Debt Rattle March 13 2022

 

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  • #104109

    Pablo Picasso Studio with plaster head 1925   • Perfectly Lawful and Legal and Unfortunate (Anna Von Reitz) • Much Wants More And Loses All (GEFI
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle March 13 2022]

    #104110
    Germ
    Participant
    #104111
    Henry
    Participant

    I am glad to see that Pablo’s desk is as messy as mine.

    Great articles as usual, thank you.

    #104112
    Henry
    Participant

    Thanks @germ, your comment triggered the Disney song in my head, “It is a small world (clot) after all …” in my head.

    #104113
    Dr. D
    Participant

    The Atlantic can’t stop being the dumbest people on the planet.

    “Russia’s Economic Blackout Will Change the World”

    RUSSIA’s? You embargoed THEM, you poor-people-murdering war machine.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/03/russia-economic-sanctions-wheat-oil/627004/

    And therefore the PROFITS of Apple, Nike, Facebook, HSBC…

    And with no McDonald’s in a tiny developing country?

    “The immediate consequences are already breathtaking. On both sides of this new iron curtain, commodity prices are skyrocketing and economic indicators are falling. Oil is at all-time highs, and the Nasdaq is in bear territory. Nickel prices went vertical, and the ruble crashed by 50 percent. Wholesale energy prices in Europe have blown past historic records, and a European recession looks almost certain. Yesterday, the economist Mark Zandi put the odds of a U.S. recession this year at “one-in-three.”

    Wait, your “soft power” that shut Nike and therefore helped Russian shoe manufacturers has caused this problem for EUROPE? And also since oil prices have risen not 50% which causes a recession 100% of the time, but DOUBLED, the odds of a U.S. recession is still only 30%???

    Btw if you’re a Europeans you should be pissed if this is true. The U.S. caused a war that sank your economy and plans to make only you pay for it. (Actually “Subprime is not contained”. The U.S. has a 100% chance of recession. And of course this was all irreversible BEFORE the war. That’s why Biden put 29 bioweapons labs there and wouldn’t negotiate.)

    Okay, genius who-doesn’t-know-and-doesn’t-ask (i.e. a “reporter), what are we a-gonna do? Green Energyyyyyyy!!!!

    Get those solar-powered tanks movin’! Not like their lithium batteries burn or anything.

    “In 1973, OPEC cut off the U.S. and other countries from access to its oil, raising gas prices. Although most Americans associate that period with economic stagnation,”

    You mean like a higher than 30% chance of recession? Like 100%? Yes and the Dow fell 90% in real terms, numerically stagnant for 20 years? That kind of “Recession” that’s really a “Great Depression”?

    “China could become the counterpart of last resort for Russia. This would make Russia something like a giant North Korea.”

    Wow. If stupidity could kill… But wait! You ain’t seen nothing yet! To Infinity and Beyond!!!

    Ukraine and Russia feed the world. They account for about 30 percent of global wheat exports, along with 20 percent of global corn and 80 percent of global sunflower-oil”

    Wow. That’s chilling. What are we going to do, Derek???

    a global food fight won’t be bad news for all the world’s poor.”

    You mean like Psaki and inflation it’s a GOOD thing for food prices to rise 80% if you’re poor. Wot a relief! One thing tho: that’s not what the cashier at Publix told me when I went there and didn’t pay.

    Oh but wait. He has found a way to surpass infinity on stupid:

    “The 2011 popular uprisings that toppled the governments of Tunisia and Egypt during the so-called Arab Spring traced their origin to a spike in food prices…Imagine a social cascade powered not only by moral righteousness but also by hunger.”

    So inflation and food shortages don’t bother the poor but will also cause a worldwide Arab Spring that will topple most governments while killing the poor? And this is all voluntary as the WEST is the one boycotting? And that’s all a GOOD thing?

    Words. I have none. Please somebody get to this boy with a sippy cup and a plastic spoon. Surely he is too dumb to feed and burp himself.

    His cohort, Eliot A. Cohen, author of the book “I Adore All Military Force (as long as I don’t have to do any myself)” is not dumber, but has an exceedingly dumb laundry list of things-pearl-clutchers-simply-MUST-do-this-season.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/strategy-west-needs-beat-russia/626962/

    To Do: 1) Liberate all Ukraine. 2) Completely rebuild them. (Build Back Better) 3) Install their new government for them 4) Totally create their new Army. 5) Add them to the EU. 6) Make them part of NATO.

    But surely he doesn’t know what this would require, right? “Doing this will require defeating Russian forces,”

    7) Militarily invade and defeat all Russia, forever. Wait he does know? What else, Eliot? “the objectives vis-à-vis Russia have to go beyond this:” 8) Remove Vladimir Putin forever. 9) Have a coup. 10) Mass upheaval. 11) “leave Russia profoundly weakened and” 12) “militarily crippled,” and 13) “incapable of renewing such an onslaught, and” 14) “isolated” and 15) “internally divided”

    “Europe’s [lack of] remarkable response to the invasion is a long step in this direction, as is the [lack of] American leadership that has rallied so many to oppose Russia and [not] stand with Ukraine.” Unless a hearty “atta boy!” is “standing”. He’s not done, of course. He, personally is also going to:

    16) “vigorous and imaginative military support to Ukrainian regular and irregular forces”; 17) “sanctions that will hobble the Russian economy;” 18) “and construction of a militarily powerful European alliance” 19) “that can secure the border with Russia” (The only secure border permitted worldwide.)

    Um. Not to be a cad, but how do you plan to accomplish this? “The means at hand are obvious:

    Arming the Ukrainians, so all slavs kill each other in an orgy of blood while we Anglos, and all Europe don’t lift a finger to help them. “The conditions in Ukraine are, if anything, more favorable than in Afghanistan.” Um, what exactly do you mean by this statement that seems to have aged badly?

    Anything else, since that’s all going so well? 20) “The final pillar of Western strategy lies in building an impregnable eastern glacis for NATO. 21) “[Poland’s] determination to confront Russia is unlimited,” 22) “permanently station American armored forces in the Baltic states and Poland” 23) “turning the United States into an arsenal of democracy,” i.e. “Arm Everyone worldwide” 24) “construct hardened defenses (e.g., aircraft shelters), while expanding air and missile defense and acquiring long-range missiles to disable Russian air bases” 25) require the cooperation of “Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram,” ending the 1st Amendment and free speech. 26) Do not negotiate. 27) Wildly increase military spending. 28) “accept the primacy of national-security concerns” 29) Make a uniparty “The Republican Party’s political leadership in Congress has rallied” 30) Fear nothing.

    31) And finally, Take over the world. “the United States will have to be, as it was for most of the 20th century, an ambidextrous power, asserting its strength and managing coalitions in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific.”

    Righty-right then, my good fellow. And then what shall we do AFTER lunch?

    Well, we go home and not worry about it. Luckily The Atlantic also says there’s no such things as free will: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/theres-no-such-thing-as-free-will/480750/

    I’d say that as just a passing insult but it’s the same nihlistic anti-life religion that drives both things. And The Atlantic is “The Watchtower” of that weird, illogical religion of division, hate, violence, and self-interest and absorption.

    Levels of genius here? “the brain as a physical system like any other, and we no more will it to operate than we will our heart to beat.” Except I can easily will my heart to beat faster and slower. Proving there’s no free will? Yup! If things are physical, they’re Newtonian. QED. He says 100 years after Heisenberg and Schrodinger proved we are emphatically NOT in a Newtonian clockwork word. 100 years? Too soon?

    “we could, in theory, predict that individual’s response to any given stimulus with 100 percent accuracy. This research and its implications…” Are the same religion of scientific technocracy and totalitarianism that is the Pre-Crime of Minority Report. This is already in service, on the streets, but also where wrongthink is punished, even if we THINK you are thinking. BEFORE you think or act. He then argues that his own argument quickly makes people immoral. “In every regard, it seems, when we embrace determinism, we indulge our dark side.

    Solution? “[An Israeli professor] “came to a painful conclusion: “We cannot afford for people to internalize the truth” about free will.” You see, only us sooper-schmartz people can be allowed to know the REAL truth: there is no morality! “Do what thou wilt.” The Schmartz people, philospher-kings, the Technocrats, the PMC “Who-Know-Betters”. Therefore, we must defend lies at all costs! “it must be kept confined within the ivory tower. Only the initiated, behind those walls, should dare to, as he put it to me, “look the dark truth in the face.”

    So really, all the SMART people know there’s no morality, you have to lie to all the “lesser people” and have no choice but in invade Iraq and kill their children if they have oil! It’s just the way of the universe! “no one bears ultimate responsibility for who he is and what he does.”he says. I mean, “What difference does it make at this point?” who made a trillion dollars of your money in a counterproductive lockdown, the past is the past!

    Of course one thing The Atlantic knows for sure is that PUTIN had free will to invade Ukraine for no reason and we must use our free will to decide to attack him accordingly. Right?

    These are the “Thought Leaders” and moral heads of the West.

    “This [Biolab] work is funded and directly supervised by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) of the United States, i.a. in the interests of Pentagon’s National Center for Medical Intelligence”

    In #OppositeLand, “Threat Reduction” creates threats and there is no “Medical Intelligence” about it. Of course Europe is panicked by a paper fire but plague regularly released into the general population? With birds to insure it goes everywhere? Meh. Our heroes would never do that because: us! Vote Yellow and Blue!

    ““US sanctions once imposed are extraordinary difficult to lift.”

    I guess the U.S. has cut herself off from the world. Like N. Korea and other failed states. I don’t think Russia’s very worried about it. A state like that, well, who can uphold the patents of a national hermit? Sitting in a corner rocking himself with psychotic delusions about “germs”, and “Russkies”? I guess we’ll just have to ignore patent and copyright law and make all those parts ourselves and sell them worldwide.

    “If you have foreign exchange reserves, held in our system, they are no longer safe if we disagree with your politics.”

    Very ordinary. They beta test this, familiarize and inure people to this #illogic and #immorality, then roll it out nationally as if, for example, arresting, extraditing, and holding everyone — that is, foreigners — without trial is perfectly normal and ordinary. In this case, cancel culture, to go nuclear on people, outside of any law or review, outside of any process, outside even of any pre-set agreement, is normalized. Of course we cancel culture Russia faster than we do any democratic protest in Ottawa or D.C.

    Okaaaaay. And then the people respond by what? This is the same as Cancel Culture I, “GamerGate”. People respond and go around you. Because you’re a dick, and one of the bratty, foot-stomping rich kids who flip over the Monopoly board. And therefore no one will talk to you anymore. Ever. But it takes time and they won’t tell you first. As Lavrov showed, what’s the point?

    So as yesterday, the whole thing is gone already but they’re still sending Christmas cards. On a day of their choosing they will tell them to stop bothering with appearances, stop with the market rigging that holds all prices at false, disconnected levels, and see the back of the theatre.

    The frustrating part for me is since it’s all illusion to begin with, there’s no logic to when they choose to re-admit reality. As a person who tracks reality and not perception, it’s frustrating that they aren’t bothered by maintaining illusions – and positioning, and profiting by them no doubt – for a time, a long time, or more or less forever. When they’re already eating 5-stars on private islands they have a lot to lose and a lot to consider, and changing is less pleasant than just waiting. For me it’s the opposite. And everyone else run out of business, not getting paid, working for a living who just got hit with a 25% increase in costs.

    But I will add that – from some article or comment recently – the change comes from working guys getting poorer, but a little, in a recession. But with all the wealth wildly concentrated in stocks, bonds, real estate – concentrated at an unprecedented level never before seen in history – then they lose 90% and the wealth disparity closes fast. As it does historically, and it must. Wages “rise” maybe not numerically but in purchasing power, which we already see with the Great Resignation. House prices fall out of speculation and back to incomes. Who takes the loss on that $500k house going back to $80k? Well MBS, BlackRock, and people, but if the people are only 5 years in and still have age and income, then they simply abandon and make it up on the next purchase. It hurts but if you’re 25 and virtually zero equity at 5 years in, it’s different than being 55 and 18 years in.

    If these things go “down” (again, don’t worry about the numbers but purchasing power) what goes “up”? We already know: gas, food, everything you need to live. The same as always: there’s a financial bubble of unpayable promises, like Cisco promising to sell routers to a SECOND planet earth delivered in 2002. Then the paper promises are revealed to be fake and unpayable and default. This is why T-Bear’s gold standard doesn’t work. It can’t stop people from committing fraud and beleiving fake promises. But when fake promises fall out of fashion, real things are in fashion and commodities rise. Every 30-ish years, but at only 1/3 the time. That is, the Bull (stocks) runs 1940-1970 = 30 years, but the Bear (Commodities Bull) runs 1970-1980, only 10 years.

    I would say it’s pretty clear we’re in a Commodities Bull but not because of Russia. As paper lies were in such demand, and real work was hated, despised, liquidated by every possible means, and for 10 years longer than usual, we now have nothing in the real world. No warehouses, ports, ships, inventories, bridges, roads, factories, elevators, railroads, operating mines. No rare earths, no refiners, no steel mills, no electric grid, no power plants, nothing that makes the real world go. So Russia or no, the whole system is in decay and disruption and it takes 10 years to rebuild it. …Which is tremendously fast if you think about it, but not 10 years you’ll like.

    There is one additional downside: although nothing works in a Bear market (Commodities Bull) we are more likely than ever to have market halts, delistings, force majeures, and currency collapses, so you can’t just click a stock and go to sleep rich. Robin Hood vanishes, and in ‘08 several houses went down, MF Global stole your account, and even Etrade looked like it was toast. It’s no fun even if you buy right and do get rich in the maze.

    Looking at Ukee, I still feel like I have no battlefield or progress data that I can believe or makes any sense. An unprecedented information blackout, although that may be common in a World War — I’ve never been in one. Still hard to comment on much when we have no idea what’s happened, what the losses are, what the gains are, and how Ukee feels about Russian arrival. Obviously if there is the real resistance physically and psychologically, that would be bad or even fatal to Russia. But although widely said, there have been no specifics of it anywhere, which are the incidents propagandists use to make their case. If they had happened, we certainly would have heard them, as the West would jump off a building into a tank of sharks to report them and they’ve reported “Ghost of Kiev” instead.

    This is seen in Lavrov’s statements in Turkey (John Day) where he laboriously re-states the public Russian statement about the hospital and incubator babies. So that’s twice at a big waste of time and effort. Next question: “Why did you kill all the incubator babies?” “If you’re the sort of country that kills incubator babies, how are we supposed to believe you?” “Don’t you want to stop killing incubator babies?” It surpasses “Idiocracy” by a wide margin.

    Suppose it was totally true. Is Russia and Lavrov going to say – like Victoria Nuland did – “Yes, well, we certainly shot up all THOSE incubator babies on purpose because we’re evilly-evil and every Russian worldwide watches it on loop rubbing their fists together in glee…Wait! What am I saying???” And the sooper-reporter says, “Aha! I got you!!!” “Who did it turn out to be, Scoob? Farmer Brown?!?” “And I would have got away with it too if not for you pesky kids!”

    It’s unbelievable what a fantasy they inhabit, and I simply cannot comprehend how food ends up in their mouths each day and they can put their pants on not backward and inside out like Dumb and Dumber, dumberest with every passing hour. But they do. And live in palatial wealth while people – or countries – that do real work DON’T get food in their mouths. #Oppositeland, build by morons, for morons. …I’m having a low opinion of men lately but a high opinion of Lavrov and Russia for not nuking everybody from picque when enduring this interminable situation year after year. I don’t know that I would have similar restraint, but probably one does what one must.

    We are all looking at Russia, and still a fair bit of Covid. So what are we not looking at? There are missiles hitting worldwide since the perpetrators know they have news eclipse on it. Israel for one; any excuse. Africa. We see the election counting still. But these are known stories. Where are the unreported ones?

    #104114
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    Harming Russia

    While millions in the West worry about fuel availability and cost I doubt this is an issue in Russia!

    Millions in the West worry about food inflation and food availability, but Russia has been moving to self-sufficiency with reasonable success. They are also the largest producers of fertilisers, and have some of the best soil in the World. Their farmers seem to be moving to modern practices and increasing output, but I suspect they have a long way to go.

    Millions in the West worry about having a roof over their head, particularly in the US. In Russia it is not unusual for a family to have two dwellings – a flat in the city and a Dacha in the countryside.

    Russia has the capability of isolating its internet from the rest of the world.

    Essentially Russia is reasonably self-sufficient in day-to-day living. The West, especially Europe, is far more fragile.

    #104116
    Dimitri
    Participant

    Maybe in a week someone will pay some attention

    https://twitter.com/threadsirish2/status/1502600307708088321?

    #104117
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Some art to start

    Putin is the New Corona

    .

    #104118
    chooch
    Participant

    Source of the information is the Ukraine MOD. (Telegram feed).

    In recent days, Russia has gathered thousands of Syrian mercenaries to join the occupying forces.

    https://westobserver.com/news/europe/russia-is-recruiting-mercenaries-for-war-in-syria-and-libya-what-weapons-will-be-fired-and-what-salary-will-be-received/amp/

    #104119
    chooch
    Participant

    Source of information Chinese think tank.

    Possible Outcomes of the Russo-Ukrainian War and China’s Choice

    The Russo-Ukrainian War is the most severe geopolitical conflict since World War II and will result in far greater global consequences than September 11 attacks. At this critical moment, China needs to accurately analyze and assess the direction of the war and its potential impact on the international landscape. At the same time, in order to strive for a relatively favorable external environment, China needs to respond flexibly and make strategic choices that conform to its long-term interests.

    #104120
    Oroboros
    Participant

    I was thinking how Sergey Lavrov and Putin conduct diplomacy and themselves in public and then I saw how the Ukrainian leader has conducted himself.

    A study in contrast

    Here is Zelensky playing the piano with a ‘friend’ with their genitals

    What a class act for a head of state!

    Lucky Ukraine isn’t really much of a ‘state’ anymore.

    And here is Zelensky doing a ‘homoerotic’ bump and grind number with his Ukronazi butt buddies. Sweet!

    So much for diplomatic decorum from a Beta-Zeta head of state.

    #104121
    chooch
    Participant

    Source foreign minister of Russia 1990-1996

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1500610676926005251.html

    Lots of discussions about the threat of nuclear war from the Kremlin and whether Putin is rational. I share my thoughts in this thread.

    #104122
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Amateurs think strategy, generals think logistics … Or why Ukraine is doomed

    Amateurs think strategy, generals think logistics … Or why Ukraine is doomed

    War is just Mathematics

    Spoiler Alert

    Math is involved in this article

    Cut to the chase

    We can observe that in the Ukraine, once [military] supplies are depleted, Ukrainian Forces can:

    ∞ Fight with sticks and stones and die (immediately)
    ∞ They can run and die (a little bit later)
    ∞ They can hide and die (somewhat later)
    ∞ Fly the country abroad and live(4) (with resentment and fear,
    because you never know when a Spetsnaz team can pay a visit at home)
    ∞ Surrender and live a normal life (if they are not guilty of war crimes and such)

    #104123
    zerosum
    Participant

    Motivators
    life
    Survival
    Symbiosis

    Understanding symbiotic relationships are important, as it helps us understand how various organisms are dependent on each other for survival.
    There are three types of behaviours observed in symbiotic relationships, namely:

    In mutualism, both the involved organisms benefit from each other. (evolution, peace, bacteria flora, omicron)
    In commensalism, only one organism benefits, while the other is neither benefited nor harmed.
    In parasitism, one organism is benefited while the other organism is harmed. (survival of the fittest, war, humanity)
    ————-

    Isolationism is a political philosophy advocating a national foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entanglement in military alliances and mutual defense pacts. In its purest form, isolationism opposes all commitments to foreign countries including treaties and trade agreements

    sanctions
    a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule.
    synonyms:
    penalty · punishment · deterrent · punitive action · discipline · war

    #104124
    Noirette
    Participant

    catching up on prev. threads…

    > Oroboros, 12 March.

    Thx for the response. The description, or term, Ukronazi, is important, as the MSM (US, EU, other) is conflating Ultra-Nationalists with Nazis.

    Here in Switz. there is an easy way to distinguish Neo-Nazis from Ultra-Nationalists. The former swear they will fight for Palestine (.. support Palestinians..etc., some even say they support the Yemenis, of course none of them will do anything..), the latter want nothing to do with conflicts in the ME and are determined to block refugees. Heh, it gets confusing…

    —————- anecdote.

    I had a work supervisor and friend, German, who was born right after the war, in 1945 / 6, Germany, in village X. I lost touch with “Trudy” long ago and don’t know if she is still alive.

    When she was in first year of primary school, a man turned up out of the blue in the village. He was her father, held as a POW in Russia, released, 1951. She had been brought up as ‘fatherless’, in some unspecified way, she wasn’t told anything specific that she could comment on as an adult, by her mother and granny. She grew to love her father, but he died young.

    I have heard of one other man in a similar story.

    #104125
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Well, here we go:
    WAR!

    … and since it’s WAR, not stopping it:
    https://realinvestmentadvice.com/war-bigger-shocks-in-inflation-recession-smaller-rates-shock

    F.S.

    #104126
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant
    #104127
    Oroboros
    Participant

    A deep dive on Klaus Schwab or as I call him Klaws Scab

    KLAUS SCHWAB IS THE ‘GREAT BARKER’ OF THE FOURTH REICH

    .

    Sir Klaus Martin Schwab, KCMG, and Sir Bono, KBE (Paul David Hewson) relish the psycophantic adulation of their self-anointed fellow insider trading criminals at the 2016 World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland

    #104128
    Noirette
    Participant

    Here another take on Schwab, the WEF, and its predecessors.

    Johnny Vedmore:

    Is WEF a CIA-backed Creation with Goal of World Government?

    Interview of Johnny Vedmore, by Geopolics and Empire. March 12, 2022.

    1 h 12 mins. English. vid / podcast.

    Johnny Vedmore: Is WEF a CIA-backed Creation with Goal of World Government?

    #104129
    DarkMatter
    Participant

    Perfectly Lawful and Legal and Unfortunate
    When the old Russian Federation broke up, and Russia released the Ukraine as an independent country it came with the proviso that if there was evidence of criminality, genocide, international threats to Russia on Ukrainian soil, etc. Russia could come back in and secure the situation.

    By “the old Russian Federation” does she mean the Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States or maybe the Russian Empire? I searched for documents on the dissolution of these and can’t find anything that sounds like what she asserts.

    #104130
    WES
    Participant

    My Father used to say, you know you are in bear country when your tent has a new back door!
    My Father was treed twice by black momma bears in Saskatchewan and Quebec.
    Both trees were so short and scrawny that the bears could claw my Father’s work boots!

    #104131
    zerosum
    Participant

    Armchair generals – – Virtual WWII war games
    Russian generals — decoys – WWII armament dumb bombs, museum equipment
    – stock pile/reserves – smart bombs, modern armament for WWIII

    #104132
    WES
    Participant

    The major problem with Keynes’ economic theories was politicians only heard the first part of what he said, the part that sounded good, but failed to hear the second half, which did not sound so good.

    If Keynes was so brilliant, he would have known a little bit about human psychology and adjusted his message accordingly, but he didn’t.

    I don’t know too much about Einstein’s E = mc2, but I do know he was a great psychologist, like Yogi Bera. Einstein knew all there was to know about human insanity!

    #104133
    Oroboros
    Participant

    @Wes

    So when is was a little kid (grade school) my family visited Washington, DC.

    At the National Archives there was a statue of a scary dude, kinda like a greek god with a sword and inscription that said:

    Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty

    I didn’t understand the meaning of the phrase, vigilance was a tough one.

    After a couple unsuccessful attempts my father finally said, “Do you remember want I told you about when we’re hiking to always pay attention for bears and their babies?” “Yes”

    “Well, that’s what that statue means”

    “Pay attention!”

    .

    #104134
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Alastair Crooke latest:
    “The West has taken dominance of the ‘information space’ to new heights: consolidating the media; tightening its hold on information; marginalising the few investigative journalists that remain; and nullifying scepticism as examples of appeasement, or of “Putinism”. Freedom of online thought is disallowed; selective broadcast perspectives are removed or allowed (for example, pro neo-Nazi sympathies and politically-charged violence against Russians and Russia); and a monopoly over truth is established. So that when caught in falsehoods, any errant intrusion simply is algorithmically ‘disappeared’.”

    ‘This Is What Liberal War Fever Looks Like’

    F.S.

    #104135
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Justin Schwab, … introduction of:

    #104136
    Bill7
    Participant

    From the Atlantic piece by Mr. Derek Cohen, last paragraph, linked above by Dr. D:

    “..But the long-term risk of political instability can’t be overlooked. Several analyses of the 2011 popular uprisings that toppled the governments of Tunisia and Egypt during the so-called Arab Spring traced their origin to a spike in food prices, especially grains. War between two great breadbasket nations will be even more disruptive to prices. If 2011 is any indication, we could be in for not an Arab Spring but a World Spring—a wave of global political instability. The past few weeks have already demonstrated the force of social cascades—where what began as a financial sanction against Russia has become a worldwide boycott of it. Imagine a social cascade powered not only by moral righteousness but also by hunger. ”

    Interesting final sentence, no? It’s what they want, I think, with us little people bearing the hardship.

    #104137
    Bill7
    Participant

    I tried to read the one by DoctorProfessor Eliot Cohen in the same rag, but couldn’t get through even two paragraphs.

    la-la-land

    #104138
    Bill7
    Participant

    Remember when “Question Authority” was a big part of the zeitgeist?

    Now instead we get Blue-check hyena-Democrat authoritarians screaming “Do as you’re F*cking Told!!” (they do love love the f-word, seeming to belive it gives them gravitas).

    #104139
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Joe and Jill
    Went up Capitol Hill
    To fetch a pail of money
    Joe fell down and broke his crown
    And Jill came fumbling after.

    #104140
    WES
    Participant

    Oroboros:

    Yes paying attention to your surroundings is what saved my Father both times!

    He was in thick chest high scrub bush when he heard the bear cubs in Saskatchewan and quickly climbed the nearest tree. Then he met angry momma bear but not until after she had first treed her own cubs! Only then did my Father see the unhappy bear cubs! I don’t think the cubs were very happy about the manner in which the momma bear chased them up the tree! Because of the thick bush my Father stayed up in the tree for several hours until a co-worker came looking for him.

    In Quebec, much more open, he saw the bear cubs and quickly climbed the nearest tree. Then he had a quick introduction to another angry momma bear! This time he saw the bears leave and knew when it was safe to climb down from the tree.

    Unlike most folks my Father knew about black bears and what they could do. He was in charge of the company’s exploration program, so had years of experience camping out in the north. It was not unusual for a Beaver float plane to strap a canoe to it’s pontoon struts and land in a remote lake leaving him for a week or two before coming back to pick him up. Thus my Father’s tents often had new back doors remodeled in them!

    My Father said that whenever the black bears held an empty can, just to lick it clean, their claws always punctured holes in the sides of the can! That was another way my Father knew he was in bear country!

    In the summer, my Father had many remote drill camps scattered around the north. To service them he had a large fleet of float planes and a sea plane base to operate from. Due to an accident with a gun, the drillers were not allowed to have guns. But they did have dynamite! So when the drillers had a problem bear, that was not afraid of them and would come into their camp (usually driven by hunger due to the blueberry crop failing), they would often try to kill the bear with a stick of dynamite.

    One time the drillers sadly only succeeded in blowing off half of the bears face. Then they radioed my Father to please send a native hunter with the bear gun to track the injured bear down and kill it.

    My Father’s favorite bear gun radio message. “At first the bear was afraid of us, now the reverse is true! Please send the bear gun!”

    #104141
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Good Ol’ Truisms

    The Yavorov Range was destroyed where CIA and NATO “advisers” were training Neonazi forces and now were drilling combat cohesion for mercenaries’ “units”

    https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/03/good-ol-truisms.html

    .

    A wrap up on Ukraine Mar 13

    Andrei Martyanov

    #104142
    chooch
    Participant

    It was noted earlier,

    “War is just Mathematics
    Spoiler Alert
    Math is involved in this article
    Cut to the chase
    We can observe that in the Ukraine, once [military] supplies are depleted, Ukrainian Forces can:”

    The problem is Ukraine is spending it’s blood and other people’s money to fight this war. It’s logistics are golden.

    In regards to math (notes from various sources),

    Russia lacks the trucks to move more than 145 km from a railhead. That is why Russia brought a pair of armored trains from Crimea to support the now failed siege of Mariupol. If you are using these sorts of logistical trains. Russia simply cannot blow up the bridges that Ukrainian supply trains are using at night to avoid Russian airpower.

    It is possible to calculate how far trucks can operate using simple beer math. Assuming the existing road network can support 45 mph speed. A single truck can make three trips a day at up to a 45-mile range: One hours to load, one hour to drive to the supported unit, one hours to unload, and another hour to return to base. Repeating this cycle three times equals 12 hours total.

    The rest of the day is dedicated to truck maintenance, meals, refueling, weapons cleaning, and sleeping. Increase the distance to 90 miles, and the truck can make two trips daily.

    At 180 miles, the same truck is down to one trip a day. These assumptions won’t work in rough terrain or where there is limited/damaged infrastructure.

    If an army has just enough trucks to sustain itself at a 45-mile distance, then at 90 miles, the throughput will be 33 percent lower. At 180 miles, it will be down by 66 percent.”

    The Russian army will be hard-pressed to conduct a ground offensive of more than 90 miles beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union without a logistics pause.

    Russia is losing the ability to project ground mechanized combat power more than 100 km into Ukraine.

    Putin will take his frustrations out on Kharkiv and Mariupol because those Ukrainian cities are within combat vehicle reach of Russian railheads.

    Finally,

    The Ukrainians are using civilian automobiles to move men and distribute anti-tank rockets there. I think I read something like 17,000 of these rockets have been brought in from the west.

    Because of this it is no longer consider a war crime to fire on civilian automobiles.

    #104143
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Hey Chooch,

    I think you forgot about air drops, which are easy-as-apple-pie when you control the airspace 😉

    Russia’s Technodinamika Group has started conducting preliminary trials of a parachute system meant to airdrop heavy armored vehicles – including the Typhoon vehicle weighing 18 tonnes – with personnel inside ~ July 2021

    https://www.defenseworld.net/news/29991/Russian_firm_Starts_Testing_Parachute_System_to_Air_Drop_Heavy_Armored_Vehicles

    #104144

    I love that gold is so dollar-cheap and has been kept that way. It’s value is its own- like dried peas. No one would say “I have $500 worth of dried peas.” One would say “I have 400 pounds of dried peas.
    “I have an ounce of gold” will mean many things someday, and dollars won’t figure into it.
    [Might seem off topic but this came from a web-hike I did today, starting here.]

    #104145

    Doc Day – [also off topic] Do you have any opinions on fluoroquinolones?

    #104146
    WES
    Participant

    Chooch:

    The Germans had to use railways for the same reason Russia has to. The Ukraine is a big country.
    But the Russians have one big advantage over the Germans!
    Ukrainian and Russian railway gauges are the same, so no need for unloading and reloading freight!

    As for the war for Mariopol, it will be over shortly. The place is a mess, so nobody really wins, but the neo-nazis didn’t lose. They just died, taking as many of the locals as they could with them.

    #104147
    WES
    Participant

    Using sanctions, the west has stopped the flow of Russian mining supplies of gold and silver into the London Metal Exchange (LME). Russia is a major gold and silver producer.

    A great deal of each months future supplies from Russian mines are already factured into LME’s future options for delivery, say for example, September 2022. Now this gold is no longer physically available for delivery in September 2022! The Russian central bank is buying all of it instead!

    So what will the LME do? Simple the LME will change the rules of the gold and silver game just like they did for nickel recently! Have you noticed any nickel being traded recently? No!

    As we speak gold and silver prices are falling despite rising inflation and war.

    Good luck trying to buy any physical gold or silver though! There is none available at today’s low dollar prices!

    However, you can buy all the fake paper gold you want! Yes, the LME desperately needs you to buy all of their fake paper gold to help them continue their gold and silver scam!

    As they say, if you don’t hold it, you don’t own it!

    #104148
    WES
    Participant

    Chooch:

    Many people do not know that in preparation for the D-Day Normandy landings the Allies had a gasoline supply pipeline ready to cross the English Channel and had it operational in a couple of days after landing. They then extended the pipeline forward as the front moved towards Germany.

    As for trucks there was the Red Ball Express. Military Police set up one way highways for only these supply trucks and nobody else. One going and one returning. The Americans knew their supply math very, verý well!

    It is funny that Eisenhower had virtually no power over the US Quarter Master General! Eisenhower specifically told him he was forbidden to set up his supply headquarters in Paris and commandeered all of the best hotels in Paris. Guess what! He did exactly that and there wasn’t a dam thing Eisenhower could do to stop him! He was that powerful!

    I remember an unusal interview of a German POW in Normandy asking where all the Allied horses were! The Germans used horses to move everything! German generals in their planning figured they held the advantage in France because they had local supplies of feed for their horses but the Allies would have to bring over all the feed for their horses! Seems hard to believe but it is true.

    The reality was the Germans had a limited auto/truck industry not to mention fuel supplies (Canada produce more trucks than Germany!). That is why they put all of their mobile units into a few elite Panzer divisions. In WW2 the Germans used more than twice the number of horses than they used in WW1!

    #104149
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    This is now the Ides of March War. With the internet you can get propaganda from both sides; or world views, but not for long. Reality, the truth, is hidden from everyone and by one’s own viewpoint.

    Much like WWI there will be no real winners, except China, the new world power. Globalism is death. An iron curtain is circling the world. Once again there are three worlds. But the West is decaying into third world status; assets and labor depleted; euro-dollar’s value crashing. Industry and resources dominate within the Russia, China & Iran Axis. The West is de-industrialized, facing severe shortages, ill with coronavirus, and suffering under the reign of the supranational death cult (the corporate state, i.e. the Western Empire). All the Kremlin had to do was wait. But they couldn’t/didn’t and invaded Ukraine.

    Neither the EU or the Russian Federation will be able to construct a European Security Agreement. The USA is not agreement capable. This means a constant new cold war 2.0. The rise of nationalism and guarded borders. Nuclear armed forces, locked and loaded, facing each other over tens of thousands of miles. Mankind’s survival depends on neither side making one mistake that destroys the world.

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