Apr 202023
 
 April 20, 2023  Posted by at 9:09 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Claude Monet Grand Canal, Venice 1908

 

Turkish Interior Minister Claims “The Whole World Hates America” (BNN)
Ukraine Demands Shell’s ‘Russian Blood Money’ – Politico (RT)
Kiev Wants Most Out Of Grain Deal, Demands Bribes From Ship Owners (TASS)
US Military Industry Struggling To Meet Ukraine Demand – WSJ
Resolution Would Make Biden Disclose Number of US Troops in Ukraine (Antiwar)
No ‘Magic Wand’ For Ukraine – UK (RT)
US Fanning Ukraine Crisis as Beijing Proposes Peace Plan – Envoy (TASS)
China’s Role In The Yemen War Ceasefire Should Not Go Unnoticed (Blankenship)
Chinese Envoy: Negative US Role In Escalation On Korean Peninsula (TASS)
Western Countries Dodging Russian Oil Ban (RT)
Macron’s Europe (Patrick Lawrence)
The Dollar’s Dominance As A Reserve Currency Erodes Fast (BI)
Four Reasons The Dollar Is Here to Stay- Part 2 (Lebowitz)
EU Pledges Support For States Flooded With Ukrainian Grain – Politico (RT)
Did the Neocons Save the World from the Thucydides Trap? (Unz)
IRS Agent Alleges DOJ Thwarting Criminal Prosecution Of Hunter Biden (JTN)

 

 

 

 

Pepe

 

 

 

 

Vandana Shiva

 

 

 

 

 

 

Election time.

Turkish Interior Minister Claims “The Whole World Hates America” (BNN)

In a bold statement, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has claimed that “the whole world hates America” while suggesting that Europe is merely a pawn of the United States. Soylu further downplayed Europe’s significance, asserting that it is a trend in America’s column. Süleyman Soylu’s remarks reflect a growing anti-American sentiment in some segments of the international community. By claiming that “the whole world hates America,” Soylu is highlighting the perception that the United States is losing credibility on the global stage. This sentiment can be attributed to various factors, such as foreign policy decisions, economic policies, and perceived cultural dominance.

Soylu’s characterization of Europe as an American pawn suggests that he believes the continent lacks independence and is heavily influenced by the United States. By stating, “There is no such thing as Europe. There is America. Europe is a trend in the Americas column,” Soylu implies that Europe’s actions and policies are primarily driven by American interests rather than its own. This perspective further underscores Soylu’s negative view of the United States and its global influence. The Turkish Interior Minister’s comments may have far-reaching implications for international relations, particularly between Turkey, the United States, and Europe.

Such strong anti-American rhetoric could contribute to increased tensions between the countries and may negatively impact diplomatic relations. Furthermore, Soylu’s dismissal of Europe’s significance could strain Turkey’s relationships with European nations, potentially affecting trade and cooperation in various areas. Soylu’s remarks should be considered within the larger context of global anti-Americanism, which has been rising recently. This sentiment can seriously affect the United States’ ability to maintain its influence and cooperate with other nations. As anti-American feelings continue to grow, the United States may face challenges in forming alliances, negotiating agreements, and projecting its values internationally.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1648657322271539201

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“We call on Shell to put any Russian sale or dividend proceeds to work for the victims of the war – the same war that those assets have fuelled and funded.”

Ukraine Demands Shell’s ‘Russian Blood Money’ – Politico (RT)

An adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has asked oil giant Shell to donate the proceeds from the sale of its Russian assets to Ukraine, Politico reported on Tuesday. In a letter to Shell CEO Wael Sawan dated Monday, Oleg Ustenko, an economic adviser to Zelensky, reportedly called on the firm to donate the proceeds from a supposedly upcoming sale of its stake in a Siberian oil and gas project to Kiev’s coffers. “If completed, this sale would represent the transfer of more than $1 billion in Russian cash into Shell’s accounts. That would be blood money, pure and simple,” Ustenko wrote, according to Politico. “We call on Shell to put any Russian sale or dividend proceeds to work for the victims of the war – the same war that those assets have fuelled and funded.”

Ustenko added that there is an “overwhelming” moral case for handing the cash over to his government. Shell pulled out of the Russian market after Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine last February, announcing that it would write off up to $5 billion of its assets in the country. According to Russian media reports last week, Shell’s stake in the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas development project will be bought out by Russian energy company Novatek for around $1.1 billion, although it is unclear whether the proceeds from this buyout will end up in the British oil firm’s hands. A Shell spokesperson told Politico that it is not involved in any negotiations inside Russia, and has no idea where the money from the sale will end up. The company did not say whether it would honor Ustenko’s request if possible.

Shell is not the only energy company being shaken down for cash by Kiev. Ustenko accused BP of taking “blood money” before it sold its share in Russian energy giant Rosneft last year, in addition to demanding almost half a trillion dollars from the Russian central bank’s frozen assets and asking Ukraine’s Western backers to double their financial aid to his country. With the conflict keeping fossil fuel prices high, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko called on other firms to share some of their “enormous windfall profits” with his government “to help us restore, to rebuild the energy sector,” Politico reported last month.

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“..the Ukrainians first blocked the registration process having disagreed with our proposals, and then suspended all inspections, including inspections of outgoing ships..”

Kiev Wants Most Out Of Grain Deal, Demands Bribes From Ship Owners (TASS)

The Kiev regime is seeking to exploit the Black Sea initiative with might and main, not shunning either the abuse of the rules of procedure or demands for bribes from shipowners. This is stated in the comments by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, which was released on Wednesday. “Currently, the Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) in Istanbul is indeed experiencing difficulties with registering new vessels and conducting inspections. They arise solely as a result of actions by Ukrainian representatives as well as UN officials who are apparently unwilling or unable to stand up to them,” she pointed out. “Having finally discarded not only humanitarian considerations, but even elementary human decency, they (the Kiev regime – TASS) are striving to make the most out of the Black Sea Initiative stooping to anything from outright abuse of the rules of procedure to demanding bribes from the ship owners, doing all of the above for the sake of maximizing commercial profits,” the diplomat added.

As Zakharova noted, the owners of incoming ships who refused to pay a bribe are forced to wait for registration for many months. “Outgoing dry cargo ships that have paid also have to wait for the inspection, because once they receive the money the Ukrainians lose interest in them. This situation stems from the fact that in line with the current practices (importantly, not the rules of procedure), the process for obtaining applications for registration under the Black Sea Initiative is in the hands of the Ukrainians, while the UN is in charge of the inspection plans (for the entry and exit of ships),” she went on. Under these circumstances, the registration of ships, which Russian experts carry out strictly within the approved rules of procedure and their respective powers, is the only way to restore order to some extent and to build a fair and transparent basis for participating in the initiative, the diplomat stressed.

“However, our proposal to add to the registration lists the ships which will then sail to the countries in need, in particular Africa, as well as those that have been waiting in line for more than one month, was met with hostility by Ukrainian representatives. Kiev was not ready to jeopardize its commercial corruption schemes. As a result, the Ukrainians first blocked the registration process having disagreed with our proposals, and then suspended all inspections, including inspections of outgoing ships (27 ships with 1.2 million tons of cargo on board). It is clear what they are banking on: launching a propaganda machine and playing the food card with the help of Westerners and the UN,” she noted.

As the diplomat pointed out, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, and then US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that Russia allegedly broke its promises to the countries in need of grain and blocked 50 ships in the Black Sea. “The EU did not stop there and expressed a belief that is striking in its absurdity and amateurishness: the sanctions imposed on Russia are so well calibrated and balanced that they do not interfere with Russia’s agricultural exports, an example of which is the supply of Russian grain under the Black Sea Initiative,” Zakharova said. “Unfortunately, Brussels still has not figured out that only Ukrainian food is being exported across the Black Sea under the grain deal. Washington is no stranger to issuing valuable tips to other countries about their obligations, completely forgetting about its own,” she added.

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“..the West’s support for Kiev “cannot influence the final outcome of the special operation.”

US Military Industry Struggling To Meet Ukraine Demand – WSJ

American arms manufacturers are struggling to obtain enough rocket motors to build missiles for Ukrainian forces, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. With multiple contractors relying on a single supplier, production targets have already been pushed back. In a quarterly earnings report released on Tuesday, Lockheed Martin said that although its overall sales rose from a year earlier, sales of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) fell due to a “lower volume” leaving its factories. GMLRS projectiles are artillery rockets, and are fired from Lockheed Martin’s M142 HIMARS platform. According to the most recent Pentagon figures, the US has given Ukraine 38 HIMARS platforms, and while the Defense Department does not disclose how many GMLRS projectiles have been sent to Kiev, a Reuters investigation put the figure at over 5,000 last November, more than the 4,600 Lockheed Martin can make in a year.

A shortage of rocket motors has hindered the company’s efforts to boost production, the Wall Street Journal reported. Other missile makers like Raytheon Technologies have also been affected, the newspaper’s source said. Lockheed Martin also uses solid-fuel rocket motors in its Javelin anti-tank missiles, of which more than 8,500 have been sent to Ukraine over the last year. During a visit by President Joe Biden to the company’s Javelin manufacturing facility in Alabama last May, CEO Jim Taiclet vowed to double production of the shoulder-fired missiles by 2024. However, the company and the Pentagon told the Wall Street Journal that the date has since been pushed back to 2026. “We thought we could get there earlier,” Lockheed Martin’s Chief Financial Officer, Jay Malave, told the paper. US missile makers like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies source their rocket motors from a single supplier, Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings.

However, although the Pentagon awarded Aerojet a $216 million contract last week to boost production, it said it was still recovering from a fire at one of its factories last year, while the sale of the company to aerospace giant L3Harris Technologies is still being scrutinized by antitrust authorities. While rocket artillery and guided missile production are apparently hindered, Ukraine is also grappling with a shortage of conventional artillery rounds. Leaked Pentagon documents recently suggested that the shortfall is delaying a planned spring offensive by Kiev’s forces, while the US is reportedly looking to its allies to replenish its depleted stockpiles. Russia has repeatedly warned that the influx of Western weapons will only prolong the conflict in Ukraine. The West’s involvement “is rising gradually,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this month, adding that the West’s support for Kiev “cannot influence the final outcome of the special operation.”

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“The leaked document said there is a total of 29 Defense Department personnel inside Ukraine, including the special operations forces..”

Resolution Would Make Biden Disclose Number of US Troops in Ukraine (Antiwar)

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Monday introduced a resolution that would require President Biden to disclose the number of US troops inside Ukraine and share all documents outlining US military assistance for Kyiv with the House. If the resolution is passed, it would require President Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to share the requested information within 14 days. The introduction comes after one of the documents allegedly leaked by Airman Jack Teixeira confirmed that US special operations forces are in Ukraine. “The Biden Administration and other allied countries have been misleading the world on the state of the war in Ukraine. There must be total transparency from this administration to the American people when they are gambling war with a nuclear adversary by having special forces operating in Ukraine,” Gaetz said in a statement.

According to the document, 97 NATO special operations soldiers in Ukraine, including 14 Americans. The leak confirmed an October 2022 report from The Intercept that said US special operations forces were deployed to Ukraine after Russia’s invasion. The Intercept report did not say what the American special operators were doing inside Ukraine but said it was part of a broad covert operation that includes CIA personnel who are also on the ground. The leaked document said there is a total of 29 Defense Department personnel inside Ukraine, including the special operations forces. The total also includes members of the Marine Security Guard Security Augmentation Unit (MSAU), who are typically deployed for embassy security.

The total also includes the defense attaché and members of the Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC). The Pentagon said in October 2022 that personnel under the defense attaché and ODC based at the US embassy in Kyiv are conducting “onsite” weapons inspections inside Ukraine.

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“..there is not going to be a single magic-wand moment when Russia collapses.”

No ‘Magic Wand’ For Ukraine – UK (RT)

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine will likely continue into next year, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said on Tuesday. “I’m optimistic that between this year and next year, I think Ukraine will continue to have the momentum with it and a position of strength,” Wallace told reporters during a trip to Washington, DC, as quoted by the New York Times. Wallace warned, however, that “there is not going to be a single magic-wand moment when Russia collapses.” The UK has been one of Kiev’s main backers, supplying the country with heavy weapons, including Challenger 2 tanks. Britain has trained 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers, according to the Defence Ministry, and pledged to train 20,000 more this year.

For the past several months, Kiev has been outspoken about its planned counteroffensive, but has not publicly revealed the timetable. Ukrainian officials have said, however, that the schedule and success of the endeavor will heavily depend on the supply of Western tanks and other equipment. Aleksey Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told AP on Monday that the push will start at an appropriate time when the country is ready. Prime Minister Denis Shmigal recently said that the offensive will start “in the nearest future.” Shmigal stated that the recent leaking of the Pentagon files, which included reports about how Western countries were training and equipping Ukrainian troops, will not change the plans for the counteroffensive.

However, a source close to President Vladimir Zelensky told CNN that Kiev had altered some of its plans because of the leak. Some Western leaders, including NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, warned that the conflict, which broke out in February 2022, could last for years. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Washington is determined to support Kiev “for as long as it takes.” The Kremlin said this month that the Russian military has been “meticulously monitoring” information regarding Ukraine’s plans. Moscow has also repeatedly stated that countries which send weapons to Kiev become de facto parties to the conflict.

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“The world community should create conditions and provide a platform for the resumption of talks..”

US Fanning Ukraine Crisis as Beijing Proposes Peace Plan – Envoy (TASS)

The United States has been fanning the conflict in Ukraine, while China has come up with a peace plan, a senior Chinese diplomat said in an interview with TASS. “The Chinese side always takes a balanced and responsible approach to the export of military products. Unlike the United States and other Western nations, who have been adding fuel to the fire in the Ukrainian crisis, we put forward a peace plan to resolve it,” said Liu Xiaoming, Special Representative of the Chinese government on Korean Peninsula Affairs. In late February, the Chinese Foreign Ministry published a position paper on a political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine.


The twelve-point document includes calls for a ceasefire, respect for the legitimate interests of all countries in the field of security, settlement of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, the exchange of prisoners of war between Moscow and Kiev, as well as the cancellation of unilateral sanctions imposed without a corresponding decision of the UN Security Council. In the published document, China described dialogue and negotiations as the sole way of resolving the crisis in Ukraine and called on all parties to support Moscow and Kiev in “moving toward each other”, urging a resumption of direct dialogue as soon as possible. The world community should create conditions and provide a platform for the resumption of talks, the document emphasized.

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It won’t. Just maybe in the west.

China’s Role In The Yemen War Ceasefire Should Not Go Unnoticed (Blankenship)

Estimates suggest at least 350,000 people have died from the war or its consequences, which began in 2014. This includes approximately 85,000 children under the age of five who have died of starvation. Basic civil infrastructure and supply chains have collapsed, and typically treatable communicable diseases like cholera have claimed countless lives. The war is primarily between the Yemeni government of Rashad al-Alimi, who took over in 2022 from Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, and the Houthi armed movement. The conflict escalated significantly when Saudi Arabia became involved in 2015 by backing Hadi (and now al-Alimi) in what is seen as a proxy war between Riyadh and Tehran, who is rumored to be supporting the Houthis. Some of my first memories as a writer and college radio host was speaking to victims of the war and learning about the situation on the ground.

Fortunately, it now looks like the war might come to a close. US media reported on April 6th that a ceasefire had been struck between warring parties at least through the end of this year. Then, on April 7th, Lebanese news outlet Al Mayadeen reported that Riyadh had informed the Yemeni presidential leadership council of its decision to end the war and close the Yemen file once for all. This was further corroborated by a Reuters report, confirming that Saudi delegates would travel to the capital Sana’a to discuss a “permanent ceasefire.” And indeed these talks just wrapped up on April 14th and are expected to have a follow-up. What is apparent from this situation, and what I had previously noted, is that the thawing of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia would likely lead to an end to the conflicts in Yemen and Syria.

We are now seeing that play out. Most importantly, it was not US President Joe Biden – who had promised to end the conflict – but China that set the stage for this diplomatic achievement. And it’s not even a secret among US commentators since outlets like The Intercept, heavily quoting foreign policy experts, are giving China the credit. It is difficult to compare such horrors but in my years speaking with victims of conflict, including Ukrainian refugees now, or previously with Afghans, Syrians and others, some of the most striking stories I’ve heard are from Yemenis. It is undoubtedly one of the most brutal and total wars seen in modern history, yet almost entirely off the radar for most Western media for nearly a decade. Despite all of its diplomatic capital and links to the Middle East, somehow Washington managed – despite promising to halt the conflict – to be so anti-peace that it has driven perennial enemies to the table.

And now, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported, CIA Director William Burns “expressed frustration” with Riyadh over its rapprochements with regional adversaries. Apparently, the US feels ‘blindsided’ by the deluge of peaceful resolutions – things it could never even fathom, apparently – and it’s angry with Riyadh, hitherto one of America’s largest arms importers. Of course, buried under this frustration is a sense of loss. Anyone with some degree of familiarity with US politics and especially US foreign policy knows it is dominated by big money. In foreign affairs, this is primarily the military-industrial complex, which thrives off war and hatred. Peace is bad for business. And thus, the owners of US officials – the people who bankroll their campaigns and/or their bosses’ campaigns – are probably ticked.

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“The escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula is ongoing, and this only raises our level of concern..”

Chinese Envoy: Negative US Role In Escalation On Korean Peninsula (TASS)

Beijing is extremely concerned about the escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, with the United States playing a negative role by holding joint drills with South Korea, Liu Xiaoming, Beijing’s special representative on Korean Peninsula affairs, said in an interview with TASS. “My trip [to Moscow] comes against the backdrop of the latest changes on the Korean Peninsula. On the one hand, we can often hear Westerners – both the Europeans and the Americans – complain that since last year North Korea has conducted a number of missile launches, while on the other hand, we can see that South Korea and the Americans held the largest drills over the past five years [on the peninsula],” the senior Chinese diplomat lamented. “The escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula is ongoing, and this only raises our level of concern,” he added.

Liu also criticized the United States for not having paid due attention to North Korea’s security concerns. “First of all, we should give our European and Russian counterparts a clear understanding of how we view the situation. The Americans always blame North Korea for causing tensions, but there is another reason that is worth noting. We see the reason as stemming from the US conducting such major military exercises. Second, a very important cause of instability on the Korean Peninsula, and of the Korean Peninsula becoming an issue, is that the United States has not paid due attention to North Korea’s concerns in the field of security and has imposed economic sanctions,” the Chinese envoy said. “They always put on the pressure by containing North Korea’s development; they exert political pressure and have imposed economic sanctions,” he added.

According to Liu, the goal of his tour is to share the Chinese vision of the situation on the Korean Peninsula with various counterparts and to find a recipe for promoting a political settlement jointly with European and Russian counterparts. The senior Chinese diplomat said Moscow was the last stop on his 24-day foreign itinerary, during which he said he had already visited Switzerland, Great Britain, Brussels, Germany and France. Liu urged efforts to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula. “Amid the lack of a peace mechanism, the escalation of tensions is ongoing, which threatens peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” he concluded.

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Their own ban.

Western Countries Dodging Russian Oil Ban (RT)

Western states that have banned direct purchases of Russian oil are now buying it indirectly from third countries, a report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) claimed on Wednesday. In December, the EU, G7, and allied countries imposed an embargo and a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian oil. Similar restrictions were introduced in February for exports of Russian petroleum products. While the so-called ‘price cap coalition’ cracked down on crude imports, it has increased purchases of refined products from “oil-laundering” countries, CREA claims. The EU, Australia, and most of the G7 countries imported a combined $45.9 billion worth of oil products from countries that have become the largest buyers of Russian crude in the 12 months since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, the report stated.

According to CREA, “among the price cap coalition, the largest importer of oil products from the laundromat countries was the EU,” with imports reaching $19.4 billion since last February. Australia reportedly purchased $8.8 billion worth of refined crude in the 12-month period, followed by the US with $7.2 billion, the UK with $5.5 billion, and Japan with $5.2 billion. The highest proportions of imported oil products into price cap coalition countries were for diesel (29%), jet fuel (23%), and gasoil (13%). China’s monthly exports of oil products to the EU and Australia spiked far above historical levels in late 2022, the Finland-based research center revealed.

According to the report, which is based on ship-tracking data, the price cap coalition countries ramped up imports of refined oil products from China by 94%, Turkey by 43%, the United Arab Emirates by 23%, Singapore by 33%, and India by 2%. “The price cap coalition countries are responsible for the vast majority of the increase in laundromat countries’ exports of oil products,” CREA said. It claimed that 56% of Russian oil shipped to new destinations “has been transported by vessels owned and/or insured” by Western nations.

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“A durable peace” is one that would recognize Russia’s security concerns, which Washington and its pilot fish in Europe refuse to do..”

Macron’s Europe (Patrick Lawrence)

The press and the trans–Atlantic political cliques ordinarily ignore Macron when he does his I’m-the-next-de-Gaulle act. But not this time. There is too much at stake between the West and China these days: Beijing’s leverage over Moscow, real or imagined, on the Ukraine question, Europe’s role as the U.S. foments a crisis over Taiwan, the independence or otherwise of Europe’s relations with China and the new world order Xi and his top foreign policy officials have declared as the mainland’s priority. Macron fairly leapt into all this as soon as he disembarked in Beijing on April 6. In his arrival speech at the Great Hall of the People, he appealed directly to Xi to exert his influence in Moscow. “I know I can count on you to bring Russia back to reason and everyone back to the negotiating table,” Macron said. The cause, he added, was “a durable peace that respects internationally recognized borders.”

These remarks are interesting in several ways. On one hand, Macron miscalculated. China has made it eminently clear that, if invited, it is willing to act as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine (and Kiev’s Western backers), but under no circumstance will it intervene into the sovereign affairs of the Russian Federation or any other nation. I wish Macron would spend more time doing his homework and less posing for historians and the sculptors of bronze busts. On the other hand, the wording is subtly suggestive. “A durable peace” is one that would recognize Russia’s security concerns, which Washington and its pilot fish in Europe refuse to do. Respecting internationally recognized borders is a fine idea, all would agree, but Macron appeared to leave open what these would be when maps are drawn at the conclusion of negotiations.

And on the other hand — there are three in this case — Macron suggested quite openly that negotiating with Russia was as valid an undertaking as negotiating with China. The French president’s “I know I can count on you” was wildly incautious: The Chinese leader was “inflexible in direct reply to French head of state,” as Le Monde put it. At the same time, Macron managed a nifty chime with Xi on the larger point. “Together with France, we appeal for restraint and reason,” Xi remarked during the Great Hall exchange, “in the quest for a political settlement and the building of a European security architecture that is balanced and lasting.” After extensive talks in Beijing, Xi took the unusual step of escorting Macron to Guangdong, the southern province where a lot of China’s manufacturing capacity is concentrated. There are a couple of things to say about this side trip, too. Three, actually.

One, Macron signaled his view that Europe’s relations with the People’s Republic should remain open and develop further on the economic side — an implicit rejection of Washington’s campaign to disrupt the extensive interdependence of economic ties between the West and China. Two, we have to think about why Xi invested so much time in this encounter with the French leader. If I know Macron is an inconstant lightweight and you know the same, we can count on Xi understanding very well Macron’s character. My reply: Xi’s intent was to demonstrate that Beijing remains open to developing a set of relations with Europe that amount to a common cause against America’s effort to line up the Atlantic world against China and, by implication, Russia. “Xi denounced ‘Cold War logic and the confrontation of blocs,” Le Monde’s correspondent, Claire Gatinous, reported from Beijing. Gatinous then quoted Xi saying, “China always considers Europe an independent pole in a multipolar world.”

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Reserve currency is not the same as trade currency.

The Dollar’s Dominance As A Reserve Currency Erodes Fast (BI)

The dollar’s standing as a reserve currency of choice saw a steep decline in 2022 even though its strength in international trade remains unchallenged, according to Eurizon SLJ Asset Management. In a Monday note, strategists Joana Freire and Stephen Jen calculated that the greenback accounted for about two-thirds of total global reserves in 2003, then 55% by 2021, and 47% last year. “This 8% decline in one year is exceptional, equivalent to 10 times the average annual pace of erosion in the USD’s market share in the prior years,” the authors said. The drop-off in the dollar’s standing as a reserve currency accelerated since the start of the war in Ukraine in particular.

“Exceptional actions” — namely sanctions taken by the US and its allies against Moscow — made many nations less willing to hold on to the dollar, the report said. After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Western nations largely cut off Russia from the world financial system and froze its currency reserves, forcing the Kremlin to rely more on the yuan. Meanwhile, the euro’s share as a reserve currency jumped by about 5%, Eurizon said, bringing its standing to the same level it hit in 2003 and effectively erasing two decades of losses. China’s yuan, meanwhile, continued to gain at its usual pace and didn’t see a big spike as a global reserve currency last year. To be sure, no other currency is set up to challenge the dollar’s dominance in international trade. It’s still the main conduit for country-to-country transactions, Eurizon said.

Citing data from the Bank for International Settlements’ Triennial Foreign Exchange Surveys, the dollar commanded 85% of all currency turnover in 2010, compared to its 88% market share in 2022, the note said. “We believe the erosion of the dollar’s reserve currency status has accelerated in recent years at an alarming pace, especially since the start of the Ukraine War, while the dollar will likely continue to enjoy dominance as an international currency for a while longer,” it added. Meanwhile, Fitch Solutions said the dollar’s dominance will erode over time but there won’t be a “paradigm shift,” given that there’s no viable alternative currency for international trade.

China’s rich
https://twitter.com/i/status/1648324373218992129

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“The U.S. bond markets are considered the world’s deepest and most liquid markets.”

Four Reasons The Dollar Is Here to Stay- Part 2 (Lebowitz)

The dollar will be extremely hard to replace for four reasons: The rule of law, liquid financial markets, and economic and military might. 60% of global currency reserves are in dollars, and about 90% of trade occurs in dollars. No other currency or block of nation’s currencies, gold-backed currency, or bitcoin is currently a viable candidate to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency.

The rule of law helps ensure that U.S. citizens and institutions are provided human rights, property, contracts, and procedural rights. While many other nations may claim to have similar legal processes, few live up to U.S. standards. The legal system equally protects foreigners with dollar and other financial and legal interests in the U.S. From a currency perspective, the court system, not a government decree, rules on financial disputes. It is undoubtedly flawed and biased. As Russia, Iran, and other countries have found, the U.S. government will seize their dollars if they deem it in its best interest. While such acts bend the value of the rule of law, almost all foreign nations are confident that the U.S. system of law and governance ensures their ability to hold and transact in U.S. dollars. Further, laws and regulations provide confidence in the proper functioning of U.S. markets they rely heavily on to meet their borrowing and investment needs.

Hedge fund mogul Mark Mobius is discovering why investing in countries less judicious than the U.S. can be dangerous. Per CNN: “I have an account with HSBC in Shanghai. I can’t take my money out. The government is restricting the flow of money out of the country,” Mobius, founder of Mobius Capital Partners, told FOX Business on March 2, 2023. For those thinking that China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia can cobble together a reserve currency, ask yourself a question. If you were the leader of a nation, would you leave funds in their banking system or trust their government with said funds? More importantly, do you even think those countries trust each other? From an operational perspective, the size and liquidity of U.S. financial markets and the ease with which foreigners can borrow and invest U.S. dollars are of utmost importance.

Foreigners enacting global trade need dollars to facilitate exchange. Therefore, they hold dollars and maintain the ability to borrow dollars. International trade requires a financial system with immense liquidity. Further, the more liquid a market, the lower the borrowing, investing, and hedging costs. In this respect, the U.S. is second to none. The U.S. bond markets are considered the world’s deepest and most liquid markets. As we quote below, the U.S. bond market accounts for almost 40% of all bonds outstanding globally. Per the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA): “As of 2021, the size of the bond market (total debt outstanding) is estimated to be at $119 trillion worldwide and $46 trillion for the U.S. market.”

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You lucky bastards: you get to pay for the exact same thing twice. First, to make Ukraine produce cheaper in the EU; then to make EU farmers whole. They offer €100 million. Of your money.

EU Pledges Support For States Flooded With Ukrainian Grain – Politico (RT)

The European Commission (EC) said on Wednesday it is considering complying with some of the demands from eastern EU member states to introduce tariffs on Ukrainian agricultural imports. The announcement comes as Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Bulgaria have been lobbying for the reintroduction of tariffs in order to protect local markets from “destabilization” caused by an influx of cheap goods from Ukraine. Local farmers in those countries claim to have suffered substantial financial losses due to the glut of Ukrainian grain. In a letter to the five countries, cited by Politico, the commission reportedly proposed “preventative measures” on imports of Ukrainian maize, wheat, sunflower and rapeseed. The EC’s spokesperson told a daily briefing that the commission envisages imposing customs duties on those products, the outlet wrote.

It also said that Brussels is expected to allocate additional funding for so-called solidarity lanes for Ukrainian agricultural exports to the global market and distribute €100 million ($109 million) in support for the five eastern European member states. The proposal will reportedly be discussed on Wednesday during a meeting of the European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski, European Commissioner of Trade Valdis Dombrovskis and the five countries’ trade ministers. Wojciechowski said earlier the commission would announce “good news” for farmers. The EU allowed imports of Ukrainian agricultural goods to help Kiev financially during the ongoing conflict in the country. All tariffs and quotas were lifted on Ukrainian grain exports to the bloc’s 27 member states in order to enable the further transit of the grain to global markets.

However, much of the supply has ended up getting stuck in eastern European countries, hitting local farmers’ business. This culminated in massive farmer protests earlier this month, which blocked border crossings and forced the five eastern EU nations to demand action from the EC over Ukrainian agricultural exports. The EC earlier approved an aid package worth €56 million to support farmers in frontline countries who have to deal with the consequences of a large amount of agricultural and food goods from Ukraine entering the bloc. However, even the latest €100 million in proposed aid may not be enough. According to the commission’s estimates, farmers from Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovakia have lost some €417 million over the past year due to the oversupply of grain.

Read more …

Rising powers.

Did the Neocons Save the World from the Thucydides Trap? (Unz)

Following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago, America had emerged as the sole, unchallenged global superpower. But over the last generation, the tremendous growth rate of the Chinese economy had propelled it past America’s in real size, the first such transition since our own country had overtaken Britain near the end of the 19th century. China’s technological progress had been equally rapid, and in our modern world these constitute the raw elements of global power, while China had also begun bolstering its military, not previously a high priority. I’d certainly been well aware of these same trends and several years earlier I’d published a long article of my own on the contrasting trajectories of China and America, but I’d never considered military conflict as a realistic possibility. However, when Allison and his associates sifted the last 500 years of history to locate cases in which the rapidly growing power of a rising nation had threatened to overtake that of a dominant reigning one, they discovered that in well over half the examples—12 out of 16— the result had been war.

Some of these individual historical cases may easily be disputed—and indeed a couple of the ones provided in his 2015 article differed from those in his 2017 book—but the general pattern seemed quite clear. Even the oldest and deepest cultural and political ties hardly prevented this outcome. Prior to World War I, Britain and Germany had never fought a war against each other, and indeed the latter’s Prussian predecessor had traditionally bee Britain’s staunchest Continental ally. The two imperial families were also deeply interwoven, with the British monarchy having multiple German antecedents, while Queen Victoria’s favorite grandchild was Kaiser Wilhelm II, and she’d died in his arms. The English language itself had German roots, hardly surprising since the Angles and the Saxons had originally been Germanic tribes.

Yet all these centuries of close ties counted for little compared to the simple geopolitical fact that Germany’s growing industrial and military power threatened to overshadow that of its kindred nation on the other side of the Channel. By contrast, the political, cultural, and racial gulf separating America from a rising China seems immense, easily lending itself to the crudest demonization, the sort of populist demagoguery able to stoke national hatred. Not only is China’s language and culture totally different from our own, but for three generations that country has been governed by a Communist Party whose official ideology is utterly contrary to our own democratic constitutionalism. Many hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops had fought against American forces during the Korean War, inflicting most of our 36,000 combat deaths.

Read more …

“..examples of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols..”

IRS Agent Alleges DOJ Thwarting Criminal Prosecution Of Hunter Biden (JTN)

A decorated supervisory IRS agent has reported to the Justice Department’s top watchdog that federal prosecutors appointed by Joe Biden have engaged in “preferential treatment and politics” to block criminal tax charges against presidential son Hunter Biden, providing evidence as a whistleblower that conflicts with Attorney General Merrick Garland’s recent testimony to Congress that the decision to bring charges against Biden was being left to the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for Delaware. According to a letter from the whistleblower’s attorney Mark Lytle to Congress obtained by Just the News, the IRS agent revealed he is seeking to provide detailed disclosures about a high-profile, sensitive case to the tax-writing committees in Congress, which have special authority under federal tax privacy laws to receive such information.


That could pave the way to share the details with other committees in coming weeks. The letter does not state that the whistleblower disclosures are related to Hunter Biden. However, Just the News has independently confirmed the agent’s allegations involve the Hunter Biden probe being led by Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump holdover, according to multiple interviews with people directly familiar with the matter. In a letter Wednesday to Republicans and Democrats overseeing multiple oversight committees in Congress, Lytle wrote: “The protected disclosures: (l) contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee, (2) involve failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case, and (3) detail examples of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle April 20 2023

Viewing 33 posts - 1 through 33 (of 33 total)
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  • #133794

    Claude Monet Grand Canal, Venice 1908   • Turkish Interior Minister Claims “The Whole World Hates America” (BNN) • Ukraine Demands Shell’s ‘Russi
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 20 2023]

    #133795
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Claude Monet Grand Canal, Venice 1908

    He (Monet) does water so well…

    Here in LoS we have been in a heat wave for the last 2-3 weeks. The mercury has been hitting 40°c with many 39°c’s thrown in for good measure.
    The humidity has been 40% which exacerbates the temps quite a bit… We don’t ususally turn on the air-con until the 35°c mark; which is usually by noon or one o’clock…
    The weather bureau says another 2 weeks until some relief…
    Hottest period in my 20 years here……….

    #133796
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Whoopie says to Bud on “The View” that “You better be afraid of the Left. You better.” Um, why? If they have good persuasive ideas, then that’s not a cause for ‘fear’. Only if they use violence, and you promote violence, would there be a cause for ‘fear’. This is kind of what the Right was saying, and kind of what they suspected with the non-apology. The Right are considered useless, weak, stupid, and beneath contempt. That is to say, 95% of all American counties, ie. the whole country. They fear the 1-3% of the Left much more than the 95%. And why not? They’ll burn down 12 American cities and have the cities pay THEM.

    I find Whoopie’s statement remarkable. As brazen as her other open calls to violence. But what can you expect from a an openly racist anti-semite?

    “MTG Bares Fang-Fangs, Throws House Meeting Into Chaos Over Swalwell ‘Sexual Relationship With A Chinese Spy’

    Why not? Shouldn’t somebody deal with open “treason” throughout all the upper ranks? I doubt he even issued an apology.

    Like this: “Accusations of mismanagement and chaos are piling up against St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner.” (St. Louis DA)
    “Bailey asserts she neglected her duties by failing to properly staff her office and allowing thousands of criminal cases to languish. …a judge ordered Gardner to “show cause” why she shouldn’t be held in contempt of court for failing to ensure that prosecutors from her office show up for a murder trial on April 17.
    The contempt action comes after a judge sanctioned Gardner for failing to turn over evidence in a double murder case earlier this month.”

    Now you see why they’re after “Soros” DA’s. Um, because they specifically and intentionally cause crime, murder, death, destruction, unrest, and economic and social collapse? To ME? And this is the same office that did nuclear prosecution when a homeowner even brandished to protect himself.

    Conclusion: WE will not protect you. We will jail you if you protect YOURSELF. The only condition in which we are happy is if you are dead.

    “Failing to turn over evidence”? And she says “They have no cause to remove her (just because she won’t lift a finger to do her job)”. The people generally are 100x tolerant of this behavior and speed, showing they love it only slightly less than she does.

    Here’s another one the people love: “The Bullet Train Epitomizes Golden State Corruption” $127 Billion dollars, Zero train. Divide by zero, that’s like INFINITY corruption. Example how much money that is? Like two fully-functioning nuclear power plants. But that’s NOT ENOUGH corruption. They still need MOAR.

    This is why you can’t “Let it go” but have to go do your job as a citizen.

    “Waco 30 Years Later: It’s Not An Atrocity If The Feds Do It

    Burning children alive on camera. Everyone approves. And things were so much better, milder, more innocent back then. Like cancer, if you don’t stop evil, it expands. Using your $127 Billion dollars you’re now too weak to resist, and too corrupt to vote out.

    Musk + Tucker = Apparently people like sex? Sex sells? Note implied in the headlines are women are little darling Stepford robots with no reality or agency of their own and have nothing to do with this. That’s what Rolling Stone believes! Whenever babies are made, women are never in the room!
    They Hate. Life. So. Much.

    The very thought of Joy drives them insane. Why? Like other demons, they are separated from God, yet still hunger for the love and light that originates from him. Like rabid animals they are dying of thirst and can’t drink.

    …And all they have to do is say “Yes.” I accept God again. They won’t.

    Petroleum reserve needs to cease to exist to leave the U.S. helpless in the upcoming/present war. We’re required to lose, and with Swalwell, etc, all institutions driven insane with a a Marxism that is internally contradictory and illogical, we are an easy, well-prepared target. Once you have children running in the streets, setting fires and raping things, I can buy it all up for 5c on the dollar. Then Lo! I suddenly see the Light!!! …Aaaaaaand once I own everything, we install a Napoleon, smash everybody, re-establish law for MY property. …’Cause “You’ll Own Nothing.” You’ll rent it from me. …If I FEEL like it, and mostly I don’t feel like it cause you’re not enough dead yet.

    “Ukraine Demands Shell’s ‘Russian Blood Money’ – Politico (RT) “

    Notice like other grifters, they have no power of their own, pretend they are weak, innocent, and helpless, and everybody ELSE must do all the work FOR them (or else mister!!) while Ze buys a third mansion, gets an Oscar, and his wife parties $10,000 shopping sprees. I mean, doesn’t that say “honest victim” to you? Apparently it does, everybody loves it. Ze is driving a Cadillac Escalade, surely that Welfare thing is working.

    “• US Military Industry Struggling to Meet Ukraine Demand – WSJ”

    Yet they are still 510% against jobs, work, and re-industrialization. …Whhhhhhhhyyyyyy? Why? He says. Because we are required to lose. They know it, they are CREATING it. It’s not an accident. It’s Raz al Ghul and the League of Shadows. They MAKE cities fall. They DECIDE and CAUSE it.
    That’s why they need our guns, because otherwise the U.S. WOULD fall. With them, WE are the U.S. Army, which is how it is supposed to be. The POINT of a declaration of war is to “Call up” the Army out of the local militias, as we would have no standing army. Look it up.

    “Resolution Would Make Biden Disclose Number of US Troops in Ukraine (Antiwar) “

    Like Swalwell patticake and 100 other examples, THIS IS ALREADY ILLEGAL. HE IS ALREADY REQUIRED. So you’re going to pass a resolution that Biden should follow the law? No, like the St. Louis DA, you Impeach them immediately for not following the law. That’s not some kind of politico-moral statement, that’s your g-d-d—-d duty. I don’t care how it LOOKS, in fact I’m sorry it looks sh—-y, but that’s the process to make the paper machine make paper, and the nail machine make nails. That’s how it WORKS. Read the manual for once and follow it.

    “The UK has been one of Kiev’s main backers,”

    Da Whut??? UK has no tanks, no planes, and no shells. That’s a MAIN backer? You could put every UK serviceman in a college football stadium and still be half-empty. WTF are these guys talking about??? They’re a “Backer” of the war only in the sense that they are the main CAUSE of it.

    ““The escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula is ongoing, and this only raises our level of concern..”

    The original PLAN had the Losing U.S. war starting in North Korea. That’s why they were hebephrenic apoplectic about Trump causing peace there (and never mentioned again). They’re only barely getting it back on track.

    “Western Countries Dodging Russian Oil Ban (RT) “

    Yes, Joe Biden is a major purchaser of Russian Oil.

    “The dollar will be extremely hard to replace for four reasons: The rule of law, liquid financial markets, and economic and military might.”

    Hahahahahahaha! Oh wait: you’re not kidding?
    1) The West has no rule of law. Anywhere.
    2) The financial markets are actually illiquid. The prices are rigged, and the “liquidity” is an illusion. In many markets, created entirely by HFT yanking away bid-offers if anyone tries to take them. In others, liquidity is infinite until it is zero, like FTX, SVB, etc. This is now market-wide. Other markets like Silver, Bitcoin, have NO delivery. Ever. How are you “liquid” if you sell millions of something but never deliver it?
    3) The U.S. and West hasn’t the Economic might to avoid backruptcies of BlackRock and SVB, the 17th largest bank. They cannot make copper and steel for shells leading to
    4) The U.S. has zero military might and has been defeated by every pajama-wearing group with a revolver since WWII. We only most recently lost entirely in F-Stan, in Syria, and can project no power into Africa, Asia, tiny Pacific Atolls, or Ukraine.

    Okay, you want to change your position?

    “Mobius: Per CNN: “I have an account with HSBC in Shanghai. I can’t take my money out.”

    You could if it were Bitcoin. Speaking of, London just said they are willing to be a trading and clearing house for Bitcoin and Crypto. Noooooooooo!!!!!. OMG, JHC, and all things Holy, THAT’S THE WHOLE AND ONLY POINT of Bitcoin. There IS no “clearinghouse”. YOU are the clearinghouse. Cut the banks out, and their vig.

    If I free people, they go search the city in a fever, find a rope, make a noose and stick their heads back in it, what do you want from me? They’re like “Forky” constantly looking to throw themselves in the Trash.

    • Did the Neocons Save the World from the Thucydides Trap? (Unz)

    Not exactly. The White Hats are few and have delicate power, however they CAN instigate Russia to do this, knowing the outcome will be THAT. That is, they are inside so they can measure the support of the long PLANned China war we’re supposed to lose. They realize there’s still too much support and near zero support for America. So the only way to derail it is to SHOW, to live through, to FEEL and experience an utter loss somewhere else, demonstrating how useless we – and all their weapons – are. For other reasons, that was best demonstrated in Ukraine, whereby they SIGNAL to Russia that they exist and have a green/yellow light. Russia then tests their own waters and accepts.

    This is all done as it were BY the Neocons, as they are such rabid, glue-sniffing morons, they can be steered ANYWHERE. That’s why Davos put them there. As long as it’s war, murder, theft, and other Nazi values. However for the exact same reasons they can say “We’re 110% behind you”, then refuse to escalate in Ukraine after just ONE bunker is busted, hanging the NeoCons, and all Davos, out to dry.

    #133798
    Mr. House
    Participant
    #133799
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Pepe Escobar: Russia has DEFEATED the Neocon Agenda Despite Ukraine Crisis

    #133800
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Klaus Schwab and his Daddy Eugen

    The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

    .

    #133801
    Oroboros
    Participant

    A soft shoe hectoring by your Betters

    Truly out of touch and insane

    Bankers need to be dancing on the end of ropes

    CitiBank Says Ukraine War Must Be Won So That ‘Private Capital’ Can Be Put Into The Country

    #133802
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Placing, say, three mirrors behind the candle one gets “for candles for the price of one”.
    That’s what keeps me confused in terms of energy expenditure.
    So I better stick on commenting social dynamics and art that TAE offers, when the mood strikes.

    #133803
    zerosum
    Participant

    Seriously!

    Did you think that you were able to change what will happen just because you read TAE?

    #133804
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    @ Dr. D. – Hahahahahahaha! Oh wait: you’re not kidding?
    ______________________________________

    Well, … it’s a very first time I wish I had a Twitter account, … just for a moment!,to repost your response to this guy – since he is so, … so proud of his article. And so, just perhaps, maybe you wish to ruffle his feathers? Or permit someone else to do so? That would make my day, …

    Best,

    F.S.

    #133805
    John Day
    Participant

    After Liftoff is up, yes with the Starship video https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/after-liftoff

    Archdruid, John Michael Greer talks about the late decay of empire, specifically the American Empire, but other empires, too:
    Dancing On The Brink
    The core project of this blog, like its predecessor The Archdruid Report, is the quest for ways to lead a meaningful human life in harmony with nature during the decline and fall of a vast and profoundly unnatural civilization…
    ​..​​Roughly five per cent of the human race currently live in the United States of America. That very small fraction of humanity, until quite recently, got to enjoy about a third of the world’s energy resources and manufactured products and about a quarter of its raw materials… It happened because as the world’s dominant nation, the United States imposed unbalanced patterns of exchange on the rest of the world, and these funneled a disproportionate share of the planet’s wealth to this one nation.​.. America’s empire came into being in the wake of the collapse of the British Empire during the fratricidal European wars of the early twentieth century…
    ..The ascendancy of one empire simply guarantees that other aspirants for the same status will begin sharpening their knives. They’ll get to use them, too, because empires invariably wreck themselves: over time, the economic and social consequences of empire destroy the conditions that make empire possible. That can happen quickly or slowly, depending on the mechanism that each empire uses to extract wealth from its subject nations…
    ​ ​The mechanism the United States used for this latter purpose was ingenious but even more short-term than most. In simple terms, the US imposed a series of arrangements on most other nations that guaranteed that the lion’s share of international trade would use US dollars as the medium of exchange, and saw to it that an ever-expanding share of world economic activity required international trade. (That’s what all that gabble about “globalization” meant in practice.) This allowed the US government to manufacture dollars out of thin air by way of gargantuan budget deficits, so that US interests could use those dollars to buy up vast amounts of the world’s wealth. Since the excess dollars got scooped up by overseas central banks and business firms, which needed them for their own foreign trade, inflation stayed under control while the wealthy classes in the US profited mightily from the scheme…
    ..The problem with this scheme is the same difficulty faced by all Ponzi schemes, which is that sooner or later you run out of suckers to draw in…
    ​..​Fast forward to last year. When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States and its allies responded not with military force but with punitive economic sanctions, which were expected to cripple the Russian economy and force Russia to its knees. Apparently nobody in Washington DC considered the possibility that other nations with an interest in undercutting the US empire might have something to say about that. Of course that’s what happened. China, which has the largest economy on Earth in purchasing-power terms, extended a middle finger in the direction of Washington DC and upped its imports of Russian oil, gas, grain, and other products. So did India, currently the third largest economy on Earth in the same terms; so did more than a hundred other countries.​..
    ​..At this point the sanctions are hurting the United States and Europe, not Russia, but the US leadership has wedged itself into a position from which it can’t back down. This may go a long way toward explaining why the Russian campaign in Ukraine has been so leisurely. The Russians have no reason to hurry. They know that time is not on the side of the United States…
    ..For many decades now, the threat of being cut out of international trade by US sanctions was the big stick Washington DC used to threaten unruly nations that weren’t small enough for a US invasion or fragile enough for a CIA-backed regime change operation. Over the last year, that big stick turned out to be made of balsa wood, and snapped off in Joe Biden’s hand. As a result, all over the world, nations that thought they had no choice but to use dollars in their foreign trade are switching over to their own currencies, or to the currencies of rising powers. The US dollar’s day as the global medium of exchange is thus ending.​..
    ..When the British pound lost a similar role in the early years of the Great Depression, no other currency was ready to take on its role either. It wasn’t until 1970 or so that the US dollar finished settling into place as the currency of global trade. In the interval, international trade lurched along awkwardly using whatever currencies or commodity swaps the trading partners could settle on: that is to say, the same situation that’s taking shape around us in the free-for-all of global trade that will define the post-dollar era…
    ..The United States of America is bankrupt. Our governments from the federal level on down, our big corporations, and a very large number of our well-off citizens have run up gargantuan debts, which can only be serviced given direct or indirect access to the flows of unearned wealth the United States extracted from the rest of the planet. Those debts cannot be paid off, and many of them can’t even be serviced for much longer. The only options are defaulting on them or inflating them out of existence, and in either case, arrangements based on familiar levels of expenditure will no longer be possible. Since the arrangements in question include most of what counts as an ordinary lifestyle in today’s United States, the impact of their dissolution will be one for the record books.
    ​ ​In effect, the five per cent of us in this country are going to have to go back to living on about five per cent of the planet’s wealth, the way we did before 1945. If we still had the factories, the trained work force, the abundant natural resources, and the thrifty habits we had back then, that would have been a wrenching transition but not a debacle. The difficulty, of course, is that we don’t have those things any more.​..
    ​..The good news is that there’s a solution to all this. The bad news is that it’s going to take a couple of decades of serious turmoil to get there. The solution is that the US economy will retool itself to produce earned wealth in the form of real goods and nonfinancial services. That’ll happen inevitably as the flows of unearned wealth falter, foreign goods become unaffordable to most Americans, and it becomes profitable to produce things here in the United States again. The difficulty, of course, is that most of a century of economic and political choices meant to support our former imperial project are going to have to be undone.
    ​..​The most obvious example? The metastatic bloat of government, corporate, and nonprofit managerial jobs in American life…
    ​..​What will happen … is that the middle and upper middle classes in the United States, and in many other countries, will face the same kind of slow demolition that swept over the working classes of those same countries in the late twentieth century…
    ..All the businesses that make money catering to these same classes will lose their incomes as well, a piece at a time. Communities will hollow out the way the factory towns of America’s Rust Belt and the English Midlands did half a century ago, but this time it will be the turn of upscale suburbs and fashionable urban neighborhoods to collapse as the income streams that supported them go away.
    ​ ​I want to stress that this is not going to be a fast process. The US dollar is losing its place as the universal medium of foreign trade, but it will still be used by some countries for years to come. The unraveling of the arrangements that direct unearned wealth to the United States will go a little faster, but that will still take time. The collapse of the cubicle class and the gutting of the suburbs will unfold over decades. That’s the way changes of this kind play out.​..
    ​..We are dancing, we Americans, on the brink of a long slippery slope into an unwelcome new reality.
    ​​https://www.ecosophia.net/dancing-on-the-brink/

    ​ ​Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu Claims “The Whole World Hates America”
    ​ ​Soylu’s characterization of Europe as an American pawn suggests that he believes the continent lacks independence and is heavily influenced by the United States. By stating, “There is no such thing as Europe. There is America. Europe is a trend in the Americas column,” Soylu implies that Europe’s actions and policies are primarily driven by American interests rather than its own. This perspective further underscores Soylu’s negative view of the United States and its global influence.
    https://bnn.network/world/turkey/turkish-interior-minister-suleyman-soylu-claims-the-whole-world-hates-america/

    M. K. BHADRAKUMAR​ ​China, Russia circle wagons in Asia-Pacific​
    ​Last Wednesday, US Commerce Department announced the imposition of export controls on a dozen Chinese companies for “supporting Russia’s military and defence industries.” The Global Times hit back defiantly that “as China is an independent major power, so is Russia. It’s our right to decide with whom we will carry out normal economic and trade cooperation. We cannot accept the US’ finger-pointing or even economic coercion.” …
    ​..​Putin had disclosed in October 2019 that Russia was helping China to create an early missile warning system that would drastically enhance the defensive capacity of China. Chinese observers noted that Russia was more experienced in developing and operating such a system, which is capable of identifying and sending warnings immediately after intercontinental ballistic missiles are launched.
    ​ ​Such cooperation demonstrates a high level of trust and requires a possible integration of Russian and Chinese systems. The system integration will be mutually beneficial; stations located in the North and West of Russia could provide China with warning data and, in turn, China could provide Russia with data collected at their Eastern and Southern stations. That is to say, the two countries could create their own global missile defence network.
    ​ ​These systems are among the most sophisticated and sensitive areas of defence technology. The US and Russia are the only countries which have been able to develop, build and maintain such systems. Certainly, close coordination and cooperation between Russia and China, two nuclear-armed powers, will profoundly contribute to world peace in the present circumstances by containing and deterring US hegemony.​..
    ​..​Again, exercises of US aviation and fleet forces have been increasingly noticed in the immediate vicinity of Russian borders or in regions where Russia has geopolitical interests. On April 5, B-52 Stratofortress circled over the Korean Peninsula allegedly “in response to nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.” At the same time, South Korea, the US and Japan conducted trilateral naval exercises in the waters of the Sea of Japan with the participation of aircraft carrier USS Nimitz.
    ​ ​Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev recently drew attention to Japan’s growing capability to conduct offensive operations, which, he said, constituted “a gross violation of one of the most important outcomes of the Second World War.” Japan plans to purchase around 500 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US, which can directly threaten most of the territory of the Russian Far East. The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is working on developing Type 12 land-based anti-ship missiles “in order to protect the remote islands of Japan.”
    ​ ​Japan is also developing hypersonic weapons designed to conduct combat operations “on remote islands,” which Russians see as options for Japan’s possible seizure of the Southern Kuriles. In 2023, Japan will have a military budget exceeding $51 billion (on par with Russia’s), which is slated to increase to $73 billion.​..
    ​..Surveying the regional alignments, Yuri Lyamin, Russian military expert and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a leading think tank of the military-industrial complex, told Izvestia newspaper:
    ​ ​“Considering that we have not settled the territorial issue, Japan lays claim to our South Kuriles. In this regard, checks are very necessary. It is necessary to increase the readiness of our forces in the Far East…
    ​ ​“In the context of the current situation, we need to further strengthen defence cooperation with China. In fact, an axis is being formed against Russia, North Korea and China: the USA, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and then it goes to Australia. Great Britain is also actively trying to participate… All this must be taken into account and cooperation should be established with China and North Korea, which are, one might say, our natural allies.”
    ​ ​In highly significant remarks at a Kremlin meeting with Shoigu on April 17 — while Li was in Moscow — Putin noted that the current priorities of Russia’s armed forces are “primarily focusing on the Ukrainian track… (but) the Pacific theatre of operations remains relevant” and it must be borne in mind that “the forces of the (Pacific) fleet in its individual components can certainly be used in conflicts in any direction.”
    ​ ​The next day, Shoigu told Gen. Li, “In the spirit of unbreakable friendship between the nations, peoples, and the armed forces of China and Russia, I look forward to the closest and most successful cooperation with you…”​ …
    ​..Russia, is turning attention to the Asia-Pacific theatre. Suffice to say, Li’s visit shows that the reality of Russia–China defence cooperation is complicated. Russia–China military-technical cooperation has always been rather secretive, and the level of secrecy has increased as both countries engage in more direct confrontation with the US.
    ​ ​The political meaning of Putin’s 2019 statement on jointly developing a ballistic missile early warning system extended far beyond its technical and military significance. It demonstrated to the world that Russia and China were on the brink of a formal military alliance, which could be triggered if US pressure went too far.

    China, Russia circle wagons in Asia-Pacific

    Russia Threatens To Give North Korea Advanced Weapons If Seoul Arms Ukraine
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-threatens-given-north-korea-advanced-weapons-if-seoul-arms-ukraine

    #133806
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ It turns out that the whole US rocket & missile-munitions industry has choke points at rocket-motor production that prevent increased production before 2026.​
    https://www.azerbaycan24.com/en/us-military-industry-struggling-to-meet-ukraine-demand-wsj/

    ​ ​Japan Signals an Attitude Shift to the Growing Power of the Global South
    ​ ​In mid-April, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs released its Diplomatic Bluebook 2023, its most important guidebook on international affairs. Japan’s foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, wrote the foreword, which begins: “The world is now at a turning point in history.”​ …
    ​..​Despite all the talk of sanctions, Japan continues to import energy from Russia. In 2022, 9.5 percent of Japan’s imported liquefied natural gas came from Russia (up from 8.8 percent in 2021). Most of this energy came from Russia’s Sakhalin Island, where Japanese companies and the government have made substantial investments. In July 2022, Hayashi was asked about Japan’s continued imports from Sakhalin-2. His answer was clear: “Sakhalin-2 is an important project for energy security, including the stable supply of electricity and gas in Japan.” Since July, Japan’s officials have continued to emphasize Japan’s national interests—including through the Sakhalin-2 natural gas project—over its obligations to the G7 and to its own statements about the war.​..​
    ​..​The Diplomatic Bluebook 2023 makes three important points: that the post-Cold War era has ended, that China is Japan’s “greatest strategic challenge” (p. 43), and that Global South countries must be taken seriously. The Bluebook highlights Japan’s confusion, caught between its reliance upon Russian energy and the growing confidence of the Global South.​..
    ​..​Anxiety about the growing role of China in Asia is not new for Japan, which has long contested the Diaoyu (China)/Senkaku (Japan) islands. But now, there is a much more pronounced—and dangerous—assessment of the situation. The Bluebook 2023 notes the close alignment between China and Russia, although it does not focus on that strategic partnership. Rather, the Japanese government focuses on China, which it now sees as Japan’s “greatest strategic challenge.” Even here, the Japanese government acknowledges that the two countries “have held a series of dialogues to discuss common issues.” The “efforts of both Japan and China” are important, says the Bluebook, to build a “constructive and stable” relationship (p. 43).
    https://countercurrents.org/2023/04/japan-signals-an-attitude-shift-to-the-growing-power-of-the-global-south/

    ​ ​The new chief of the BRICS bloc’s New Development Bank, Brazil’s leftist ex-President Dilma Rousseff, revealed they are gradually moving away from the US dollar, promising at least 30% of loans in local currencies of members.

    BRICS Bank de-dollarizing, promises 30% of loans in local currencies, new chief Dilma Rousseff says

    ​ ​Russia-Brazil Relations: Lavrov’s Visit to Brasilia​ , Andrew Korybko
    ​Lavrov’s trip showcased the significant role that Russia attaches to Brazil when it comes to the Latin American dimension of Moscow’s grand strategy. Both parties’ rhetoric was positive, but it remains to be seen if anything of tangible substance ultimately comes from it, which will be greatly determined by whether or not Lula attends this year’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in less than two months’ time like he was just invited to do.

    Russia-Brazil Relations: Lavrov’s Visit to Brasilia

    ​ ​The White House has accused Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of repeating Russian and Chinese propaganda. While visiting China, Lula said that the US should stop “encouraging” the war in Ukraine and seek peace instead.
    ​ ​Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, the White House’s National Security Council’s Spokesperson, John Kirby, lashed out at Lula. “Brazil has substantively and rhetorically approached this issue by suggesting that the United States and Europe are somehow not interested in peace or that we share responsibility for the war,” Kirby said. “In this case, Brazil is parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without at all looking at the facts.”
    ​ ​The spokesman went on to call Lula’s statement “simply misguided” and “deeply problematic.”​ [Psst … Go to St. Petersburg in June, Lula.]

    White House Slams Brazil After Accusing US of ‘Encouraging’ War in Ukraine

    #133807
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ ​U.S. Invests $1.5 Billion to Spur 5G Rollout Despite New Evidence of ‘Devastating’ Health Issues
    ​ A new study from Sweden showed that a previously healthy woman developed symptoms of “microwave syndrome” shortly after a 5G cell tower was installed 60 meters — nearly 200 feet — from her apartment.
    According to the study, published April 10 in the Annals of Clinical and Medical Case Reports, the 52-year-old woman developed “severe health problems” — including “unbearable” pain, headache, dizziness, loss of immediate memory, confusion, fatigue, anxiety, nose bleeds and issues with her lungs, stomach and urinary system.
    ​ ​The woman temporarily relocated to another home with low radiation levels and no 5G exposure, at which point almost all of her symptoms disappeared. When she moved back to her apartment, the symptoms returned.
    ​ ​The study’s findings mirror the results of two prior case reports, conducted by the same researchers, which showed that non-ionizing radiation from 5G — well below levels allowed by authorities — can cause health problems in individuals with no prior history of electromagnetic sensitivity, the authors said…
    ..“These measurements are very alarming,” said Nilsson, managing director of the Swedish Radiation Protection Foundation. “They confirm the concerns raised by hundreds of scientists that 5G would lead to an increase in exposure to microwave radiation — which has already been proven harmful at levels lower than governmental limits.”
    It’s not just 5G’s high radiation levels that are problematic — it’s the highly repetitive nature of the pulsating 5G signal that harms people’s health, the authors said.
    “In medicine, you have a recovery period,” Hardell said. “It takes [the] cellular system time to recover from something that’s bad for it.”
    For instance, he said, research on radiation treatment for fighting cancer has shown that the radiation has a stronger biological effect when one treatment is given in the morning and one in the afternoon — rather than just once a day — because cells do not have time to recover.

    U.S. Invests $1.5 Billion to Spur 5G Rollout Despite New Evidence of ‘Devastating’ Health Issues

    ​ Space X Starship took off from Boca Chica Texas this morning, successfully lifting the largest and heaviest rocket ever into the sky.
    There was a failure of separation of the Super Heavy Lifter first stage, from the Starship , so the entire assembly was blown up in the sky in a “rapid disassembly”. If you cue-up to 44 minutes, you will cut to final-countdown (the chase).

    ​ ​Combined Vitamin D, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, and a Simple Home Exercise Program May Reduce Cancer Risk Among Active Adults Aged 70 and Older: A Randomized Clinical Trial​ Thanks Charles, 100-200 mcg of vitamin K-2 helps vitamin-D to benefit immunity, and the cardiovascular system​, also.
    ​https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fragi.2022.852643/full

    #133808
    Michael Reid
    Participant


    Tom Luongo
    Publisher of Gold Goats ‘n Guns

    In short, the Commies of the World Economic Forum, believe they have the recipe to turn America against herself.

    Because that’s the only way to defeat the “Shining House on the Hill,” by tearing it down.

    And there is no faster way to do that than marching us into a war Americans don’t want against enemies who will fight to the last man.

    https://mailchi.mp/f5851e4df672/march-issue-gold-goats-n-guns-released-20176682

    #133809
    Noirette
    Participant

    Ilargi top post, previous, map of demos, protests, in France:

    https://bit.ly/41rdfNC

    A list for the reasons of the protests, on different rubrics.

    Vaguely ordered the list a bit, without judging importance, weight.

    Officially, in the Int’l MSM it’s all about raising the retirement age. (A questionable take, that isn’t the heart of the reform. Not going into that here.)

    Millions oppose XYZ, therefore support the oppo to the retirement legislation:

    —> Gilets Jaunes are of course on board, without their jackets

    —> “Inflation”, i.e. huge! price rise of ordinary goods, Why, what?

    —> Macron’s arrogance and disdain for ordinary ppl (this counts..)

    More. State violence, top-down command, centralisation:

    Paris is running the periphery, Police violence, Law-fare crack down on those arrested in demos, Gilets Jaunes previously mutilated, etc.

    Extravagant illegitmate use of article 49.3 to force into law ABC. — equivalent to US Prez. executive orders but with far grander powers, scope, etc.

    Present or expected ECOLO rules. Imposed by the EU Commisson, enforced by the F Gvmt.

    Banning fossil fuel-run vehicles in 2035, banning older ppl from driving (not done yet) – enforcing use of renewable energy – v. excessive insulation on housing, heating, v. strict criteria.. Private property owners won’t be able to rent or sell; or even occupy sometimes – it is said.

    Degradation of the SECU (social security) in particular health care in hospitals. Imho, as in GB, state health care is being dismantled in favor of the private sector, tele medecine, etc.

    The Covid contradictions (mask, no mask, no entry to shops, vax, etc. etc.) and disaster, particularly the Gvmt. repression of the likes of Prof. D. Raoult, who treated covid patients with success (it is claimed) with hydroxychloroquine, off the shelf meds, and proper care.

    — Other, there is much more….

    #133810
    zerosum
    Participant

    Be happy!
    You’re not responsible to keep the system operational.

    #133811
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    More chatter on dying U$, … simply because Russia is loosing!

    Anyway, … it’s basically a counter reaction to dire headlines predicting the end of the U$. So be it, … still fun watching it all regurgitating!

    F.S.

    #133812
    jb-hb
    Participant

    I seriously doubt there are only double-digit American solidiers in Ukriane. (weren’t there more than that in that bunker that got Kinzaled?) Biden made that speech to – I forget either the 82nd or the 101st – about them going into Ukriane about a year ago now. Based on nothing but being alive for the past few years, no I don’t believe there would be only 29. 29. Kind of like pricing something at 4.99?

    Various news stories making fun of Russia, saying they are using T-55’s (model first came into service in 1947.)

    Various OTHER news stories speaking glowingly of Ukraine being sent U-55’s from Slovenia. T55’s with an upgrade package from 20 years ago.

    The T-55 being reintroduced into modern warfare is ridiculous, deserving of scorn, brave, stunning, innovative, and sensible.

    I say again, Myth of a Great War by Mosier is a great book to read for people interested in Ukraine.

    He reasons that there was no such thing as a breakthrough, for a variety of reasons. Mobility of the forces of the day vs, implicitly, speed of intelligence on their movements – forces could always be brought in to plug a gap. Firepower available. Mass conscription meant there was always, ALWAYS something available to plug gaps. So stop throwing away millions trying to create and exploit gaps that can never be exploited.

    In Ukraine, the knowledge of enemy movements is too quick to make surprising maneuvers to throw an opponent off-balance. Concentration of force is punished by the firepower available today.

    Those early thrusts at Kiev make sense in that context – you can’t surprise the enemy, but they can’t know your future plans for withdrawal. You get them to send a whole bunch of guys north and you retreat. With the dependence on railroads combined with reach and firepower, those guys sent North are going to take awhile to redeploy. Seems like the closest thing to a surprise maneuver in this war – retreat, that is.

    The Allied powers felt particularly stymied on the WW1 Western front. The various things they tried:
    –“surprise” obvious attacks uphill into well-entrenched positions by unsupported infantry
    –prepared attacks that would go on for months (unsuccessfully)
    –theorizing that the enemy MUST be taking more casualties from these actions than the Allies (wrong) so just keep doing them
    –open new theatres of war (but using the same approaches above) so, replicating the Western Front in a variety of other places over and over.

    The Allies started to realize that walking parade lines of men into machine guns might be contributing to failure. Meanwhile the Germans were using artillery (just a matter of sheer weight of explosives thrown) and developing combined arms doctrine.

    2 things worked

    1. Falkenhayn/Verdun – choose a place the enemy can’t stand losing. Threaten it. Take chunks of it as bait. Pulverize everything the enemy feeds into it – prepare to do this in advance. (Verdun was ruined by other generals wanting to “exploit” successes of this technique with attacks to gain ground. Kind of analogous to that fairly recent (rumored) costly/failed massed Russian attack? The whole point was to NOT gain ground…)

    2. Brusilov – just attack on the ENTIRE front. No attempt at exploitation, breakthroughs. Just apply pressure along the entire front. Forget about surprise, exploitation, maneuver, secrecy. Don’t worry about any of that. Just push broadly everywhere.

    The Germans were actually fairly good at taking ground. It’s just that it wasn’t worth the effort. Failing to realize that cost them dear.

    Ukraine makes me think of an old scifi novel I read, The Black Ship. It was mediocre, but there was an interesting military situation with a giant ship orbiting a planet during a regional conflict. Every time the ship approached the horizon, the opposing forces would have to disperse, scatter, wait, then concentrate as it “set” on the other horizon. It was just able to throw too much stuff down on any troop concentrations to do anything else. So the whole rhythm of the war was dictated by where the Black Ship was in orbit at any given time. In our current scenario, the Black Ship is always there.

    If NATO really enters into the fray – or if Russia takes the gloves off – I suspect the various intelligence-gathering tools will go down, godlike networking will go down, and WW2-ish dynamics will be in play again. (Various armies will have to remember – how do we do scouting again??? You can’t check with satellites?) But then again, dispersed weaponry like drone swarms may be the thing.

    IMHO everything important to do with Bakhmut appears to have happened about a month ago (or more). The important stuff that happened then is just becoming commonly accepted knowledge in the past week or two. My only sense of new developments is that maybe Russia is making a big spoiling effort against any upcoming Ukrainian offensive. Various vague references out there to a future wide-front crossing of the lower Dnieper, but I think putting all your guys in a position of having a large river at their backs is a bad idea from the get-go. Everything back to Caesar’s War Diaries says so.

    #133813
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    RE: “Without freedom we are nothing. With humanity we are everything”- by Vandana Shiva.

    Consider the hidden potential here. “With humanity” deserves exploration, contemplation, and understanding. What does it mean/how to BE “with humanity”?

    Is it what happens when we come together over a personal experience post (à la Phoenix), a Calvin cartoon strip, an Eckhart Tolle quote, an animal video, a Beatles song, or artwork selection?

    I propose that “with humanity” is a key component of your existence and resistance, your most powerful tool. It is everything – all you have and all you need. If you want it.

    It is the one thing YOU can implement with/in every thought, word, and deed. “With humanity” is your LOVE in action. Freedom will surely follow.

    LOVE to Ilargi and TAE friends.

    #133814
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #133815
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Scott Ritter: Russia is Ready to FINISH Ukraine After the US Undermines Peace Negotiations

    #133816
    aspnaz
    Participant

    I find Whoopie’s statement remarkable. As brazen as her other open calls to violence. But what can you expect from a an openly racist anti-semite?

    As racist as those tribe members who will threaten politicians who do not support Israel? Want to see real racism, go to apartheid Israel.

    #133817
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Dr D said

    In many markets, created entirely by HFT yanking away bid-offers if anyone tries to take them.

    Total nonsense, provide some real evidence that this happens: That a co-located market markeing server can inject cancels into an order stream out of order, ahead of orders received from another client.

    How are you “liquid” if you sell millions of something but never deliver it?

    Liquidity is being able to convert an asset into cash, so delivery is irrelevant to liquidity.

    #133818
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    CULTural anecdote:

    My wife has become too fragile to continue to care for & manage her mother’s healthcare from home (ulcerative colitis + now bile-induced gastritis), a task she lovingly performed since 06/2015, following which her 3 brothers & 2 sisters engaged in a group call yesterday to decide what to do with their mother…

    During the conversation, which was controlled by her brother who is an ICU RN with 25+ years experience, it was decided to remove all medication & switch to strictly morphine to make sure that momma is “comfortable” (she’s was released to home hospice following a hospital admission last summer, when due to my wife’s actions she recovered back to her almost “normal” self following a cardio crisis created by the 2nd booster).

    During their conversation, which we listened to but did not participate with (to alleviate stress) the “expert” know-it-all RN announced that he’s witnessed countless situations like their current dilemma, dealt with nuisance families bothering the “professionals” with silly requests to bring food & drink for their loved ones, that it is well known within the nursing “community” that morphine is “judiciously” administered without the family’s knowledge/permission, beyond RX script limits, a reality that doctors are apparently *totally* aware & tacitly approve of, to reduce the elderly’s “suffering” & help them on their “journey” 😐

    My wife’s siblings all signed off on the drug-her-up plan, since none could be bothered to provide even one day of 24/7 care/love, deciding in unison to throw momma into a nursing home (my wife didn’t vote, but was very upset & I did my best to console her)…

    Of course neither my wife nor I were shocked by the genocidal admission of the death CULTure running “healthcare”, after dealing with similar circumstances during my mother’s three-year battle with cancer, having read articles on the death-care cult practices, both linked on TAE & elsewhere…

    Following my mother’s experience during diagnosis & surgical treatment 06-07/2019, prior to going into remission for 2+ years, they almost killed her with diazepam & morphine (hospital/nursing home), which I had to daily monitor & fight to get her well enough to come to my home for 24/7 loving care prior to her declining in 11/2021 & passing 02/2022 ~ If it hadn’t been for the COVID nightmare, I have no doubt she’d still be here 😐

    Just thought I’d add that tidbit in passing, perhaps to help illuminate any other souls that are, or will be, facing similar circumstances.

    FWFS

    #133819
    John Day
    Participant

    I am sorry that your wife is going through this, VP Gary.
    I have experience in this regard. Buprenorphine is actually much easier on those going through this process, because it is much less constipating, much less sedating and much less confusing.
    I’ve known this since 1986, and now it is even apparent in “the literature”.

    #133820
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #133821
    WES
    Participant

    VP Gary:

    Your struggles in dealing with elderly parents in declining heath brings tears to my eyes because I have already gone through this stage with both my parents and then my Wife’s two parents.

    I don’t think there is any best way to deal with this, as each parent faces different health issues. So you are constantly learning and trying to adjust to new and ever changing situations, such that you always feel you are learning too late what is the best thing to do.

    At least you are trying your best. That is truly what counts and is what love truly is about.

    When it is all said and done you will know you were there and gave it your best shot. Nobody can do anymore than that.

    P.S. One option to explore is in home nursing care to relieve some of the pressure on your Wife and yourself. I would give it a try before committing to a nursing home where you 100% lose any say in your Wife’s Mother’s medical treatment. This loss of say in medical treatment was sharpely driven home by covid where children lost all say in their parent’s medical care.

    #133822
    WES
    Participant

    Aspnaz:

    I think when it comes to spoofing bid/sell orders you might be unpleasantly surprised at what can and did happen.

    Some years ago I read about some companies trying to locate communication towers as close to the Chicago CME in order to intercept bid/sell orders a few micro-seconds ahead of others.

    They wouldn’t have gone to all that effort and expense, if it wasn’t possible. So never say never!

    #133823
    WES
    Participant

    Susmarie108:

    How did your outdoor wood burner project work out this past winter?

    Yup, I grew up with the Beatles too! Sort of dating myself as old!

    #133824
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    Hi VP. I feel for you and your wife as you let go and move into the next phase of care-giving. You are not alone in the fulfillment of this special role. Keep loving one another, all will be well.

    WES – good advice as always. To “age in place” is the best choice but not always possible; care-giver quality/availability and finances may make this difficult.

    As for the closed loop, wood-fired outdoor furnace (heat transfer H2O to my boiler to radiant floor heat system), it worked like a champ! It took awhile to fine tune the process and get the right wood mix/volume for optimum performance. Saved on the propane. Next year will be the big test and $$$ savings. Will get her fired up in late October/early November. Thanks for asking.

    #133825
    WES
    Participant

    De- Dollarization:

    One thing that nobody seems to bring up de-dollarization, is the unimportant fact that the US created and launched a BIO-WEAPON upon the entire world!

    Then the US seized Russia’s central bank currency reserves.

    Before that the US seized Libya’s gold, then Venezuela’s gold, then Ukraine’s gold.

    Decades before that the US assassinated foreign leaders and bombed the shit out of third world countries that looked cross-eyed at the US.

    So you know maybe that bio-weapon shit was a step too far?
    Then seizing a big country like Russia’s central bank reserves?

    Like maybe the US accidently woke a few people around the world up that they are in decline and are actively trying to seize anybody’s wealth they can get their grubby hands on?

    Like the US is showing they are more corrupt now rhan ever before?

    Like maybe you are next?

    So the ungrateful buggers are moving and hiding their wealth from uncle sam?

    No, this time isn’t different.

    #133826
    citizenx
    Participant

    Smoke ’em if ya got em… 4/20

    Stoney Day on a maniacs B.day…

    Lennon said they were more popular than GOD ? Adolf is spoken of more than God these Daze…
    Hilariously.done..

    #133850
    zerosum
    Participant

    Mind your own business
    Life or death is my choice/decision.

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