly burdens generations to come, and will require cuts to critical programs such as Social Security and Medicare. It is not a future anyone wants.”

Let’s talk numbers, shall we? The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) is $31 trillion and will grow another $19 trillion by 2033. That translates to roughly $246,000 per taxpayer or $94,000 for every single person in the country. The bulk of that debt has been amassed over the past two decades, thanks in large part to the fiscal shenanigans of four presidents, 10 sessions of Congress and two wars. It’s estimated that the amount this country owes is now 130% greater than its gross domestic product (all the products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the citizens). In other words, the government is spending more than it brings in. The U.S. ranks as the 12th most indebted nation in the world, with much of that debt owed to the Federal Reserve, large investment funds and foreign governments, namely, Japan and China.

Interest payments on the national debt are estimated to top $395 billion this year, which is significantly more than the government spends on veterans’ benefits and services, and according to Pew Research Center, more than it will spend on elementary and secondary education, disaster relief, agriculture, science and space programs, foreign aid, and natural resources and environmental protection combined. According to the Committee for a Reasonable Federal Budget, the interest we’ve paid on this borrowed money is “nearly twice what the federal government will spend on transportation infrastructure, over four times as much as it will spend on K-12 education, almost four times what it will spend on housing, and over eight times what it will spend on science, space, and technology.” In ten years, those interest payments will exceed our entire military budget. This is financial tyranny.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Gaur
https://twitter.com/i/status/1646109211267416066

 

 

Fibonacci

 

 


The Konark Sun temple located in India, presents an iconography on a grand scale. It has 24 elaborately carved stone wheels which are nearly 3.7 m in diameter which are also sundials, and can be used to calculate time accurately to a minute

 

 

Octopuses
https://twitter.com/i/status/1645864294838419456

 

 

Murmuration
https://twitter.com/i/status/1646138779717992450

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle April 13 2023

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 65 total)
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  • #133360

    John William Godward Dolce Far Niente (Sweet Idleness, or A Pompeian Fishpond) 1904   • Waiting For The End of The World (Pepe Escobar) • Zelensk
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 13 2023]

    #133361
    Germ
    Participant


    TVASF (physically and financially)

    #133362
    Germ
    Participant

    Totally Fuckin’ Normal
    Tributes to Isle of Wight father who died in his sleep

    “…died suddenly in his sleep…”

    https://www.countypress.co.uk/news/23435270.tributes-isle-wight-father-died-sleep/

    TVASF

    #133363
    Germ
    Participant

    Totally Fuckin’ Normal …

    GONE TOO SOON Tragedy as young footballer Mason Peddle dies suddenly leaving his family & club devastated

    https://www.thesun.ie/sport/football/10525517/tragedy-young-footballer-dies-suddenly/

    TVASF ( … suddenly fucked)

    #133364
    Red
    Participant

    Emotionally unstable?

    Trump describes his arraignment: “When I went to the courthouse, which is also a prison in a sense, they signed me in and I’ll tell you: People were crying. People that worked there.”

    #133366
    Red
    Participant
    #133367
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “S Korea Will Lend 500,000 Artillery Shells To Shore Up Drained US Arsenal, Help Ukraine

    Excellent. Now when they start the war in Taiwan, S. Korea will be helpless too! #Winning! Note they did this AFTER finding out the U.S. is spying on them. So, really putting their foot down, as they said they didn’t want to give shells AND didn’t want to get involved in Ukraine.

    “Agenda 2030” “Inventory Plan.” What is that? That’s the 1930’s “Technocrats”, the “Technocracy” and “Technocratic Elite.” It’s Plato’s “Philosopher Kings”. What is it? It’s the Soviet Union. Now that didn’t work then, but their conclusion was that they just didn’t have the technology to do the INVENTORY ENOUGH, match up Central Planning Production and Demand. With computers, with AI, they won’t have 10,000 too many tractors and kill everyone this time. So? Not to be stopped, for 50 years they invested in the “Inventory Systems” and “Inventory Plans” like Amazon, that are adequately computerized and connected. Only THEN, can we have full and complete, working Communism, and peace and prosperity at last.

    …Where – I – own all the factories and fly for shopping in Switzerland like Ze’s and Macron’s Wives, while YOU own nothing and live in a 15-minute city concrete high-rise, eat bugs, and have no outlet but VR glasses all day. Well, I mean, we’re the Philosopher KINGS for a reason. WE know best. We are saving the whole PLANET. Sure you won’t deny me a little private-jet shopping in return, right? And your third daughter.

    Strategic Command apparently doesn’t know how electricity works? Imagine grabbing that live wire in a suit of plate armor.

    The Hegemon, under its self-concocted “rules-based international order”, essentially never did diplomacy.”

    Nah, America did at one time. All Empires did, that’s how they get started taking over from the previous one. We may have lasted longer than most in trying to be good. Who knows? –They had to deceive the American people foremost and that always meant having to paint on the appearance of being good. Slowly being aware of existing divisions leads to using divisions, then enhancing them, then creating them out of nothing. But this can only happen with a SECRET State. “The very act of secrecy is repugnant to a free Democracy” – Kennedy, because how does Congress keep tabs on it, and how do the people get properly informed to vote? FF>> The End. The Secret State, the Spies, the Secret Police ALWAYS destroy their host nation. Always. One of the few truisms in history.

    In our case, worse: All Secret States in most countries have united to work against all the PEOPLE in the host nations, and worldwide.

    “US Admin Losing Trust Among Its Intelligence Community – Seymour Hersh (TASS) “

    We see this in the NS2 leak and the Ukraine Readiness leak.

    Musk exchange is pretty interesting, less salacious than the headlines, but also more deep and “banality of evil” about how “We all just know.” We know, we got the memo. You didn’t get the memo? Yes we all know this now. Elon: “How do you know? What event happened to change that?” Reporter and Everyone: “No event. Nothing happened. We all just know it changed because nothing changed.”

    Okay then! What are you supposed to SAY to that, as Jb and I say sometimes?

    There is no evidence because it’s clearly past discussion. Why are you a Twitter denier? Um, because BBC made up everything they’ve reported, every day since the Iraq War and probably before? You’re literally a mentally-ill crazy person, but being such won’t believe me when I tell you there’s no dragons in your closet and Vladimir Putin isn’t under your bed.

    Mr Musk refused to accept there was more hateful content on the platform since he took over.”

    Got it in one. This is exactly the point. “Refused to accept” a thing no one can give evidence for. Therefore Elon is both crazy AND dangerous. Everyone knows you accept all conclusions without having or providing evidence first! No really – I can only WISH this were hyperbole. This is hourly, every day, all year for 10 years now. Slowly phasing in for 20 or 30.

    “Some outside experts disagree”

    As Elon said, Yeah, and? “Somebody’s always saying something.” Oh no: the fact of someone SAYING something makes it real! …Well, only if it’s something I LIKE. Actually, that’s democracy. It was up-voted, therefore it is true. 51% just voted it was.

    “He’s against banning TikTok.” Amazing add. Now we know he’s evilly-evil! The TikTok Bill was going to be the most instant totalitarian foray ever passed by man, outpacing the Reich by leagues, and if Elon’s against suppression of all human rights, well that just proves how evil he is, doesn’t it?

    I don’t know what drives this mindset. Somehow all the Peasants think that if they empower the Warlords THEY will become warlords and eat at his table when nothing could be further from the truth. They ALWAYS put Antifa, the Brown Shirts first against the wall. But as the PMC/Laptop Class, PMC being “Professional MANAGERIAL Class”, they are in fact the Mandarins, the middle managers, of whatever Khan swoops in from Mongolia. A long family history of this, making them the only ones in America still affording $500k McMansions, actually support this ridiculous, illogical view.

    So the more their neighbors are destroyed, the better for them, although that’s never a conscious decision. We the rest of us just know they’re not trustworthy.

    “because Ukraine kept sending soldiers into the meat grinder”

    Lira’s roundtable premised this wasn’t any master plan on the part of Russia. They were on the Front, and realized, as a larger premise, they needed to call up and therefore train 300,000 troops. The Front would have to stall, and if not to just drive to Odessa, they would have to fall back to better waiting positions in Kerkov. The only people who had readiness was still Wagner. Now as that front existed, Ukraine kept making this area active. Russia kept winning there, inasmuch as you have a “Front” somewhere, and the balance of men/losses was favorable. So they merely kept using what was working as long as Ukraine would accommodate them and never change tactics, and Ze made it easy to sell since he publicly stated his battle plan: Never surrender, therefore always throw more men into a location that was 20:1 favorable to Russia. Okay then.

    This is far more plausible. Not to say what they say on a daily basis, that it’s a choice, a strategy, all that, isn’t TRUE. But don’t slide sideways into thinking some Russian Planner arranged it back in 2018 and rolled it out of the playbook.

    This goes to the more important issue: Russia can Change on the Battlefield. The standard Army wasn’t working as well, perhaps because they were also selling info to the Pentagon on the side. So they injected more into Wagner who was working pretty well. The tank tactics up north weren’t grand, and the Ukrainian people gave less support than expected, even in the Russian East. They adjusted.

    I said last year Russia is doing “X” and wiping out Ukraine, so Ukrainian military needs to adjust to find a winning pattern. They haven’t. Not once. Not only have they not, they’ve actually doubled on the tactics that lose the most. So therefore, they will lose. I actually can’t understand this, like Ireland could change, ultimately defeat the British. The Viet Cong could. Fanatics are brilliant at maximum effort, and they know their end goal. All that was on their side. But their “Glorious to Ukrainia” involves “Charge of the Light Brigade” every day? Polish-style? …What the actual…?

    They are not serious people. They are mentally ill, and will lose. Deservedly. And books of Military history will say so.

    The Pentagon has gamed out four “wild card” scenarios that could affect the conflict in Ukraine, including the sudden deaths of the president”

    Great Pentagon Planning: “And then a MIRACLE happened” and we won! Yeah guys, what if an asteroid came down and hit only the Kremlin? Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t we win then?

    …Any of you ever play Monopoly with spoiled rich kids? Who start losing? Yeah, it looks like this.

    White House Stenographer. Is this what they’re up to? We could feel they were leading out line for the Joe Biden hook operation. I’m sure there’s more than this, but this feels like the first volley.

    where Cohen is expected to serve as a key witness”

    You mean the lawyer already convicted of lying before court and Congress?

    Capitalism has always been about the accumulation and the concentration of wealth.”

    Okay, interesting premise, support it.

    Marx and Engels first described that phenomena in their 1848 Communist Manifesto. Thomas Piketty…”

    Arg!!!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaand there you go. There is no economic theory but Marx. No one refers to anything but Marx. But in so doing they pick up some of Marx’s biases. As they’ve never encountered anyone or anything else, they think this is normal “just the way things are.” Like, it’s economic math, indisputable. We don’t even look at it or examine it, pass right over.

    So why read the rest? I now know they’re going to say the breaking of the law, the ending of all property rights is a foundation of Capitalism, while the solution is going to be by handing MORE power the exact same government who is bribed, breaks the law, and ends property rights for others. Except THIS time, they’ll do what the POOREST people say, instead of those who are rich, powerful, and well-known. …Yeah, sure they will honey. Sure they will.

    Let’s be more productive: what would NON-Marxists say? 1) You should follow the law? 2) Bribery should be arrested? 3) Monopolies that allow such billionaires shouldn’t be allowed as they are antithetical to competition? Monopolies can and should be curtailed by Sherman Anti-trust and tax laws which are overwhelmingly punitive to small business – the only net-net employers, but far more fundamentally by erasing the concept of “corporation” as a common entity. It didn’t exist and used to require an act of Legislature to get a business license which would prove to the people what social good you would provide to get this undue advantage. 4) and most obviously, it’s illegal government-run money power that lets Home Depot borrow money, run everyone out of business, never make a profit, and continue in that manner for lifetimes. It’s that money-power that first TAXES half the working income, then INFLATES the remaining half at even a 2% compounded. Stealing 75% of all normal persons’ money before retirement. Probably far more as the tax-half would be compounded. Hey does that lead to some “Income disparity”? GE and Amazon pay zero tax, but we’re discussing the money-power who directs ALL activity away from individuals and TOWARDS friends and family, until all 10 richest Zip Codes become D.C., displacing even Manhattan, Westchester, and Greenwich.

    The list is longer than an encyclopedia, but there are four easy adds to help return the system to something vaguely resembling “Capitalism.”

    “Someday, I hope that we’ll have leadership at the CDC that is not corrupt” …Adding Pfizer and the FDA.

    Yes, they are all GOVERNMENT. But you can’t just get rid of government, boycott them, cut off their money like you can a dangerous soft-drink company. Who would you ask to do that? The Government? “Yes, sir, please go disband yourself, we’ve determined that you are evil.” Government: “No thank you. And P.S. you’re under arrest.”

    Seriously? Am I going to go my whole life before people can manage to give up on the “government protects us, government can fix it”? It would seem so. Now is SEEMS like hyperbole when I say they actively kill and sell out everything they touch, but we’re 20 years after Tech Bubble, 9-12, 20 years since $6Trill war, complete gutting of all America, 15 years since ‘08 MERS, Madoff, the SEC, the CFTC, the $23 Trillion bank bailout, where $700B would have bought out and paid off every mortgage in America.

    There is literally no scandal that can break through, no sub-group of black homeowners that can get screwed out of a lifetime of mortgage payments, etc, that can make people say “Hmmmm. I’m beginning to suspect Daddy may not have my best interests in mind.” He seems to keep sneaking into my sister’s bedroom every year or so.

    I have to say that as there seems to be no level of offense I can give that will make people’s mind-gears engage.

    The FDA, CDC, EPA, SEC, CFTC, ALL EXIST TO PROTECT CORPORATIONS. In fact, they’re all paid for BY the Corporations. (SEC, etc with “fines”, profit-sharing the public theft). Therefore if you want to disarm the CORPORATIONS, you need to disarm the “government” that they wholly own. (and take a different route.)

    Guar – closest to the European Auroch.

    Kultsummer, yes, you’re right I hadn’t thought of that. It seemed so locked up from the mine face right to the Soldier, that it seemed all “Military”. But no, even so, it’s entirely private hands. They may keep good tabs on it, but who’s checking if Roy’s Shell Shop sold 2/3rds of their bombs to drug cartels? Or not. Who tracks? And that’s of course beyond the Blackwater angle which is entirely out of hand.

    #133368
    Germ
    Participant

    @ Red – if you enjoy Macleod’s written commentary, then you’ll enjoy hearing him too!

    WEEKLY WRAP with Alasdair Macleod – Available Now

    T$ISF

    #133369
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    #133370
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Glazyev is such a little known name but has been a huge and critical component in the pole shift going down that he will grace many a history book.

    Melbourne is so weird post pandemic. I went there today and people have a quiet stockholm syndrome going on. It is like paper thin skin hiding trackmarks and scars from self-harm. They all know deep down they didn’t stand up for themselves.

    #133371
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Oh and while I think of it – the 2030 inventory plan is sooooo dumb because you can only count your stock on shelves or inventory if it is dead. static. controlled.
    Nature and life creates seeds and storms and earthquakes and acne and psychos and octopi. It all keeps changing. Am I the only one who thinks these technocrats need to drop some acid and get a fucking clue. It is a hologram. We are perceivers not objects. IMAGES CANNOT THINK.
    Only true spirit using mind can think.
    Sure it can think it is a president or a prostitute but what has no real form cannot be measured and agenda 30 is for scared babies who won’t grow up and smell the coffee.

    #133372
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Kviv to name street after Volodymyr Kubiyovych one of the founders of the Waffen-SS Galizien, the Ukraine branch of the Nazi SS

    Spring 1943. Celebrations dedicated to the creation of the Galizien-SS division

    .

    .


    Russian 76th Paratroopers Capture AFUkronazi with Waffen SS ‘Galicia’ Patch

    If it was me in this video, I’d turn off the camera, look in both directions to make sure there were no officers around, then shoot this Nazi in the head

    Any Ukro soldiers who surrendered with SS tattoos or Galicia insignias on there uniforms would be killed on the spot if it was up to me.

    I’d make sure everyone in my platoon and company knew the ‘silent part’ and never said it out loud.

    At least some American soldiers had a sense of Truth and Justice in the old days

    #133373
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    Re: biolabs

    Mankind owes an explanation to itself: why are there so many humans that feel utterly at ease doing R&D with the sole purpose of maiming, handicapping and/or outright kill other humans, and why the humans that somehow find this to be an abhorrent pursuit do exactly zilch about it? And why are so called “democratic” governments – you know, rullers elected by the people (LOL) – packed with people of the former persuasion?

    #133374
    Germ
    Participant

    Flyers, dropping like flies!

    Young pilot Phil Thomas died suddenly – at least 3 pilot deaths, 7 pilot incapacitations in past month – 4 flight attendants became ill on Delta flight, passengers dying in-flight, this is not normal!

    https://makismd.substack.com/p/young-pilot-phil-thomas-died-suddenly

    TVASF

    #133375
    jb-hb
    Participant

    kultsommer,

    polemos mentions that I may be arguing from a “I got mine, you get yours! We’re out!” mindset when addressing problems facing us all. My post – at some length – addressed that in some depth.

    So you reply to that post “explaining” to me what used to be possible for americans and is no longer possible for many americans, wrapping it up with

    “Well, that kind of opportunity and life is forever closed for many.
    Blame the Marx if that makes you feel better.”

    I just got done telling you I expect to be dumped into an open ditch as my retirement plan, amongst other things. Yet that’s what you REPLIED TO.

    You SEEM to be re-positioning me as One Who Needs To Realize And Is Out Of Touch before implying I am in a dream world, have my priorities wrong, regarding Marxism.

    You’re arguing in extremely bad faith, implying I am 180 degrees opposite MY OWN post you are replying to. Unlike every argument AFKTT confronts, this one is implicitly ad hominem. An ad hominem strawman at that.

    Marxists don’t know how. They are historically incompetent. Every time they get to run things on “scientific materialistic forward-thinking” lines is a disaster.

    (for example: Freaking out from realizing the farmers are “evil landowners,” liquidating them, replacing them with proper city proletariat who do not know how to farm, then confiscating the harvest to re-distribute it on equitable, New-Thinking, materialistic lines and everybody starves to death)

    Their pattern is typically to fail, then blame failure on anyone opposing (or imagined as opposing/ruining their big-brain plans) Persecuting, jailing, killing otherwise productive useful people in their society. Shortly thereafter, they shrug, resort to stealing property and slave labor. To fulfill their vision of paradise for the downtrodden.

    That’s really, really bad news. ACTUALLY, not hypothetically. Over and over again, observably. Along with an INCREASE in disparity of wealth and DECREASE in social mobility. And your reply to me implies that marxism is a separate and irrelevant issue to declining living standards??? Nothing but nuclear war will decline them further.

    It is very much NON negligible that there’s also an underlying worldview to Marxism. Particular ideas about what reality is, what life is, what humanity is. It cannot but inform every move to address reality and humans. And it is toxic. An INDIVIDUAL buying into it will be made unhappy and have their time and energy sapped by a parasitic memeplex. Same happens to societies.

    In this case, we can see that the same blob that brooks no discussion let alone argument regarding things like ginormous monopolies, the end of free speech, war, poisonous injections ALSO promulgates and brooks no discussion let alone argument regarding multiple variations of corrosive demoralizing current year marxism. The current blend is even WORSE than previous ones, as it labels whole swathes of humanity as subhumans and is based on a recursive insular mystery religion function.

    When people complain about Capitalism, they are often pointing to MONOPOLY (which is a disease that kills capitalism). What’s the solution to monopoly? MORE monopoly. Fuse those corps and govt into each other just like marx said. Part of the Inevitable Progressive Conditions of Historicity.

    #133376
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Ten Men, 1 Trillion…

    Great article and somehow the right follow-up to my parting sentences on my last post yesterday.
    I think that wast majority of people are realistic enough to view “American dream” as: Sure it would be nice to be a millionaire but I am content to work hard and get payed that offers me comfortable life of a quintessential middle class. However even that little has been siphoned from them by the massive wealth transfer starting somewhere in the 70’s.
    Even the people that we bought the house from were more rich by the prudent finances and shifted priorities.They purchased the house 5-6 times cheaper than what they could have afforded, by the prevailing standards as what others wold have done and settled in ordinary middle class neighborhood. Otherwise we would have never known them. Prudence, I think,is something that their generation learned by living through the Economic Depression, but in their case it paid off in many ways.
    Clicking on the article link gets one greeted with the dead eyes of a psychopath.

    #133377
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Dr D
    Ten Men, 1 Trillion… tells the story.
    You think that “Marx” will take away your retirement.
    I think that “10 men” will take mine.
    Whos’ pocket is emptier?

    #133378
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Very interesting

    Home

    #133379
    jb-hb
    Participant

    You think that “Marx” will take away your retirement.

    Gee you totally don’t argue from implicit evocative re-framing imagery at all.

    Since the Marxist downward progression is (a kind of inevitable progression of conditions! ha!):

    Failure > Blame others, persecute them > Steal stuff > Slave Labor

    lt IS step #3 after all.

    Not a bunch of wild eyed marxists in a room secretly plotting against a particular person’s retirement as you portray – placing a tin foil hat on Dr D’s head for him as you type.

    But with everything getting stolen, retirement being a subset of everything, yeah Marxists would gladly steal it once they reach step 3.

    #133380
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    @Armenio Pereira

    Answer: because psychopaths or Antisocial Personality disordered people comprise 2 to 6% of the population.

    These people are obvious to me. Could you walk onto a locked psych ward with no training AND get it right?
    Here comes the sentence that will irritate a few pancreas(es) on this website
    Quite a few folks here were bamboozled by the likes of Fauci and Gottlieb, both obviously bad con-men AND when “the stats” their stats, indicated something else afoot by January 2021, even our epidemiology guys stuck with the dominant narrative EVEN after having been offered the observation.

    So what gives, Armenio? Is it operant conditioning, a problem with Freud’s child-adult-parent ego state, herd behavior, susceptibility to propaganda/brainwashing, outright blackmail/threat, shared psychosis/mass psychosis, brain worms, or alcoholic games?

    Because the problem for me hasn’t necessarily been these monsters, but their mass of followers they hide behind, the Consensus. By my observation, consensus, collaboration conformity and cooperation take on a soporific quality when invoked by likes of Fauci and then emerge in their corrupt form as character assassination, gaslighting, ritual defamation of character, and witch hunts
    Lather wash rinse repeat

    #133381
    John Day
    Participant

    18,000 dairy cattle accidentally burn to death after freak explosion (yet again…)
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/burned-alive-explosion-kills-18000-cows-texas

    #133382
    John Day
    Participant

    “Our retirements” are IOUs in the cookie jar, signed by representatives-of-productive-citizens, to be made whole by productive-citizens, who expect to retire soon.
    Every bureaucratic and business layer of diffusion-of-responsibility gets paid up front, which happened long ago.

    #133383
    zerosum
    Participant

    TAE is showing all the secret.
    Society has not learned that the web changed all the rules to hide evil doing.

    #133384
    John Day
    Participant

    Hi zerosum: I hope you continue to improve.

    #133385
    jb-hb
    Participant

    what’s so great about civilization?

    #133386
    kultsommer
    Participant

    jb-hb

    As I’ve written yesterday:
    “Blame the Marx if that makes you feel better”.

    #133387
    jb-hb
    Participant

    As I’ve written yesterday:
    “Blame the Marx if that makes you feel better”.

    kultsommer – if you’d like to stop hiding behind re-framing evocation and evasion, anytime is a good time to state your case.

    Shall I guess?

    1. Marxism isn’t happening, you’re imagining it
    2. The Marxism that is happening is inconsequential
    3. You’re imagining it and are a conspiracy nutjob
    4. You’re silly to object to the marxism that is happening

    Gee, did you miss 2020 when 2 organizations rioted for 100 days straight in america’s 50 largest cities
    —flying the exact marxist flags from the 20’s/30’s
    —clamoring to defund the police just like they did in poland, lithuania, latvia, estonia in the 30’s/40’s
    —established marxist CHAZ/CHOP communes in all the major cities (not just Portland)
    —proclaimed openly to be trained marxists
    —said on their website that they would dismantle capitalism and the american family verbatim?
    —vandalized, besieged, and even burnt down government buildings?
    —police told to stand down by Governors and Mayors
    —Let go by DA’s funded for that very purpose
    —pallets of bricks etc magically appearing where needed
    —masses of people flown/bussed various places

    Current intersectional “theory”/marxist critical “theory” is a clear retrofit of Marxist concepts of False Consciousness of the working class – we know because the inventors TELL US

    Did you notice that 2 books introducing fischer-price versions of this theory became best-sellers, and from there became overwhelmingly standard doctrine in corporations, NGO’s, governments, K-12 schoools, and universities?

    Did you notice millions of people having to go through multiple required trainings on these concepts?

    What did Ibrahim X Kendri say he WANTED from this school of thought? What’s the goal? In his own words, a council, neither elected nor appointed by elected officials with power over both government and business. (soviet is the word for council in Russian – Cosmic Coincidence. Councils were the preferred tool in 20’s marxism and beyond – Cosmic Coincidence)

    You didn’t notice Councils for “safety, inclusion, DIE, etc” popping up everywhere for everything, in CHURCHES everywhere?

    You didn’t notice the messaging being pumped into every corporate, govt, ngo, and education controlled medium? News, advertising, entertainment? You didn’t notice?

    You didn’t notice the banners on every website, the billions being pumped into it?

    I begin to think you are engaged in projection.

    Perhaps YOU are comfortably retired or in some other reasonably secure situation. Perhaps YOU see current, momentary benefit to going along with the Current Thing because YOU’LL be gone before the worst inevitable results begin to hit AS THEY ALWAYS HAVE when these ideas reach a critical mass.

    You can wear the pin with the moral message on your lapel, sing along to Imagine in your car, because you got yours? Is that it?

    #133388
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Also very interesting and matches what many of us were saying at the time:

    https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/an-honest-doctors-experiences-on

    #133389
    citizenx
    Participant

    Trump, after murdering General Qasem Soleimani for the tribe, obviously got a taste for blood and went for the big one, the mass slaughter by vaccine.

    Lets not forget Donalds dropping of the M.O.A.B. on Afghanistan. I neither supported or voted for either of the two ‘Evils’.

    Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai criticized the mission. “This is not the war on terror, but the inhuman and most brutal misuse of our country as [a] testing ground for new and dangerous weapons,”

    https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-drops-the-mother-of-all-bombs-on-afghanistan

    Apparent that a majority of Amuricans, at least the ‘swing voters’, vote for Evil. “I’m voting for the lesser of two evils” sums up the despicable Nature of US citizens that casually vote for Evil which they openly acknowledge. A nation who’s leader is decidedly evil before they take office clarifies the broad spectrum mental illness of a murderous Nation. USA ! USA !

    Speaking of Soleimani, Where in the world is Michael D’Andrea aka “ayatollah mike”? Forced early retirement huh ? haha

    At least Trump did not mandate the death shots, but they will eventually try to pin it all on him. Biden and Democrats severely f’d up with their mandates, and they will pay for it eventually one way or another.

    Pharma Board of Directors meeting-
    “ok folks, we’ve got TOTAL liability immunity for our product that provides no immunity. So we injure and kill millions, to save none, and we make Billion$! How’s that next Plandemic plan coming along? Now more importantly, did we decide on Lobster or Crab for lunch? Meeting adjourned.”

    “We have no doubt that the US, under the guise of ensuring global biosecurity, conducted dual-use research, including the creation of biological weapons components, in close proximity to Russian borders,” Kirillov told lawmakers.

    Moscow raised concerns over a network of secretive US-funded laboratories in Ukraine in the early weeks of the conflict, and has frequently made public evidence about the program ever since. The US government confirmed the existence of the labs last March, but insisted they were neither illegal nor intended for a military purpose, despite the fact that much of their funding went through the Pentagon.

    Now wasn’t one of Hunter Bidens business in UKR to plan and predict the next viral biological threat to humanity? What a coinkydink. Vaxd cultists suddenly dropping dead, must be the cult, not the vax- lesser of two evils and all.

    #133390
    John Day
    Participant

    “Things That Aren’t Food” (featuring the ghost of Karl Marx and a host of extras) https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/things-that-arent-food

    Pepe Escobar, Waiting for the End of the World Thanks Christine
    ​ ​So for the Chinese what matters, intertwined with business, is cultural interactions; inclusivity; mutual trust; and a stern refusal of “clash of civilizations” and ideological confrontation.
    ​ ​As much as Moscow easily subscribes to all of the above – and in fact practices it via diplomatic finesse – Washington is terrified by how compelling is this Chinese narrative for the whole Global South. After all, Exceptionalistan’s only offer in the market of ideas is unilateral domination; Divide an Rule; and “you’re with us or against us”. And in the latter case you will be sanctioned, harassed, bombed and/or regime-changed.
    ​ ​Is it 1848 all over again?
    ​ ​Meanwhile, in vassal territories, a possibility arises of a revival of 1848, when a big revolutionary wave hit all over Europe.
    In 1848 these were liberal revolutions; today we have essentially popular anti-liberal (and anti-war) revolutions – from farmers in the Netherlands and Belgium to unreconstructed populists in Italy and Left and Right populists combined in France.
    ​ ​It may be too early to consider this a European Spring. Yet what’s certain in several latitudes is that average European citizens feel increasingly inclined to shed the yoke of Neoliberal Technocracy and its dictatorship of Capital and Surveillance. Not to mention NATO warmongering.​..​
    ​..​There are indeed intimations that Europe may be witnessing a rebirth.
    The period of upheaval will be long and arduous – due to the hordes of anarco-liberals who are such useful idiots for the Western oligarchy – or it could all come to a head in a single day. The target is quite clear: the death of Neoliberal Technocracy.
    ​ ​That’s how the Xi-Putin view could make inroads across the collective West: show that this ersatz “modernity” (which incorporates rabid cancel culture) is essentially void compared to traditional, deeply rooted cultural values – be it Confucianism, Taoism or Eastern Orthodoxy.​..
    ​ ​Yet nothing will change if the global financial casino is not subverted. Russia taught the world a lesson: it was preparing itself, in silence, for a long-term Total War. So much so that its calibrated counterpunch turned the Financial War upside down – completely destabilizing the casino. China, meanwhile, is re-balancing, and is on the way to be also prepared for Total War, hybrid and otherwise.
    ​ ​The inestimable Michael Hudson, fresh from his latest book, The Collapse of Antiquity, where he deftly analyzes the role of debt in Greece And Rome, the roots of Western civilization, succinctly explains our current state of play:
    ​ ​”America has pulled a color revolution at the top, in Germany, Holland, England, and France, essentially, where the foreign policy of Europe is not representing their own economic interests (…) America simply said, – We are committed to support a war of (what they call) democracy (by which they mean oligarchy, including the Nazism of Ukraine) against autocracy (…) Autocracy is any country strong enough to prevent the emergence of a creditor oligarchy, like China has prevented the creditor oligarchy.”​ …
    ​..​The difference now is that Russia and China are showing to the Global South that what American strategists had in store for them – you’re going to “freeze in the dark” if you deviate from what we say – is no longer applicable. Most of the Global South is now in open geoeconomic revolt.​..
    ​..But the most important vector is that both China and Russia, each exhibiting their own complex particularities – and both dismissed by the West as unassimilable Others – are heavily invested in building workable economic models that are not connected, in several degrees, to the Western financial casino and/or supply chain networks. And that’s what’s driving the Exceptionalists berserk – even more berserk than they already are.
    https://vk.com/@pepeasia-waiting-for-the-end-of-the-world

    ​ ​On the same day that LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest maker of luxury goods, reported better-than-expected first-quarter sales, led by Fashion & Leather Goods, and share price jumped to a record high, French pension protesters stormed the headquarters of the company in Paris.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/french-pension-protesters-storm-lvmh-building-downtown-paris

    ​ Thanks Christine. ​French leader puts business before politics during trip to Beijing that secured big new deals for Airbus and other national firms
    ​ ​French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent state visit to China has been sharply criticized for its failure to deliver progress on peace in Ukraine but perhaps that wasn’t truly atop Macron’s Beijing agenda.
    ​ ​The high-profile trip did, however, deliver agreements to expand Airbus’ and other French companies’ business in China – a significant development for France’s economy and its independent diplomacy and a notable setback for Boeing and US efforts to hamstring China.​..
    ​..Macron’s entourage ​(60 business leaders signing contract deals) ​also included executives of Electricite de France (EDF), water and waste management specialist Suez SA, shipping company CMA CGM, rolling stock and railway equipment manufacturer Alstom, cosmetics firm L’Oréal and many others.​..
    ​..Macron’s visit to China and meetings with Xi annoyed many American and British commentators and media outlets. The New York Times ran a headline saying “French Diplomacy Undercuts US Efforts to Rein China In.”
    ​ ​The Telegraph wrote “Macron has humiliated himself – and the EU. So much for Western unity.” Foreign Policy called Macron’s trip “a Fool’s Errand.”
    ​ ​Perhaps it was if the main purpose was to influence China’s policy toward Russia and bring peace to Ukraine. But that’s not clearly what was on Macron’s mind in Beijing.​ [Macron worked for Rothschild Bank, Paris, was made Economic Minister, then elected President in short order. He serves Rothschild interests.]​

    Macron has no interest in ‘decoupling’ from China

    ​ There may be 10X as much “notional wealth” as “real wealth”. How does finance re-correlate with reality? Losses get “assigned” to lots of people.​
    Either central banks raise rates to allegedly “kill inflation” by killing the economy and markets, or they resort to more mouse-click money and kill the currency in your wallet.
    Historically, all debt-cornered nations spur collapsing markets followed by collapsing currencies and inflation-driven social unrest. Leaders of all eras and stripes (left or right) then address this unrest with tighter, more centralized controls over our economies and lives. CBDC is a classic and modern symptom of this timeless pattern. So is war. The current era will be no exception, as history (from ancient Rome to Chairman Mao, or Napoleon to the rise of fascist leaders of the 1930’s) offers no exception…
    ..There is now no easy or “soft” way out for policy makers who tricked the markets and themselves into believing that a debt crisis could be solved via more debt. In the end, the last bubble to burst is always the currency, and the USD, like every other currency, will be no exception.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/no-way-out-global-markets-trapped-doom-loop-debt

    #133391
    John Day
    Participant

    Karl Marx described the industrial capitalism of 1848 Europe pretty darned well, but…​
    ​ ​The world we live in today, of government sectors taking up a large part of the economy, setting tax policy, free trade agreements and regulation, was not a world that Marx would have seen.
    ​ ​Why I think this is significant, is that the 1980s saw a turn to pro-capital policy, while it recalls the globalization period we saw before World War I, the reality is that we have never seen a pro-capital era AND a large government era before. In the pre World War I period, with the notable exceptions of organizations such as the East-India Company, business and government were largely separate. It was only in reaction to the Great Depression did government policy and industry begin to work together. The pro-capital turn in policy in the US in 1980s, was not a return to neo-classical economics that existed pre 1930. It was taking the infrastructure that was pro-labor, and turning it to make it pro-capital. Any policy that promoted growth in the value of capital, and the growth of wealth was smiled upon. Free trade agreements, the opening up of capital markets, deregulation, lower tax rates, anti-union policies, immigration, lower tariffs. Privatisation of various assets with natural monopoly tendencies have also favored capital over labor. The continual extension of patent life fit into this pattern.
    ​ ​This trend has had two effects. Labor and wages have seen little real growth (as this would have had a negative effect on profits), and policy making has focused on raising the value of capital. Using Federal Reserve data on net worth, and comparing to GDP, we can see that net worth in the US relative to GDP has risen from 320% in the late 1970s to a peak of over 600%​ (Debt/wealth doubled compared to “economy”.)
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/marxist-macro-model

    Consciousness of Sheep, Counterfeit World, Part 3, Hubris
    ​ ​Miniaturisation and mass consumption in the twenty-first century have given the appearance of technological progress to the point that communist activists and fascistic technocrats put forward the same techno-utopia in the form of Fully Automated Luxury Communism or The Fourth Industrial Revolution – differing only in whether we mere peasants get to be ruled over by the self-identifying vanguard of the proletariat or a bunch of technocratic gauleiters led by the world’s favourite wannabee Bond villain (Klaus Schwab)​.​
    ​..​This mismatch between the sales pitch and the reality, partly explains the political chasm which has opened up across the western states – one which largely explains the 2016 votes for Brexit and Trump – between so-called “Virtuals” and “Physicals.” Virtuals tend to be university-educated metropolitan dwellers who spend most of their working hours in front of screens. Physicals, in contrast, work in the kind of occupations which require getting dirt beneath one’s fingernails…
    ..A large part of the support for some kind of Green New Deal comes from the usual suspects in the energy and banking and finance sectors… and for much the same reason – they expect to continue to enrich themselves on government subsidies, ESG consultancies and Ponzi carbon trading. The only surprise here being the manner in which so many self-identifying activists have taken on the role of useful idiots in promoting this final corporate feeding frenzy before Planet Earth is finally exhausted. But for the technocratic priesthood which drives policy across the western states, the proposed non-solution to climate change is an ideologically-driven attempt to digitise the physical world out of existence… it is about using technology to replace the real world – including those pesky Physicals – altogether. The drawback though, is that the proposed fourth industrial revolution only exists inside the heads of the kind of ungrounded Virtuals who fly into Davos on private jets to lecture the rest of us about carbon footprints. That is, the technologies either don’t exist in the real world, or have yet to make it off the test bed.
    The give-away can be found in the absence of infrastructure…
    ..You may breathe a sigh of relief that Elon Musk is never going to install a computer chip in your brain. And it is for the same reason that you can’t buy the promised fridge which automatically orders food from your local supermarket… the infrastructure doesn’t exist. The same goes for genuinely renewable energy technologies and driverless cars. Wannabe global Führer Herr Schwab and his followers might have wet dreams about imposing authoritarian rule over the world population using social credit scores and programmable Central Bank Digital Currencies. But the infrastructure not only doesn’t exist, but it never will…
    ..The illusion – for that is all it is – which we are being sold is little more than the digital version of the eternal life that humans have pursued ever since we began to notice that our days on this planet are numbered. It is largely a geek version of the cosmetic medicine industry’s claim to offer us – at huge cost – the façade of eternal youth…
    ..The same goes for the proposed Great Reset. Not only will the digital technology fail to deliver – because what is promised won’t work in the real world – but it will destroy all that we previously had in the attempt.​ (er, grow vegetables)​
    https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/04/11/counterfeit-world-part-three-hubris/​

    ​ ​The Rising Chorus of Renewable Energy Skeptics ​:​​ ​The green techno-dream is so vastly destructive, they say, ‘we have to come up with a different plan.’
    For largely ideological reasons many greens and “transitionists” have presented the transition to renewables as a smooth road with no potholes. In so doing they have ignored much basic geology, energy physics and even geopolitics. As a consequence many imagine the construction of millions of batteries, wind mills, solar panels, transmission lines and associated technologies, but they downplay the required intensification of mining for copper, nickel, cobalt and rare minerals you’ve probably never heard of such as dysprosium and neodymium.
    One of the great lies of modern technological society is that of endless mineral abundance. Urban consumers, who have little knowledge of energy realities underpinning their existence, have swallowed the idea that digital gadgets and automation will somehow detach society from the physical world and allow us to do more with less, leading to a dematerialization of society. [I feel like I’ll “dematerialize” soon enough, anyway]
    https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/04/07/Rising-Chorus-Renewable-Energy-Skeptics/

    I don’t mean to imply that no new technological innovation is useful, but we should consider possibilities outside of the growth paradigm and vast failure-free infrastructure networks. Solid state batteries have been worked on for decades, and are now operational. Manufacturing them is the big hurdle being undertaken. Toyota is in the lead. These should use less of limited minerals (no nickel or cobalt, for instance), not blow up, and be dependable for over 30 years or 10,000 charge cycles. Something like this could be useful for emergency power at a home or business, and with on-site solar electrical generation.

    Solid-state batteries: the new frontier of electrification?

    #133392
    John Day
    Participant

    Matt Taibbi : Meet The Censored. Me?
    ​ ​To this day I think he ​[Musk] ​did something incredibly important by opening up these communications for the public.
    ​ ​Normally when someone comes to you with a story you ask what it is they want or expect out of press coverage, both so you can understand their motives and to avoid misunderstandings later on. I asked the question, but I can’t say I ever fully understood the answer. It didn’t matter. Within a few days of seeing documents it was clear we were looking at something bigger than us, Musk, or Twitter, more or less completely obviating the motivation question as far as I was concerned.
    ​ ​I went into the project expecting to answer a few narrow questions, maybe about how internal content moderation worked, or if federal law enforcement made an inappropriate call or two to discourage high-profile stories. Remember, in the pre-Twitter Files world, Twitter was still denying that it shadow-banned people at all (“We do not,” they’d explained). Also, the notion that there’d been any contact at all between the FBI and a company like Facebook ahead of the Hunter Biden laptop story was a national scandal after Mark Zuckerberg blurted out something along those lines to Joe Rogan. Just one possible recommendation made headlines, let alone regimes of spreadsheet requests.
    ​ ​When we got into the Files, we were caught off guard. The content-policing system was more elaborate and organized than any of us imagined. A communications highway had been built linking the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence with Twitter, Facebook, Google, and a slew of other platforms. Among other things this looked more like a cartel than a competitive media landscape, and I had an uneasy feeling early on that publicizing this arrangement might create a host of unanticipated problems for everyone involved. Still, there was no question this was in the public interest. So we kept going.​..​
    ..We were never on the same side as Musk exactly, but there was a clear confluence of interests rooted in the fact that the same institutional villains who wanted to suppress the info in the Files also wanted to bankrupt Musk. That’s what makes the developments of the last week so disappointing. There was a natural opening to push back on the worst actors with significant public support if Musk could hold it together and at least look like he was delivering on the implied promise to return Twitter to its “free speech wing of the free speech party” roots. Instead, he stepped into another optics Punji Trap, censoring the same Twitter Files reports that initially made him a transparency folk hero.
    ​ ​Even more bizarre, the triggering incident revolved around Substack, a relatively small company that’s nonetheless one of the few oases of independent media and free speech left in America. In my wildest imagination I couldn’t have scripted these developments, especially my own very involuntary role.​..
    ​..“No way,” I thought, but other Substack writers insisted it was true: their articles were indeed being labeled, and likes and retweets of Substack pages were being prohibited.
    ​ ​I asked Substack co-head Hamish McKenzie what was going on. He said he wasn’t sure, but offered that they’d just announced a new “Notes program” the day before. I had to ask, “What’s that?” I had no clue what ‘Substack Notes” was:
    ​ ​As many unfortunately know now, my next move was to ask Elon what was going on. He didn’t answer right away, which is fine, the man is busy, but the math on this was pretty simple. Whatever was going on between Twitter and Substack had nothing to do with me or with other Substack writers, and if Twitter was going to label our work unsafe and not allow us to share my articles, I couldn’t endorse all this by using the platform, and said so. This prompted a quick ping! and a furious Signal question: “So you want Substack to kill Twitter?”​ [remainder behind paywall]​
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/taibbi-meet-censored-me

    ​ Moon of Alabama (German) looks at the suspicious proliferation of new Pentagon “leak” documents, without photographs of them, and with a teenage leaker-about-the leaker. The leaker, “OG” is a gun-loving American Christian conservative patriot, presumably a middle aged white racist, who was impressing teenage boys in an invitation-only online chat group. (Familiar profile these days?)
    ​ ​If there is some bad blood between the military or intelligence community and the White House the whole ‘leak’ story may well have been placed to limit the White House’s option​s​.
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/04/more-doubts-about-the-leaked-briefing-slides.html#more

    ​ So, a deep-state schism?​
    ​ ​Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson says the Chinese-American financial institution Cathay Bank has given Senate Republicans records showing millions of dollars going from Chinese companies to President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.​…
    ..​The records provided by the bank also include those from the president’s brother, James Biden.
    Cathay Bank has offices in Los Angeles and China.
    Johnson says the bank turned over the records to him and Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley. Other banks have denied the senators’ requests for the records.
    https://justthenews.com/government/congress/china-threatens-biden-revealing-hunter-bidens-bank-records-senate-republicans

    ​ ​First, it was the National Public Radio (or is that Ratio) that stormed off Twitter in a huff after being declared “government-funded media” (it says it right there in the company’s title folks, National and Public) and now it is another Public (as in non-private) company that doesn’t like being called out for what it is that has decided to make a dramatic exit stage left: the Public Broadcasting Service has followed National Public Radio in rage quitting Twitter after the social media network labeled both organizations as government-funded media.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/publicly-funded-pbs-joins-npr-quitting-twitter

    ​ ​The federal government and insurers incentivized healthcare providers in Kentucky and California to vaccinate Medicaid patients against COVID-19 by offering bonuses based on the percentage of patients successfully vaccinated.
    ​ ​“[This is] truly sickening and I am embarrassed for my profession by this,” Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist and biological warfare epidemiologist, wrote on her Substack, where she posted several documents relating to the COVID-19 vaccine provider incentive programs.
    ​ ​The documents help to draw a picture of the broader effort at the federal, state and local levels to unleash a range of strategies targeting low-income and people-of-color communities, which tended to have lower vaccination rates.

    Doctors in Kentucky, California Received Millions in Bonus Payments for Vaccinating Medicaid Patients Against COVID

    #133393
    John Day
    Participant

    “The four outcomes considered by the DIA are:
    1 & 2) the deaths of either Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky or Russian President Vladimir Putin,
    3) the removal of leadership within the Russian Armed Forces,
    4) or a Ukrainian strike on the Kremlin.”

    1) Zelinsky is easy to kill, but is useful to the empire while the empire keeps the “Ukraine will win” narrative, which is increasingly expensive. He would follow orders without being killed.
    2) How ya gonna get Putin to die this year?
    3) How ya gonna’ remove Russian generals. They learned how to avoid targeting last year.
    4) Ukraine striking the Kremlin is US striking the Kremlin. Everybody knows it and Russia already publicly announced how that would be treated.

    #133394
    kultsommer
    Participant

    jb-hb
    Yep, all 4.
    At #3 I would not call you a conspiracy nut job but would think that, more likely, you were fed with McCarthy brand baby formula.
    Call me when flags with hammer and sickle are on the Capitol building, crowned with Kremlin-like huge red star.

    #133395
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Still going with re-framing image as part of your schtick. You’re talking to a left leaning atheist libertine and wanting to throw an ol-timey McCarthy frame around me. Roger that this is what you’d like.

    “Call me when flags with hammer and sickle are on the Capitol building, crowned with Kremlin-like huge red star.”

    Like if you were looking around seeing fascism in action everywhere, worldviews emanating from fascist thinkers embedded in all the institutions – education, corporations, governments at all levels, and ngos, you would say

    “Call me when I can see guys goosestepping down the street out my window”

    because unless I see people goose-stepping down the street, surely there is no fascism. That’s how you can tell when there is fascism.

    #133396
    Mr. House
    Participant

    To the global warming believers here, all i need to know: When they try to have climate change lockdowns, will you support them?

    #133397
    Germ
    Participant

    “Too many illnesses among the agents”. The complaint in the Prosecutor’s Office of the police union: “Seize the vaccines”

    “The leader of the Les Porto union explained that he wanted to present the complaint “because I saw 15 colleagues die from the consequences of the vaccine, all young and healthy“. The document calls for the criminal prosecution of those responsible for the serious events described and, if the link between vaccines and adverse effects is confirmed, the preventive evidentiary seizure of the vaccine vials.”

    https://www.ilparagone.it/attualita/esposto-sindacato-polizia-vaccini/

    TVASF

    #133398
    Germ
    Participant

    Totally Fuckin’ Normal …

    TVASF (that’s what you call an own goal)

    #133399
    Germ
    Participant

    The strange case of Chioggia with 5 men found dead at home in a month

    “Five men found dead at home, within a month, all for no obvious reason. Today is the fifth discovery and the town of Chioggia begins to question whether it is possible to hypothesize some link on these deaths …”

    wink* wink*

    Lo strano caso di Chioggia con 5 uomini trovati morti in casa in un mese

    TVASF

    #133400
    zerosum
    Participant

    John Day,
    I had consultation with a substitute doc.

    She just had the same version as me. (not being able to swallow)
    She reassured me Everything will be okay.
    Today, I tried my first solid food. (M&C)
    My troth has got to learn to swallow a mouthful of food.
    I loss 5 lbs I’m at 125lbs
    —————-
    Avoiding disclosures of secret/lies is easy if you don”t make them.

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