Debt Rattle April 30 2019
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Edouard Manet The absinthe drinker 1859 • Ros Rosenstein Resigns (ZH) • Trump Sues Capital One, Deutsche Over Complying With Subpoenas (Fox) •
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 30 2019]Western countries’ economic sanctions against Russia, in place since 2014 because of its conflict with Ukraine, have hit the country’s military budget.
I believe this to be pure bunk! Russia’s military budget has been pretty consistent at 60 to 70 billion USD per year.
At that level they have essentially surpassed the U.S. in both technology and quality.
The U.S has targeted offensive capability with now obsolete, obscenely expensive, aircraft carriers which largely don’t function; and obviously second rate aircraft highlighted by the F-35; a flying piece of junk.
The U.S. certainly has the technology; but, endemic corruption has destroyed the whole defense industry.
Russia has targeted defensive capability, thereby neutralizing most of U.S. capability.
As to offensive capabilities, both Russia and China have focused on weapons which cannot be intercepted and destroyed; hypersonic missiles.
They’re deploying these as I type; the U.S., by some estimates, is a decade behind.
Bluff and bluster as it will; the U.S. military knows the genuine situation and by all reports I’ve read, are very concerned…can we say panicked?
Oh sure we can…Yeah, I saw that line. AFP can’t fathom how Russia can spend so ‘little’, so they make up a bogus story about sanctions. What was the number? 80%(?!) of our news stories come from Reuters, AP and AFP. This is how that works.
I think it is important to note that Russia spends less than 10% of the U.S. arms budget and gets superior systems; how about them apples?
And this isn’t some recent budget drop because of sanctions; it’s de rigueur spending.
The sanctions have done wonders for Russian sovereignty; they are more self suffucient in all sectors than ever before; all thanks to western (U.S.) sanctions.
USA, USA, keep up the good work…http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/04/compare-and-contrast.html
Sergei Lavrov just said a lot of important things to global diplomats, I picked this one out. Thanks Eleni:
Obviously, lasting stabilisation in the Middle East and North Africa is unrealistic without overcoming the long-standing Arab-Israeli conflict, including the creation of an independent, viable and territorially integral Palestinian state in the safe and recognised borders of 1967 with possible exchanges and with the capital in East Jerusalem. The attempts to promote non-transparent plans that contradict UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative cannot bring a lasting or fair solution and merely perpetuate old hotbeds of confrontation and create new ones.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article206321.html
Missing a principled leader, 50 years without Charles de Gaulle… Thanks Wigs.
With amazing effrontery last October, Macron told his people to stop complaining and be more like de Gaulle, after a meeting with a pensioner who complained he only had a small pension. This is the same Emmanuel Macron who accused his own people of being as “Gauls who are resistant to change” on a visit to Denmark.
The truth is that the French people today have a lot to complain about. Macron’s policies are in fact, the reverse of de Gaulle’s. The General ‘did not care for those who own wealth.’ Macron doesn’t seem to care for anyone else.
Another big difference between de Gaulle and the politicians of today was his attitude to money. Has there ever been such an uncorrupt leader? As I noted in 2008, “Despite occupying the highest office in the country for a decade, he died in relative poverty. Instead of accepting the pension he was entitled to as a retired president and general, he only took the pension of a colonel. The contrast between de Gaulle and the money-obsessed career politicians of today could not be greater.”
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/457819-charles-degaulle-france-president/Yellow Vest protesters who have suffered life-changing injuries at the hands of French police have launched their own association, promising fresh actions against police brutality.
Called “the mutilated for the edification of others,” the collective aims to accurately calculate the number of people who have been injured nationally by police during Yellow Vest protests. It also called for an end to the use of the non-lethal weapons deployed by French police — namely tear gas canisters and Flash Balls — and a large national demonstration is scheduled in Paris on May 26.
Among those attending was Jerome Rodrigues, a prominent Yellow Vest leader who was hit in the eye with a gas canister during a demonstration in January. “You have 19 people in front of you and you have only 26 eyes that look back,” he told the press conference. “Count, there is a small problem,” he added…
According to statistics gathered by the activist group Desarmons-les (“Disarm Them”), at least 154 people have been seriously injured by police use of non-lethal weapons during protests. Of that number, 22 people have lost the use of an eye due to Flash Balls. A further five have had their hands torn off by gas canisters.
https://www.rt.com/news/457786-injured-yellow-vests-association/As I said a number of times, VA, the US produces weapons for profit while Russia produces them to defend itself. That little principle explains all the extra costs. Boeing and Raytheon have so much clout in Washington they can ask whatever they want for their products, they will get their price no matter what. In Moscow, that situation is completely different. Russian arms makers must deliver quality.
And there’s of course the petit matter that Russia doesn’t seek to build or expand an empire. Which at the same time explains why that is exactly what it is accused of.
“Trump Sues Capital One, Deutsche over Complying with Subpoenas (Fox)”
I’m not a genius, but I believe this is how it works:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
So I’m pretty sure they need a crime, at least a suspected one, and an investigation, and a judge, and then it’s no problem, they can have every paper directly related. Well they didn’t have a crime, but they did have an investigation, and that investigator referred no charges. But this is politics, where there is no law, because they just make it up every day. Again: what are the odds that the CIA/Justice under Comey haven’t ALREADY looked at the tax records of a guy who has been continually under audit for decades? What are the odds his STATE records haven’t already been (illegally) read by Andrew Cuomo? About zero. And they weren’t leaked, so I’m guessing there’s nothing but smears and innuendo there, useful to get ratings and (illegally) tip the election. Release them: it’ll be hilarious. Then, with the precedent established, we can look at Maxine Waters and Hunter Biden, and hey, why not Cheney and Chertoff? Careful what doors you open.
Russia Russia Russia!
There’s one warlike, dangerous nation in that chart, and it’s not China, Russia, UK, France, or Japan. Fair bet? The U.S. spends more on militarizing the police against their own citizens than most nations spend on national defense.
“One Child Dies from Yemen War and Side Effects Every 12 Minutes (MEE)”
And it’s not in the news. But isn’t trying to stop thousands of children from being killed for the profits of British and American weapons billionaires really hate speech? Time to Twitter ban that Yemen talk faster than UKIP and Padmos. However, if you’re ISIS, Facebook and Twitter somehow can’t find you and your pages stay up for years. –You know, the Facebook that shared the NZ shooting 3 million times? Ain’t that odd?
“She was not employed by the Russian government”
Wait: they didn’t even prove this? But what am I saying? It’s the FBI/Justice, they fabricate evidence and railroad defendants because it’s slightly easier than doing their jobs legally. They get caught pretty much year-round, it’s in the papers regularly, and no one is fired, nothing is reformed.
Moving on, so she’s actually AGAINST Putin, and will give them a hard time when she returns? Why aren’t we funding her with millions and sending her home? You know, with a complimentary freight container of guns? I mean, we give them to everybody else on earth. (Except ourselves, ‘natch, the one place where they are actually legal.)
Excellent Kunstler this week. I wish it were nationally required reading.
“..typical of Macron, revealing only how his personal authority is slipping away, and strangely enough, how irrelevant he is becoming to the entire debate.”
This is just what you want. He’s no longer at the table, and since he was always a puppet, first to his pedo wife, and then to the Rothschilds (literally), you just go around him. Ignore him like a weak little boy having a tantrum, which is all he deserves. Buh-bye. Your backers will not be so kind. When you’re not useful, they’ll throw you to the mob, and I’ll sit here with popcorn. Can we get this man a ticket to Libya? They may want to see him.
“Hurting the soil affects the climate in two ways: it compromises the growth of plants taking in carbon from the atmosphere, and it releases soil carbon previously stored by worms taking leaf matter underground.”
This is another mutation of the non-science that “cows release CO2” argument. The cows GOT that CO2 from this year’s grass. Their manure will grow next year’s grass. It’s net-zero. So the plants TAKE CO2 from the air: true. And unless you create a 1,000 year virgin forest, when you chop and eat that corn, it will be RELEASED again, that year, net-zero.
The soil, sure, there’s some CO2 decay when utterly desertifying good soil into hardpan, and there’s a lot of soil worldwide, but a) we’re not doing that or we’ll all die of starvation long before we die of CO2, and b) we’re talking about the top inches, and there’s not actually a LOT of organic matter in there. Or at least not in any modern farming practice. So NewsMediaSpecial: technically true by being totally false. But hey, it’s the BBC, the mouthpiece of the Skripals and Kuwaiti incubator babies.
“Antibiotic Resistance As Big A Threat As Climate Change (G.)”
The Guardian also wants all humans to die to save the planet. Make up your mind.
And the US arms production story gets better still:
Erdogan says F-35 jet fighter project would collapse without Turkey
Please! More popcorn! And Turkey going down will crash the Italian and Spanish banking systems.
From yesterday: Vodafone Finds Hidden Backdoors In Huawei Network Equipment
No fair! WE wanted those backdoors to spy on Merkel and steal Siemen’s corporate secrets! Don’t you know that’s our job, not China’s?
As I said a number of times, VA, the US produces weapons for profit while Russia produces them to defend itself. That little principle explains all the extra costs.
IlargiYes, that and your follow up comment, cover the whole gambit.
Empire uber alas; until it isn’t…Under “The Best of MSNBC”: Russia! Russia! Russia!
Marine experts think this whale may be a Russian-trained spy
Can we survive the Russian Whale threat???
I hope this nonsense has finally jumped the shark — I mean whale — now.
There actually is a coup attempt in Venezuela going on. From what I can see, Guaido’s support appears underwhelming so far, but don’t let’s forget he has the US and other South American countries behind him.
Everyone here seems to be on top of the world news.
People are being manipulated everywhere…. a coup happening in Venezuela
…. a coup in France
…. a coup in Yemen
…. heh! there are changes happening everywhere.
In some places people die from bullets.
In other places people are injured by rubber bullets, flash bang etc.
In other places people starve and get sick from the sieges.
In an other place, Mozambique, people die from neglect.I’m in the sweet spot
…. not too hot, not too cold,
….. not too wet, not too dry
just rightYes, I count myself lucky
I forgot to mention the biggest coups of all
“Slow Time” is hiding many changesHumanity vs Mother nature
Humanity vs our social/economic structures
Humanity vs life/deathThe USA is above critization. It does not interfere anywhere. /sac
The new media, the international press, is manipulating the facts being presented to us.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-30/blackwater-founder-calling-5000-mercenaries-topple-venezuelas-maduro
Blackwater Founder Calling For 5,000 Mercenaries To Topple MaduroI can’t let the TV get away with what they are doing without making comments.
“Military uprising against Maduro”
Then they show crowds of teens trowing rock at water gun vehicles while hundreds of civilians are watching the activities.
This could be scenes from France, Yellow Jackets or Israel vs Palestine demonstrations.Yes. If we are on blogs commenting, we are probably retired and wise enough to figure out what our news media are attempting to do to our thinking process.
Don’t the news media realize that seniors have got dementia and that they are wasting their time and resources trying to affect our thinking. 🙂
Waiting is the hardest part.
Just do everything that you prudently can to make a nice day while the good times roll.
Dig at your own peril.
A recent article pointed out that normal earthworm activity and the soil microbiome were both significantly impaired by glyphosate….and that soil virtually everythwere contains glyphosate or one of its derivatives. Basic soil science is incredibly important. We can only hope that some of our brighter and more ethical young people will realize this and select soil fundamentals and management as a career path.
Keeping up with Venezuela, https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14451
It seems random guy is not achieving much.Even the most cursory google search will tell you that dolphins, sea lions, and beluga whales have been and are being used by both the US and Russian military’s since the 1960’s. The US Navy’s program NMMP is in San Diego.
If past is precedent then Russia is most certainly capable of expanding empire, defensive perimeter, area of influence. Call it what you will. Soviet satellite countries remember Soviet dominance all too vividly and is why they were eager to join NATO. That’s not to say that the US/NATO didn’t renege on it’s deal with Russia against NATO expansion and eastern Europe has always been Russia’s Achilles heel, Ukraine and Belarus in particular. Russia would never allow Crimea to be taken up by NATO. That said Russia is not some Putin enabled altruistic paradise. Any man who has been in power for 26 years (at end of current term) and is currently seeking to change the constitution to remain in power is a dictator, plain an simple. Russia is controlled by a criminal oligarchy. Not that much of the rest of the world isn’t controlled by nefarious means as well. How else could we have the level of income disparity that is currently in place? Well, okay, perhaps it’s because in part because people vote against their own self interests. Stupid is as stupid does.
Good point about RoundUp, if they really care about soil, they need to ban it poste haste. And for the insects. And for the hedgehogs and all species on earth. What? They won’t? It’s almost like they don’t care and just want taxes and power.
Prince before Congress looking for 5,000 new sales of his essential product: murder.
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