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The USSR was nothing but a militaristic dictatorship and Russia is no better, just an extension of the same garbage. The Automatic Earth is one of its propaganda arms and just post any lie an Russian spokesman can come up with such as:
“The U.S. is virtually thumbing its nose at Russia with the distribution of the “anti-ballistic missile systems” emplaced in places such as Moldova. As Putin pointed out, it takes not even a sneeze and a couple of hours to convert those platforms into use for Tomahawks with nuclear capability. The Russians did not exercise “en passant” with such an opener, and are placing missiles of their own to face the U.S. assets.”
The anti missile system doesn’t even have explosive warheads, its kinetic. But of course TAE and its Russian friends want to have an excuse to make more arms to invade more countries. Time for them both to self destruct.
“In what is likely to be its most significant move, the Warsaw summit is expected to give formal approval to a plan to deploy four multinational battalions along the eastern flank—one each in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.”
Only needed because Russia is a belligerent, country controlled by a dictator called Putin. The first question is why is Russia constantly (just like the Soviet Union) trying to be an enemy of the west? Its not because they fear their freedom, it because it the only way they can hold their country together. The former small countries that were under Russia oppressive, corrupt soviet government want to make sure they are never there again. Only NATO can help with that. Russia needs to know that any further aggression from them will get them kicked in the teeth. Stop being evil, Russia!
No end to the Russian propaganda here. General Petr Pavel, the chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, says Russia equates liberal democracy with weakness and only respects power. In an interview with RFE/RL in Brussels on May 24, the Czech general said that the alliance must be ready to act when necessary.
Russian actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine show their intentions. They prop up Assad in Syria by bombing civilians, not ISIS. Anything you hear about Russia being good at heart is just bullshit but its always on the Automatic Earth.
This is a baffling statement: “Now, the question is, in America, now that you’re having as a result of this polarization shorter lifespans, worse health, worse diets, where are the Americans going to emigrate’ Nobody can figure that one out yet. There’s no, seems nowhere for them to go, because they don’t speak a foreign language. The Russians, the Greeks, most Europeans all somehow have to learn English in school. They’re able to get by in other countries. They’re not sure where on earth can the Americans come from’ Nobody can really figure this out.”
The answer is that Americans will not emigrate anywhere except for a normal few. The world is lucky that American technical growth made English a standard language. Can you imagine Chinese or Russian? We get along just fine in the world speaking English but other countries would do well to just drop most of their languages and make it their own.
The suicide rate in the US has increased for older white men who have been losing jobs to outsourcing and automation but many countries have similar or worse problems. We have an abundance of food and feed a lot of the world. I wish we had to guts to tell fat people to not have kids, to stop obesity, but we don’t like to hurt feelings. Some countries do some things better but its a balance.
Gorillas are not over populating the planet so we cherish them. The refugees rarely use birth control and produce kids like rabbits then have wars over a religion that they bow to five time a day while it does nothing for them in return (there is no god, stupid people). They then flood into western countries and swamp everything that has been built (housing, jobs, services). They will still practice their useless religion but expect the westerners to provide for them. Eventually, they will bring down the very countries they are fleeing to. I don’t blame the refugees for trying but Europe should shut off this flow right now, by whatever means necessary. You don’t see Russia taking any refugees, do you.
A Russian Warning article is not a letter from Russian – Americans, it is a total propaganda article, most likely approved by Putin. They talk about their fight in WWII which was heroic but with no choice (Stalin order anyone not fighting to be shot) they had to fight and die. Russia would have lost if the United States had not supplied them with weapons and ammunition and also entered the war. Russia would have been destroyed if the US had chosen to be its enemy and nuked it too. Russia chooses to be an enemy to the west because it is the only way the corrupt and criminal government can hold together the country.
Quoting the article:”Thus, if tomorrow a war were to break out between the US and Russia, it is guaranteed that the US would be obliterated. At a minimum, there would no longer be an electric grid, no internet, no oil and gas pipelines, no interstate highway system, no air transportation or GPS-based navigation. Financial centers would lie in ruins. Government at every level would cease to function. US armed forces, stationed all around the globe, would no longer be resupplied. At a maximum, the entire landmass of the US would be covered by a layer of radioactive ash. We tell you this not to be alarmist, but because, based on everything we know, we are ourselves alarmed. If attacked, Russia will not back down; she will retaliate, and she will utterly annihilate the United States.”
Do you really think that Russia could destroy the most powerful country on earth and suffer only minor damage? There would be nothing left, not even an ice cube in Siberia. NATO expanded because of the belligerence of Russia and Putin’s decision to once again play the part of an enemy to the west to protect his own power and corruption. The Russian people are smart but fools since they only get their information from a government controlled press and media. It is the same lying propaganda that the Soviet Union used and the people have never recovered from that brainwashing. Look at all the countries that ran from that awful dictatorship when they got the chance. These countries wanted to join NATO for protection. Russia is an becoming equal to Hitler’s Germany except with more powerful weapons. The US and NATO will not cower in from of them. They are evil.
The Financial Times won’t allow us to read more unless we have a subscription. Posting a partial article is nearly useless. Any site that requires a subscription probably has the same issue.
When you read this sentence “The U.S. would have reacted the same way. In fact, it did in 1961, when the Soviets installed defensive missiles in Cuba.” in the NATO article, you immediately know that everything else is a lie. The missiles in Cuba were not defensive, they were not designed to defend Cuba. They were nuclear and designed to offer first strike capability for Russia. NATO is needed because Russia has consistently refused to join the world community and instead has been a belligerent, criminal government. With Gorbachev they started to go in the right direction but Putin has reversed that in spades. They are kings of propaganda so never believe anything said by Russia or their flunkies.
One more possible help is Nyloxin which can be bought in a mouth spray or topical gel and is sold without a Rx (at least in the US). Check here: https://www.nyloxin.com/content/Nyloxin.aspx
I don’t know if it is available in Canada but see if your doc will prescribe Voltaren Gel 1% (generic name is diclofenac sodium) which is a topical pain med. This may help, I wish you luck and better health.
“A survey of recent writings on Russia by western scholars reveals a widely-held view that the largest of the 15 post-Soviet republics has continued to decline in the 21st century. Yet an examination of the data suggests that Russia has actually risen in comparison with some of its western competitors. Neil Ferguson, the British, Harvard-based historian, wrote in 2011 that Vladimir Putin’s Russia was in decline and “on its way to global irrelevance.” His Harvard colleagues Joseph Nye and Stephen Walt hold similar views. “Russia is in long-term decline.”
Russia is in decline and Putin (who is now loved by Russians) has become the dictator of choice. He plays the game well but after the invasion of Ukraine and the shoot down of a passenger jet by one of Russia’s missiles, which could only be controlled by a trained Russian, times have become tough. Oil price drops and the constant aging/alcoholism and reducing population will light the match. The Automatic Earth is very pro Russia and anti US. You won’t see negative articles here about the Criminal country of Russia. To see the real truth, watch the Frontline report, Putin’s Way: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/putins-way/“Since 2008, the labor participation rate has fallen from a high of 67.3% in 2000 to 62.6% today. That 62.2% represents a 38-year low, which puts Bloomberg’s claim of a 42-year-low in joblessness in perspective. The jobless number is “low” only because more people are no longer considered to be participating in the workforce.”
This is a worthless statistic. So students, sick people, retired people, drug addicts and a few people who lost their jobs are not in the workforce. It is used to make people think that this is unemployment, it is not. Also, if the minimum wage is suddenly raised to $15/hr is will create inflation and everyone who presently makes that will want to make $25/hr and so on. Mostly on the back of retired people on Social Security who won’t get a 100% increase (probably 2 – 3%). The idea that the work conditions in the US are brutal is also a lie.Russia looks frightening (but then it always has). (The Guardian)
Offshore bandits combine features from both of Olson’s categories – their money is “roving” while they themselves are “stationary” – without the side effects of either. They can continue taking money indefinitely, without feeling any need to improve the society they are living in. For a bandit, it’s the best of both worlds; but for a society, it’s the worst.For a sign of what this means in practice, take a look at last year’s Credit Suisse Global Wealth report. According to the bank’s survey, in the 15 years of Putin’s tenure of Russia, the middle class (assessed as those owning $18,000-180,000, and making up 4.1% of the population) gained $137bn in assets.
That doesn’t seem too bad, until you notice that those above the middle class – just 0.5% of the population – gained an astonishing $687bn over the same period.
Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin
A massive leak of documents shines new light on the fabulous fortunes of the Russian president’s inner circle
Read more“The top decile of wealth-holders owns 87% of all household wealth in Russia. This is significantly higher than any other major economic power,” the report states.
Unprecedented inequality is the effect of offshore bandits in action. When people can enjoy all the benefits of power, without the responsibility that comes with it, it’s hardly surprising they take the opportunity to get really, really rich.
Of course, this also requires unprecedented degrees of hypocrisy, to obscure the realities of what is going on. That then leads to people like Lesin, who ran an anti-western propaganda machine while investing in Beverly Hills; or people like Yakunin, who cautioned against contact with the west for everyone but his own children.
It is customary at this point to state that there is nothing illegal in any of this. But offshore bandits are a very long way from the dictatorship of the law that Russia was promised a decade and a half ago. And pointing this out is not Putinophobia.
@The Trivium4 You state: I loan you $20 @ 5% interest per year. At the end of 1 year, you owe me $21 due to double entry bookkeeping adjustments that add $1 interest liability to your balance sheet and $1 interest asset to my balance sheet.
Please tell me how you can “grow” that $20 into more money by saving and investing (or any other means under the sun) if I hold onto my $1 interest and don’t lend more money into existence.Simple answers but lets use a greater sum of money such a $15,000. a consumer would the buy a car so they could travel to a job which they can now work and produce an income. this is a return on investment of the loan. This can also be used for getting an education using a loan, though this can certainly be abused. Worked produced is value and is stored as money. Even depositing it into a savings account with fractional reserve allows it to be be partially loaned out again. If one assumed that the money was totally wasted or burned then this would be an obvious disaster. However, money loaned is used to purchase labor, goods and services which again produces value, all of which is used to pay back the interest and capital.
“The United States [..] has meanwhile pledged just 7% of the nearly 171,000 considered to be its fair share, it showed. The Netherlands also stood at 7%, Denmark at 15 and Britain at 22, Oxfam said.”
So you forgot to say how many Russia has pledged to take. How about zero, they just bomb the hospitals and civilians so the refugees can flood Europe. What a criminal country, always has been and always will be.Everyone seems to think it is Europe’s responsibility to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees. The first problem is that these people have kids like rabbits, producing overpopulation in unstable societies. The second is that all these people will need billions of Euros to support and they won’t stop coming. Russia is a major cause of these refugees. Assad has been supported militarily by Russia and has been bombing civilians without much discrimination (Just like their proxy, Assad). There are no articles about sending the refugees to Russia, NONE! This is utter hypocrisy. Europe should tell all the refugees, from this point on, that they will be given transport to the Ukraine – Russian border for entry to Russia. This will thwart both the flow of refugees and make Russia responsible for what they have caused. Wake up Europe and the west.
There is a simple truth about obesity and that is fat people should not be making kids. It seems the people with the worst genes always reproduce the most while the people who are smartest and best looking reproduce the least. Normally, you would expect evolution to favor mating of people with great attributes instead of those who are at the bottom.
ilargi states: “Do we need to repeat that Russia didn’t attack Ukraine? That if after all this time there is still zero proof for that, perhaps it’s time to let go of that idea?”
Really, your think your readers are so stupid that they will believe the illargi propaganda about Russia. Russia has attacked Ukraine, taken over Crimea and the eastern front, this is beyond question. While Snowden may be telling the truth about his files, that is just a head fake for your pro Russian bull. You act as if Russia was a bastion of openness which call into question the purpose of anything you post.
When it comes to Russia it is easy to see that Ilargi is a Russian plant. His quoting from RT (Russia Today), which is the English propaganda arm of Russia shows that: “The Ukraine army’s chief of staff has admitted that Kiev troops are not engaged in combat with Russian units, thereby thwarting all Western allegations of Moscow’s “military invasion,” ” is a small example.
Of course Russia is suppling troops and equipment to fight Ukraine unless you also believe they didn’t take over Crimea. It you see (RT) then don’t believe a word or Ilargi.The first article is just a propaganda piece. Of course the Ukrainian government must get rid of these Russian rebels by force. They have used force to take over and try to split a number of cities from the country. This was a tactical move with Russia’s help. The US should have given the Ukrainian army better weapons and we still should. Only by killing and defeating these Russian separatists will this action be stopped. As for what is owed to Russia for gas, just charge them 400 billion for Crimea, and its military installations that were stolen by Russia. It seems Russia owes Ukraine a lot of money. One last thing, the west should not work with Russia going forward, working with liars just encourages them. Become energy independent, let SpaceX fly to the space station and ban all energy business dealings with Russia.
Orlov just produced a totally illogical piece. Neo facists sounds like a Republican line on FOX which is always a lie, so you can draw the same conclusion about Orlov. To say that Russia has an ideology is like saying a 15 year old teen has a conscience. No one is above the law except Putin and his cronies and they support the Russian gangsters that rob people world wide. I think the US will have to deal with similar fate to Crimea when all the illegal Mexicans decide they want to join Mexico and take the US southwest with them. Only the threat of a hot war will stop Putin and that requires NATO to arm Ukraine.
The Ukraine should charge Russia $200B for the loss of Crimea and $200B for lost military equipment and bases so after subtracting what it owes for gas Russia will still owe them $387B. Something left out of your thinking.
Though the financial system appears to have low stability and you stated that you agree with Bill Gross, your conclusions are opposite of his.
He predicts inflation, not deflation
He says to buy commodities, you say to sell them.All the advice one could want. I’ll just watch Doomsday Preppers on TV, it is entertaining.
Ilargi has been too busy writing to look up. In no way, even in his imagination, could Obama be a bad president, much less the worst one. Faced with the right wing nuts that the Tea Party elected and a Senate that Republicans have decide to rule by minority, no progressive president could have done much more. Obama has contended with the hardest foreign events since WW2, got gays finally accepted in the military, passed a national health care act (single payer would have been better), killed bin Laden and pulled the US out of a certain depression.
Saying the Republicans never had a chance is underestimating the warped minds of the Republican voters who jumped for joy with Bachmann, Cain, Santorum and so many other nut cases. While President Obama will be know as a good president in the future, he does need to use his last term to fix even more. The Senate must stop the filibuster as it presently is used. If the Republican party comes back (and they did in 2010) even more extreme, a civil war will be needed.
Well, I see two problems with using the graph. First, it is in dollars so it is not inflation adjusted and second it is not population adjusted. Therefore the debt per capita is lower than shown.
A pessimist is an optimist that life has kick to death. It seems to me that it is easy for people to lie to themselves, they often just ask some god to forgive them if they realize the lie.
This is easily seen in people who became estatic about completely nutty candidates like Palin, Bachmann, Santorum, etc. The more crazy the candidate the more they cheered.
The problem with the economy is that you hear every side, all the time. Its nearly impossible to sort it out while believing in “the end is near” forces either acceptance or you must take action. We have been hearing this for years so belief withers. This is not lying to oneself, it is just exhaustion.Beside the well stated strong possibility of a deep recession or depression in the US (yes I feel bad for the Europeans too) is the stark fact that nearly 50% of Americans will gladly go back the the same party that so badly managed the economy under Bush. He now looks like a saint compared to the lunatics guiding the con machine. Add to that the goals of shoving their religious moral authority down our collective throats while pumping more money into the military. If Obama get re-elected the floor might crumble, if Romney get elected there will be a gaping sink hole.
Ashvin said I am more than willing to get into substantive debates there over spiritual issues… and smash the atheist worldview to pieces”
Ha, it is up to you sir to prove the existence of a god, not up to any atheist to prove there is not. The burden is on the believer and that task would prove impossible. All argument is just bullshit until you show that proof.Anyone who has a fundamental belief in a god is not someone I would trust to explain anything. Overwhelming circumstantial evidence shows that believing and praying to a god (take your choice) is a fruitless pursuit except for the temporary relief one might get from that.
Four people die in Libya from an attack (believers in their god) and everyone asks god to give the families peace. Why was god so powerless to stop the attack? This is not a test of faith..it is simply there is no god to do it.
Religious people constantly promote this false belief which only gives false hope or worst case they kill those who don’t go along with them. In all the disasters why don’t the believers just wait for god to help? Because they truly know only humans will do it. Religion is the worst invention of mankind.
Ashvin you are wasting your time.One of the largest drivers of costs is energy. If we develop new energy resources to greatly slow the use of oil (saving it for plastics, medicines, etc) and coal (it is dirty and causes global warming). we can transition into a sustainable society.
LENR will help solve the energy problem. That and other technologies like the Cyclone engine and Plasma transition engine can greatly reduce CO2 emissions. They will also help reduce the debt as energy will become much cheaper.
The “printing of money” by banks misses a critical point. Yes, loaning money does create new money but that loan does work and produces real GDP. A loan for a house produces a house. A loan for a business produces a business that produces products. A loan to a farmer produces food. As you can see, new money produces new goods, it is not thrown away as most believe. Debt is a problem but I don’t believe it is anywhere close to what is being stated. I do agree that societies need to get out of the unlimited growth paradigm but they also need to stop the overpopulation or earth as well.
The problem with Barnhardt’s advice is she doesn’t say what to do with your money if you get it out of all financial accounts. Its just get the hell out. Imagine if even 25% of the population did this, it would collapse the financial system. I’m not saying there isn’t a problem with the debt, but it is caused by the banks on one hand and the role of the US as an international policeman on the other.
Maybe there is no solution but if there is a governmental collapse, many of us won’t live through it. Just turn off your TV, internet and power for a week and try it.
Mr. Pollock has stopped all comments on the video because he can’t address the implications of doing what he advocates. Maybe he and Barnhardt are right but will they trigger the nuclear option?
Ash, you sound like a blooming communist. It is obvious to many that we cannot have unlimited growth so that must stop. How? Well the world isn’t going to stop unless they starve so we need to greatly slow immigration into western countries to limit population. We need to invest in new energy resources that will help all. Two are the Nobel gas engine and cold fusion (and this is no hoax).
Some statements made here sound weird because they are just plain backward. For example: “Berman points out that Causey and Goldmacher are right to dump on Reagan’s neo-liberal, trickle-UP economic paradigm, but they are also asking the wrong question”. This is stupid. Reagan was not a neo liberal, he was a conservative (though not by today’s standards of the lunatic right) and he touted trickle DOWN economics not trickle up. This is still the mantra of conservatives.
The biggest problem in the US is that we are fed a constant diet of lies with twisted facts. You would do well to correct them not to promote them, as done by conservatives (the American Taliban).
Conspiracy theories = bullshit.
Americans glorify violence in movies, games, TV. When someone’s mind slips to insanity it goes for what is familiar.2nd amendment: First it states the need for a well regulated militia (this means an army). Then it states the right of the people to bear arms. This means a defensive force which is the army, not individuals. Even so, arms at the time were simple single shot pistols and rifles. They could not and would not sanction today’s assault weapons for non military which are a lot different and more lethal. Anyone who thinks so is just stupid and this includes several people on the Supreme court.
Everyone here is missing the coming black swan events. After hearing and repeating all the end of the world scenarios I have come to the conclusion that there is a strong chance we will survive and prosper.
First I’ll refer you to a book called Abundance by Peter Diamandis. If you read it you will get a sense of how things can be getting better. Next I will mention two developments that are world changing but highly ignored.First is the E-cat heat generator (called cold fusion in general) that has reached 1000 C steam. Cost of fuel is essentially zero and no radioactive waste.
Second is a Plasmic transition engine. This works by exciting a mixture of noble gases in a sealed chamber which drives a piston. The expanded gas then collapses. A small two cylinder engine can produce up to 250HP and run for many thousands of hours at , again, very little cost. https://www.inteligentry.com They need a better web site but it will explain a lot.
Renewable energy, higher efficiency and LENR energy generation will likely save us in the long run (10 to 20 years) as these things ramp up. The question is if they can do so fast enough to prevent global warming disaster.
I think everyone ignores the Black Swan events. The mainstream media certainly does and it seems that TAE does too, but I understand it. One such event is the advent of very low cost energy from LENR “cold fusion” which is in advanced development now. This may not help with other resources but could be the answer to declines in nat gas, oil and getting rid of coal’s effect on climate change.
I wish we could recycle more. the whole paradigm revolves around the use of energy. Even making unlimited fresh water could be done if energy was cheap enough. Well, that time in very near with LENR, also called cold fusion. Reports from Rossi are that it can generate sustained 600 deg C steam (high pressure). To make fresh water, steam works pretty well. This will transform the world in short order but it may also encourage more population which is already too much.
The Republican part is the American Taliban. Their motto is Lie always and often, then use FOX to get it on the air. While certainly the Dems are not perfect, they are the only people in government that will help the people who have little. It will certainly be ironic if Romney is elected, like putting a loaded shotgun in the countries mouth and pulling the trigger on election day. We should certainly stop spending on any Republican. No FEMA, no Social Security, no Medicare, no deductions for kids or houses. We should practice what they preach.
