Michael starts at 23:40 and the transcript will be added to this thread when available.
UPDATE: Free part of Transcript:
Katie Halper podcast, April 29, 2022
UI: Michael Hudson Free Podcast
Date: 4/29/22 Length: 24:55
TRANSCRIPT
KATIE HALPER: Professor Michael Hudson, thank you so much for joining us. We’re really excited to have you.
We wanted to start off by asking you if you could provide an overview of what the economics driving this conflict are—and by conflict, I mean the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and, of course, with the rest of the world, or really the conflict between Russia and US, and the economic fallout.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, it depends on what side you’re looking at. From the Russian side, I don’t think the economic factors were primary. They were threatened by NATO’s expansion and really a plan to attack the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine. So, I think Russia’s calculations were simply military. The West’s calculations were quite different.
And if you looked at what the results of the conflict are, you have to assume that everybody was talking about the results [as] were known. They’re very clear. The results are a very large increase in fuel prices, oil, and energy prices, a very large increase in agricultural prices with declining supplies. This will leave most of Africa and Latin America—third-world countries, the Global South—unable to pay their foreign debts, which is going to result either in a massive debt default or it will result in a debt repudiation.
Countries are going to have to choose. Are they going to have to operate their homes without energy, their factories without energy—and energy consumption per capita is directly connected to GDP for the last 150 years. Every chart shows energy use, GDP, and personal income go up together.
So, what are countries going to do when they can’t afford to pay the higher prices for energy? Well, Janet Yellen, who was the Federal Reserve head and [now] the Secretary of the Treasury says, ‘Well, what we’re going to do is use the International Monetary Fund to preserve America’s unipolar hegemony.’ I think she used almost those words. We have to keep American control of the world and we’re going to do it through the IMF. And that means in practice using the IMF to create special drawing rights, which will be sort of like free money, the bulk of which will go to the United States to support its military spending abroad for all of this huge military escalation. And it will enable the IMF to go to countries and say, ‘We will help you pay your debts and not be foreclosed on and get energy, but it’s conditional.’ On usual conditions: you have to lower your wages; you have to pass anti-labor legislation; you have to agree to begin selling off your public domain and privatize.
The energy and food crisis caused by the NATO war against Russia is going to be used as a lever not only to push privatization, largely under control of US investors and banks and financiers, but it’s also going to lock countries into the US orbit all the more, both the Global South and especially Europe.
One casualty is obviously going to be Europe and the euro. The euro has been plunging in value day after day after day, as people realize that it’s lost its export markets in Russia and much of Asia, and now at home, too, because exports require energy to be made. Its costs of imports are going up, especially energy. It’s agreed to use, I think, now $3 billion to build new port facilities to buy US natural gas—liquified natural gas at three to seven times the price that it’s paying now, which will make it almost impossible for German firms to produce fertilizer to grow crops in Germany. The euro’s plunging.
The largest plunge of all has been the Japanese yen, because Japan imports all of its energy and most of its food and is keeping its interest rates very low in order to support the financial sector. And so, the Japanese economy is being sacrificed and squeezed. And I think this is…you can’t say, ‘Gee, this is an accident.’ This is part of the plan, because now the United States can say, ‘Of course we don’t want your yen to go down so much that your consumers have to pay more. We will, of course, give you SDRs—special drawing rights—and we will give you American aid. But we do want you to rewrite your constitution so that you can have atomic weapons on your soil so that we can fight against China to the last Japanese. Just like we’re doing in Ukraine, let us do it for you.’
And, of course, the Japanese love that. The government loves that idea. They love sacrificing the population, which is what they’ve been doing ever since the Plaza Accord and the Louvre Accord of the 1980s that basically wrecked the Japanese industrial economy from this huge upswing to just a mass shrinkage.
So, those are the economic effects of the war. And in the newspaper, you think the war is all about Ukrainians and NATO fighting Russians, and it’s really a war by the United States to use the NATO-Russia conflict as a means of locking in control over its allies and the whole Western world, and in Janet Yellen’s words, re-establishing American unipolar power.
AARON MATÉ: And do you think that, assuming that this is the US strategy, taking your argument at face value, do you think that this strategy will succeed?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Ultimately, it’ll be self-defeating. And almost every US politician and military speech has the phrase, ‘Gee, we don’t want America to shoot itself.’ And obviously they’re all worried about it. It’s a huge gamble.
Apparently, the military was not even consulted in the sanctions that were put against Russian energy. And the military wasn’t consulted even on the plans by the State Department and the National Security…the neo-cons that are running the NATO war. And so, obviously, there’s a lot of doubts within the military, but they don’t speak up—that’s not what they do.
It’s amazing that in Europe the only opposition to this is coming from the right wing, people like Marine Le Pen. Not from the left wing. So, the left wing in Europe…I shouldn’t say the left, I should say what is now the right wing, the Social Democratic parties, the Labour Party, those are the parties that are thoroughly behind NATO. And there doesn’t seem to be a political imperative in these countries, except going along with the policy that’s going to squeeze their balance of payments and lock them into dependency on the United States.
So, what seems to be happening if there’s no fight back on the part of Europe? Obviously, if you look at the United Nations vote on whether to come out with a policy against Russia, many countries either abstained or voted against it. So, the big economic result is structural. It means there’s like an iron curtain between the white Western world (Europe and North America) and Eurasia (China, India, and Russia, and their surrounding territories). And if you have China, India and Russia—or what [Halford John] Mackinder called Eurasia, the world core—then, are you going to have the rest of Asia coming along? The question’s going to be, what happens with Taiwan, Japan, and North Korea? They’re pretty much up for grabs. And yet two days ago, the NATO leader, [Jens] Stoltenberg, said NATO has to have a presence in the South China sea, that NATO has to defend Europe in the Pacific, in China. So, you can see the conflict that’s coming there. And I think you also had one of the NATO people—a European politician, negotiator—saying this war cannot be settled economically. It cannot be settled by treaty. It can only be settled militarily.
Well, so then you’re back to, how is the military going to affect the economy? Well, Russia cannot afford to lose, because if it loses, NATO is going to put atomic weapons right in Ukraine, right next to its border, as it wants to do in Latvia and Estonia. And the US, apparently, is taking a position, ‘We can’t lose, because if we lose, Biden won’t be reelected.’ And Biden apparently is now running the military and economic campaign with a view towards how can he be reelected in November [2024]—with the only real variable in the American strategy being the American public itself, which, unfortunately, there’s almost no discussion of what we’re talking about today, except your show, the internet, [The Vineyard of] The Saker and the others. So, everything is up for grabs.
AARON MATÉ: And by the way, if this is Biden thinking, he’s doing so, even though most Americans don’t wake up caring about Ukraine, it’s not their top concern. But there’s a very different attitude inside the White House. Obviously, they do.
So, let me ask you about Russia. Can Russia afford to weather all of this? As we’re speaking, Russia has recently cut off gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria. Let’s say other parts of Europe follow suit and refuse to pay in rubles for gas payments, as Putin has demanded. Can Russia afford to cut off more countries from receiving Russian energy, or is Putin bluffing there, do you think?
MICHAEL HUDSON: No, of course it can afford to cut it off because Russia is pretty much self-contained. It’s how it survived the 1990s and the shock therapy. Any country that could survive the shock therapy, nothing is going to be that serious again. So, it’s already shown that it can survive, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. And it can survive much better than Europe can survive.
AARON MATÉ: Michael, let me push back there. It survived, but the 90s took a very heavy toll on Russia.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Yes, it did. Absolutely.
AARON MATÉ: Are you suggesting that Russia might face that again?
MICHAEL HUDSON: No, I don’t think it’ll be that serious again, because now it has the support of China, India, and other countries. Before it was completely dismantled from within. Now, it’s not dismantled from within. It’s rebuilt; certainly, it’s military. It’s rebuilt enough of its economy and made enough links with other economies who are politically supporting it. Because Biden has said again and again, ‘We’ve got to destroy Russia because if we destroy Russia, we will cut it off in China, and then we can go against China as our real enemy.’ So, we’ve got to cut up the world potentially opposing us, first Russia and then China, maybe India, too. And he’s been very explicit in this, so you can imagine where this leaves China and India. India has already said, ‘Well, look, we’re economically linked to Russia. We’re going to continue to link.’
Russia’s foreign reserves were stolen in the West. It’s going to basically work with China to create some kind of mutual currency swaps like United States arranges with Europe and other countries—currency swaps so that they can hold each other’s currency. And China knows that, ultimately, it will be repaid through a new pipeline to deliver gas to China. So, I think a decision has been made in Russia that it’s decoupling with the West. Certainly, decoupling from Europe, decoupling from the United States, except for marginal trade, and [from] reorienting itself towards the West because it can’t afford to deal on these terms anymore.
So, yes, it’s going to be painful. But I think the Russian people, who get a very different report of the war and the violence and terrorism that’s going on than the American press [gives], the Russians seem to be 80% behind Putin. It’s not like it was in the 90s when they were utterly demoralized.
The military fighting is not going to end this year or next year. It’s going to take at least 30 years. And it will end probably with a split between Europe and the West on the one hand and Eurasia on the other hand, with more and more of Africa and South America linking itself to the Eurasian economy as Europe and the American economies shrink.
Almost everyone sees shrinkage. I think President Xi of China said the other day, he sees that the American economy is shrinking, and certainly the European economy is shrinking, for a decade or as long as it continues the neoliberal course. And I think that’s pretty obvious—it’s going to shrink. And Xi also said that’s because a centrally planned economy, which they call socialism or Marxism with Chinese characteristics, is more efficient than democracy, because democracy really turns into oligarchy very quickly, and the oligarchy turns into a hereditary aristocracy.
And the West is not a democracy anymore. The West is turning into a hereditary aristocracy. And the Chinese are trying to prevent the financial class from becoming an independent class, pursuing policies that impoverish labor, because for them banking and credit is still a public utility. That’s the most important sector to be [saved] in China, and that’s what makes China so different from the United States. You could say that bankers and Wall Street are the central planners of the US, and their central planning is in favor of the finance, insurance, and real estate sector, and bankers are in charge of China through the Treasury, which is run by party officials that are not seeking to make capital gains for wealthy families but are using finance to build up their industry and infrastructure and make themselves independent of the West, so that America can never do to China what it did to Russia.
AARON MATÉ: And if you were to predict the first places where we’re going to see a major fallout, major unrest as a result of higher commodity prices due to this war on Ukraine, where will it be?
MICHAEL HUDSON: I would say Latin America, Africa, third-world countries that have not followed World Bank policy for the last 70 years and not produced their own food, but produce the export crops, so they’re dependent on importing food, primarily American grain and importing American energy. And probably the central economic game of the NATO war against Russia was to reconcentrate control of the world energy trade in the hands of American, English, and Dutch oil companies.
So, basically the oil companies and the US are going to let the third-world countries go into a crisis. If they default on their bonds, then the United States and the bondholders get to treat Latin America like they treated Argentina or Venezuela and grab whatever assets they have outside of their country. Like Venezuela had investments in the United States and gold that it left in the Bank of England that were grabbed.
There’s going to be a huge asset grab. That is supposed to be how this unfolds, and the most obvious assets to the grabbed are going to be in Latin America and Africa. Maybe some Asian deficit countries. So, this is the weakest link, and that’s why there’s this fight within the IMF at the upcoming meetings, to create these special drawing rights to give them money on the condition that there is a class war.
So, what we’re seeing, really, isn’t a war between NATO and Russia. It’s a class war of the neoliberals against labor across the world to establish the power of finance over labor.
AARON MATÉ: And so, do you think that there’s a threat of an even worse hunger crisis in this world, one that we’re not talking about and should be preparing for it?
MICHAEL HUDSON: A threat? That’s the objective! Yes, of course. That’s what they’re aiming at. If you read what Klaus Schwab says at the World Economic Forum, he said there are 20 percent too many people in the world, especially in the Global South. This is what all the big foundations are for. The billionaires, they all say, ‘We’ve got to thin out the population, there’s too many consumers that don’t produce enough wealth for us.’ If they produce wealth for themselves, that doesn’t count because that’s not for us and we don’t get it. So, yes, that’s not going to be an accident. Obviously, anyone who looks at the basic economic trends can see that this is inevitable—and you have to assume that this was discussed as part of the whole big neoliberal plan of the Biden administration and the Deep State behind it.
KATIE HALPER: How different is this from what we saw with Trump, how continuous, or how much of an aberration do we have between the different administrations?
MICHAEL HUDSON: It’s pretty much the same. The same groups are still in control. Trump was going to appoint that general who was going to basically clean out the State Department and the CIA, but his son-in-law convinced them not to appoint this person. And Trump didn’t have anyone in his administration able to close down this whole neocon group there. So, basically, he let them destroy, essentially. They just ignored what he did. He wanted to withdraw troops from Syria and the Army just refused to withdraw the troops. Nobody followed his orders. So, he was an aberration politically, but the presidency of the US these days is pretty much a figurehead for the Deep State behind it. So, I don’t think there’s that much difference. The Republicans are as much behind this plan as the Democrats.
AARON MATÉ: Let me ask you about the economic toll on Ukraine from this conflict, and not just from Russia’s invasion, but the last eight years since the US-backed coup. And maybe we can start with what happened in the fall of 2013, because the conventional story that we get told a lot in the US is that basically this whole crisis began when Ukraine was in talks with the EU under Yanukovych, the ousted president. And Yanukovych was going to sign this agreement with the EU and that’s what most Ukrainians wanted. It would have brought liberty to Ukraine, and then Russia basically sabotaged it and ordered him not to. And that’s when Ukrainians came out to protest…
KATIE HALPER: This is not…you’re not saying this, Aaron, right? You’re saying this is the mainstream narrative that we’ve been fed.
AARON MATÉ: Yes, this is the mainstream narrative that we’ve been fed. And so that’s when Ukrainians came out to protest with the Maidan revolution, as it’s called, and that’s what led to the coup in February of 2014 that ousted Yanukovych.
Can you talk about what that narrative gets wrong, especially the actual terms of the agreements that Yanukovych was being asked to sign by the EU and what that would’ve meant for Ukraine?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, Russia couldn’t really tell Yanukovych what to do. Yanukovych was always independent. Russia offered a better deal, and Yanukovych said the deal that the EU was offering would make it much poorer than the continuation of the relationships that it had with Russia, which, after all, were its traditional relationships. So, Yanukovych didn’t sign the EU deals. And at that point, it wasn’t the Ukrainians that protested. It was a neo-Nazi group that was positioned in…that set itself up with snipers all around Maidan square, and it was the Nazi group that began firing on the policemen to make it appear as if it were the government, and to fire on the general crowd. So, basically, the coup was sponsored by the United States who put in the officials that were designated by Ms. Nuland, and the Ukrainians had hoped that somehow joining the EU would make them prosperous. Well, that’s the myth that Europe had, that if it would only take US advice, it would end up as prosperous with as many consumer goods as the United States. And it was all a myth.
But when Yanukovych’s board looked at it, they said, ‘Well, we’re not going to make money this way, basically.’ And the kleptocrats who were running Ukraine at that time…the Ukrainians weren’t running Ukraine. It was considered by the World Bank, every agency, to be the most corrupt country in Europe, and the kleptocrats thought, ‘Wait a minute. If we sign that then the Europeans are going to take over our property and they’re going to want to buy us out, and we’re going to end up with some yachts and some real estate in England like the Russians. But it’s really going to be a giveaway.’ So, they were certainly behind Yanukovych, saying, ‘This is not a good deal with this.’
That’s when the US decided that it needed a coup, and even at that time it wanted…it realized that it had the idea of long-term fighting against Russia as the first domino to fall in the fight against China. That was already in the discussion already at that time in 2014.
AARON MATÉ: Right. Carl Gershman is the former head of the National Endowment for Democracy. He called Ukraine, quote, “The biggest prize,” and what he saw as a struggle against Russia, he thought that actually bringing Ukraine into the Western orbit would actually lead to regime change even in Russia, and lead to Vladimir Putin’s downfall.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, he was a Trotskyist, a neocon, and a virulent Russia-hater.
KATIE HALPER: An example of that great Trotskyist-to-neocon trajectory that we see so much.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Yeah.
AARON MATÉ: One small point though. I think the protest that happened initially against Yanukovych, I think that was actually a large mass of people. That wasn’t neo-Nazi. I think the neo-Nazi…
MICHAEL HUDSON: Right. But they didn’t do the coup. They weren’t behind the coup.
AARON MATÉ: The coup was definitely the far-right, as they’ve even taken credit for—as they even take credit for, openly.
You mentioned the kleptocrats in Russia. Let me ask you about that. What is the real state of the oligarchy in Russia? We hear in the US constantly about the Russian oligarchs, and they’re sort of blamed for all the world’s ills. What is the actual reality of Russian oligarchs? How has that evolved under Putin? This oligarch class was obviously created under [Boris] Yeltsin with the advice of US technocrats who came in. What is the actual power of the oligarchs in Russia now, and their relationship with Vladimir Putin?
[To hear the rest of the interview, please go to UsefulIdiots.substack.com.]
###
Professor Hudson’s new book is also in publication now and available on Amazon. We will soon publish a book review for the Saker Blog and in my reading so far, I am totally impressed with the quality and clarity.
Michael spells out the real aims behind the Outlaw US Empire’s war to the last Ukrainian, and that’s worth watching. Otherwise for those who’ve been following closely, much is a recap.
Hudson: “The military fighting is not going to end this year or next year. It’s going to take at least 30 years.”
Wow, regime media assure us that Ukraine’s victory is imminent. Will it really take that long to establish Zion 2.0? Perhaps Hudson was referring to the longer-term utter destruction of the Empire of Chaos, Lies, and Hate. Far more likely before then is nuclear annihilation of all life on Earth.
Hudson calls the neocons out ! And they need to be called out !
Dr. hudson left out the lock-down by the Neo-cons to further kill millions along with the starvation plan. The neo-cons are so evil and crazy it is hard to keep up with their insanity. It is puzzling why West Europeans are going along with their own demise. I mean team biden keeps doubling down with CRT, which states all white people are evil.
you indicate you listened yet what you got out of killing millions in the global south basically to keep profits up is a ridiculous tie-in to the pandemic and whining about poor oppressed white people? Hudson gave a very enlightened talk which went way over your head.
No the NWO is trying to kill millions in the South and North America and Europe. The Western Oligarchy has become totally insane and evil.
No shit, Sherlock – the US has been it’s primary tool for the job. Now it’s coming to your own street, and you think it’s Biden. There will be a New World Order, the question is what kind.
Try listen to the video, will you!
Good, it’s time the American people got a taste of what they have let this government dish out for decades, always using the old worn out excuse I voted for the lessor of the two evils as if that somehow made them less guilty of what those they voted in did.
The American people have lost their constitution because they frankly didn’t care and are well on their way to losing the Bill of Rights to go along with it, Rumsfeld laid it out plain terrorism would be good for a hundred years but like Reagan when he bleated that government was the problem when what he really ment was that the government regulations was the problem and the people ignored that too and watched for the next forty years as the 1% tore the country down. So no I don’t have any sympathy for America or its people, for they deserve everything and anything that’s head their way.
I agree with you that when a group of greedy super rich ghouls destroyed, perverted and took control of the US from within, the Americans behaved like sheep indifferent to everything. It happened slowly, but it was hard not to see it. But the Americans were blind and deaf. And yes, you are right, I also do not feel sorry for the Americans, people who behave like weak-willed fools do not deserve the right to have their own country and be called a nation.
John Spangler,
What is the forecast for the U$A population size by 2050? 440 million?
The U$A gdp per capita is 6X that of China. Even if China grows its gdp per capita from 10.5k, the U$A will increase the population numbers to have higher aggregate gdp and be among the top 3. So who is working on reducing the population by millions in the U$A?
There are many narrative fallacies out there, propagated by the globalist to create a perception that they are driving the global agenda. What would happen if the narrative starts propagating that the globalist are losing and their plans failing?
Far over the head of Katie Halper. That’s for sure.
Thierry Meyssan provides better analysis: https://www.voltairenet.org/article215855.html
Thank you. Reading now. One source Meysson did not list, unless I missed it, is this, from EIR in 2003: https://larouchepub.com/pr/site_packages/2003/leo_strauss/3015secret_kingdom_ap_.html
Voltaire.net also omits the key, Martin Heidegger , Leo Strauss’ teacher, and Hitler’s speech writer.
After WWII Karl Jaspers wrote to the Denazification Commission that Heidegger be barred from teaching as a ”mesmerizer” .
Heidegger was Hannah Arendt’s lover. So we have the Frankfurt School, and the Straussian Secret Kingdom both linked to Nazi ‘philosopher’ Heidegger, taught all across the Transatlantic with Arendt’s translations.
There is indeed an Atheistic Priesthood, Nietzsche’s Supermen, actual enemies of humankind – the ultimate racists.
Do not mix Hannah Arendt into this death cult philosophers circle. It is correct that Heidegger had been her lover for a while, but she confronted him later with the observation that his philosophy has been buildt backwards from the death as ultimate point for humans’ life. She took the contrary stance, starting from creation as core of life, and from multipolarity and diverse discourse as core of a creative philosophy. Yes, as burgeoise child of her time, she had common racist attitudes towards Africans, but in its core and approach, her philosophy had been diametral opposed to Heidegger, the manipulative arch-conservative guru teaching disciples in his Todtnau datcha. The counterpart of Strauss’ toxic political philosophy has been the political theology his colleague Carl Schmitt who considered the enmity and war between collectives – nation states – as the ultimate realisation of the human being in his collective, rising to his historic and political potential. For him, liberal humanitarianism as ending in an all-encompassing world state in peace and prosperity, ultimately realising the reign of the antichrist by man placing himself as god, would result in the final destruction of the human political potential constituted by the concepts of friend and foe and the related tensions. In 1933, he joined the NSDAP, got a call at the Berlin University and was appointed State Councillor for Prussia by Hermann Göring. He defended the state of exception as an appropriate moment for stepping outside the rule of law in the public interest to create a “sovereign dictatorship”. After WWII, he continued to be an important reference for conservative intellectuals and rendered a strong influence on the development of the administrative law in the Federal Republic of Germany. No wonder this branch of the German judiciary (controlled by the state ministers of interior) is rubberstamping the departure from the Grundgesetz. They won’t have qualms with supporting martial law in a new war against Russia either.
Strauss and Schmitt – both disciples of Heidegger – corresponded for a long time until Schmitt became a prominent NSDAP figure. They had their disputes, but had been brothers in mind except Strauss being atheist and Schmitt deeply rooted Catholic, the Western heresy branch of sine ecclesiam nullum salus est.
Delusions of an amateur.
You have never read 10 consecutive sentences of any Heidegger’s book, did you?
Also, can you point out which exact Hitler’s speech did Martin Heidegger write? (With the source, thank you. If you find one.)
Hannah Arendt, intellectually speaking, is not worth even a nail of Heidegger.
As for Nietzsche, one of the greatest thinkers of the modern era, I’m waiting for your thorough quotations to support his alleged racism. I’m going to make a laugh till I wait, because it’s going to be a very long wait.
The actual enemies of humankind are ignorance, stupidity, incompetence and intellectual dishonesty.
ad hominem removed .. mod
@Yashuo: An extract from your link to Thierry’s article on “the Straussian” Jewish-American Supremacist band of Con-spirators led by Wolfowitz:
“Straussians, about whom Westerners know little. They are individuals, all Jewish, but by no means representative of either American Jews or of Jewish communities worldwide. They were formed by the German philosopher Leo Strauss, who took refuge in the United States during the rise of Nazism and became a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. He explained to his students that the only way for the Jews not to fall victim to a new genocide was to form their own dictatorship. He taught them “discretion” and praised the “noble lie”.
The Straussians began forming a political group in 1972. They were all members of Democratic Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson’s staff, including Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. They worked closely with a group of Trotskyite journalists, also Jewish. Both groups were closely linked to the CIA, but also, thanks to Perle’s father-in-law (a military strategist), to the Rand Corporation (the think tank of the military-industrial complex). Together they drafted and passed the Jackson-Vanik Amendment (1974), which forced the Soviet Union to allow the emigration of its Jewish population to Israel under pain of economic sanctions. This was their founding act.
In 1976, Paul Wolfowitz was charged by President Gerald Ford with assessing the Soviet threat . He issued a delirious report over “global hegemony”: it was no longer a question of containment, Soviet Russia had to be stopped in order to save the “free world”.
The Straussians were supposed to be on “the left”, but served the right-wing president Ronald Reagan. What is important to them is power, whatever the ideology. Elliott Abrams led an operation in Guatemala where he put a dictator in power and experimented with Israeli Mossad officers to create reserves for Mayan Indians and eventually do the same thing for Palestinian Arabs. Elliott Abrams continued in El Salvador and finally in Nicaragua against the Sandinistas with the Iran-Contra affair. New York intellectuals, now called “Neoconservatives”, created the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Institute of Peace, a mechanism that organized many colored revolutions, starting in China with the attempted coup d’etat and subsequent repression in Tiananmen Square…. “
I found it nearly impossible to continue Thierry Meyssan’s article after reading this:
“… NATO is not a confederation of equals, but a hierarchical federation under Anglo-Saxon command…”
“President Putin’s speech was … directed … against “those who aspire to world domination”, i.e. against the “Straussians” in the US power structure.”
True, but the people who influence the direction are overwhelmingly not Anglo-Saxon. (This is not to exonerate Anglo-Saxon perfidy.) More:
“They are individuals, all Jewish, but by no means representative of either American Jews or of Jewish communities worldwide.”
Why don’t “American Jews” and “Jewish communities worldwide” clean house?
“They were formed by the German(?) [Jewish] philosopher Leo Strauss, who took refuge in the United States during the rise of Nazism and became a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago.”
No mention of Alexandre Kojève, who enabled the Strauss move to America? He mentions Benjamin Netanyahu, Bernard Lewis, and Ihor Kolomoysky, who are a very small sampling of International Neocon thinkers. (They are historically international, no matter what name they may take in a place or for the moment.)
The antecedents of International Neocons have attached themselves to the powerful like parasites through the ages, and America’s turn festered in the early 20th century when its own strain first spawned itself.
Dual citizens or outright foreigners to America, their loyalty is to none but themselves and their tribe, as they attempt to dominate the world.
We resist.
Who’s War is this? Just this week London made it very clear and who actually runs NATO.
The return of geopolitics: Foreign Secretary’s Mansion House speech at the Lord Mayor’s 2022 Easter Banquet
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/foreign-secretarys-mansion-house-speech-at-the-lord-mayors-easter-banquet-the-return-of-geopolitics
Building the Network of Liberty: Foreign Secretary’s speech
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/foreign-secretary-liz-truss-building-the-network-of-liberty
These speeches by Liz Truss who actually blurted out the truth to Lavrov – the UK does not actually recognize any sovereignt whatsoever.
Instead of barking up the wrong tree, Global Britain is now in your face.
Liz Truss:
“our scientists are saving the world through their miracle vaccines; and we’re vaccinating the British population in record time.
Yet this progress shouldn’t blind us to the pitfalls.
Hostile forces are using disinformation to undermine truth.”
their miracle vaccines????
Thank you for posting this, and for all good intentions at The Saker.
“Why don’t “American Jews” and “Jewish communities worldwide” clean house?”
With any cult of the persecuted that eventually finds success & dominance ….
how does it learn to deal with freedom from the former position of weakness?
The answer always seems to be either:
1) not easily, nor soon, or
2) it doesn’t; (it just triggers a valid backlash & returns to the familiar persecution)
Is anyone smart enough to rise above this pattern?
Once you see it repeated enough times, it becomes boringly familiar.
They are fairly integrated in the US power structure so Anglo-Saxon enough.. US is a structural copy of Britain: strong central bank in political control supported by powerful intelligence service (BoE – Mi6 –> Fed – CIA). Jews were always central in the banking elite. They have even more power in US.
Interesting. Juba the Sniper, Israeli of Maidan fame, gets a pass from Hudson as he blames low IQ Azov-type idiots and CIA/MI6 operators only for initiating the Ukraine crisis. He ignores the international character and agenda of the neocon plague, first brought to America by Leo Strauss, coincidentally as the Frankfurt School was being established.
I’m confident Prof. Hudson, like the rest of us here remembers the Victoria Nudelman , F*** the EU; No we want our stooge Yatsenyuk as PM (2014) and We’ve forked out $5 Billion, let’s get this party started, it’s getting hot in hear, so take off all . . . . . . malarkey . . . . . . and some.
Might not know where the bodies are buried but definitely who got them there.
I am not sure of the veracity of this or about the translation, but it was written in 2015 an just about predicted everything we are seeing today, and it sounds exactly like Prof. Michael Hudson:
A Chinese general sees a ruthless America striving to contain his nation’s growth
Now, It Is Time to Harvest China
If we acknowledge that there is a U.S. dollar index cycle and the Americans use this cycle to harvest from other countries, then we can conclude that it was time for the Americans to harvest China. Why? Because China had obtained the largest amount of investment from the world. The size of China’s economy was no longer the size of a single county; it was even bigger than the whole of Latin America and about the same size as East Asia’s economy.
Unfortunately, this time the American’s opponent was China. China used “Tai chi” movements to cool down each crisis.
The Americans realized that it was hard for them to harvest China, so they looked for an alternative.
Where else did they target? Ukraine, the connection between the EU and Russia. Of course there were some problems under Ukraine President Yanukovych’s administration, but the reason that the Americans picked it was not simply because of his problem. They had three goals: teach a lesson to Yanukovych who didn’t listen to the U.S., prevent the EU from getting too close to Russia, and create a bad investment environment in Europe.
Why did the Americans do this? People tend to analyze it from the geo-political angle, but rarely the capital angle. After the Ukraine crisis, statistics showed over US$1 trillion in capital left Europe. The U.S. got what it wanted: if it couldn’t get dollars out of China, it would get dollars out of Europe.
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2015/10/21/qiao-liang-sees-china-vs-america-90041/
It looks like in addition to the EU the US plans to harvest the Global South as well, with the food crisis.
———–
I think the speech is essentially correct. The blogger’s (fabius’) analysis is below it and I feel he may need to correct it. (lol)
China and Russia were both on to the US’ game plan a long time ago. IMHO
“A Chinese general sees a ruthless America striving to contain his nation’s growth…”
Most Americans would have nothing to do with such a thing, generally not being ruthless types. Neocon media control and the near absolute stranglehold which International Neocon’s have on American governance is to blame.
May Hell on Earth be visited upon them!
Good interview and compliments to Katie and Aaron.
It surprises me that as far as I know there is actually no one out there who has observed that what Michael Hudson describes as Mrs. Yellen’s recipe for maintaining US hegemony is a very ancient IMF practice. Notably, it has been used since the 1960s at the expense of Latin American nations. The body of literature analysing this is very extensive, usually known as “Dependency Theory.”
Essentially, methinks it works like this: while loudly announcing you are allowing economic development to proceed independently, in actual fact you are conditioning it to go in the direction you wish by wielding a big stick. Nothing new really. You could also call it simply “imperialism.”
As for Hudson’s acute observation that is the Social Democrats in Europe that are now the “right,” this and other phenomena are explained in my recent book “How Europe Became American” (London: Arktos, 2021)
It seems to me that Hudson and Pepe Escobar diverge significantly in their takes on how the current crisis affectst the Global South.
Until I listened to this presentation by Hudson it looked to me like the division of teh globe into two spheres was going to end up with the Global South in the Eurasian sphere, happily trading with Russia and China. This is the basic picture that Escobar presents.
But Hudson has a far worse prognosis for the Global South: Squeezed even harder and under more leverage by the USA and the IMF—less free, not more free.
Since Hudson is an economist I reckon he sees a bigger picture than Escobar.
But I would love to read or hear some discussion of which of these pictures is more likely.
Hudson is describing what The Outlaw US empire MO, but this time I don’t think it’s coming home to roost, to those who choose Oceania.
makes sense – if ( for example) the Shanghai Cooperation has the capacity to provide support to the Global South to keep them out of Empire’s stranglehold.
One of the very important distinctions that is often missed is how the liberal left are now called the left which was never the case.
The left hate the liberal left with As much passion as the right does. This is very important.
The “left” came together with the “right” to take on the liberal left and liberal right to win the Brexit vote for example.
The “left” came together with the “right” to take on the liberal left and liberal right on the vaccine mandates.
Why is this so important ?
The liberals are utter poison. By using the political strategy of triangulation no matter what the liberal left do the ” left” get the blame. As voters are house trained like little puppy dogs to not recognise the difference.
This is a useful strategy for the neo cons to always get the electoral outcome they desire. To the point that anybody from the left is now labelled a socialist or communist. Anybody from the right who challenged the laminated script now get called the ” far” right. This pushes voters to the centre were they are manipulated. The recent French election being a great example how it works.
It is also important when it comes to populism because the “left” voices are never heard. It is always the liberal left position. Because so many voters are repulsed by the liberal messaging both left and right wing voters run into the arms of the further right political parties.
This is because that further right-wing forces have been much more effective than left-wing or progressive forces at tapping into the legitimate grievances of the masses disenfranchised, marginalised, impoverished, and dispossessed by the 40-year-long neoliberal class war waged from above. In particular, they are the only forces that have been able to provide a (more or less) coherent response to the widespread – and growing – yearning for greater territorial or national sovereignty, increasingly seen as the only way to regain some degree of collective control over politics and society, in the absence of effective supranational mechanisms of representation. Given neoliberalism’s war against sovereignty, it should come as no surprise that ‘sovereignty has become the master-frame of contemporary politics.
Populism is not what it seems when voters end up in the hands of those considered further right on the right wing spectrum. As those further right are just different type of neo con who would still like to see the demise of both Russia and China.
What is desperately needed is a A Progressive Vision Of National Sovereignty. The one Lavrov talks about as explained in detail here.
https://socialeurope.eu/needed-progressive-vision-national-sovereignty
The left need to find their voice again and Unite with the right more often. Before the liberal left triangulate them into extinction.
admission: I can’t keep up; please define your terms
Definitions, Examples, Differentiation between
Left?
Liberal?
Liberal left?
Liberal Right?
Right?
And placement in one or more continuums, i.e., what’s next to what?
You mean, as in “which is next to Nazis and which is next to humans”?
Correct me if I’m wrong but I’ll try to define them. I’m on the left but as the poster said and I can’t stand liberals.
Left? Socialists, marxists etc… concerned with economics
Liberal? Progressives, concerned with social policies, status quo on economics. Can also be neoliberal in the international sense.
Liberal left? Progressives with some economic concerns.
Liberal Right? Capitalists with some social concerns. Compassionate consevative, etc
Right? Fascists, etc…
Every country is different and I am from the UK.
Left would be Jeremy Corbyn
centre left would be Kier Starmer
centre right would be Boris Johnson
right would be Nigel Farage.
Then you have far left and far right.
Centre left and centre right are just fancy terms for liberals of the neoliberal persuasion. The centre left just act like the centre right. You can’t tell the difference.
Who infiltrated the left and right wing parties because the liberals never have a chance of winning anything.
The reason the EU set up their parliaments as proportional representation is because it is very difficult to get a majority and easily manipulated. Compared to the first passed the post system.
Billy, I think this is basically correct.
The huge degradation of the terms left and right has created a perfect space for manipulating people and elections.
There is a reactionary and a progressive nationalism/sovereignty.
There is a reactionary and a progressive populism.
Successfully labeling all nationalism as violent right-wing racist thuggery has been a major accomplishment of those who aim to control the political debate and control the levers of power.
BTW, it occurred to me this a.m. to wonder whether one reason that Biden et al. promote free entry into the USA might not be because DC fears secession movements, especially maybe in Texas . . .
To restate:
Is it possible that one reason Biden and co. encourage free migrant entry is because they think the presence of these additional new people might act as a DETERRENT to secession movements, such as in Texas?
That is, as a kind of dilution and weakener of home-grown secession thoughts?
Wrong. When the Kennedys in the 1960s supported “privacy” as a wedge to get abortion legal in the US, they foresaw that liberals would have far more abortions than conservatives. Where would the liberals come from? From failed states in Central and South America as illegal immigrants or as I call them, Crimmigrants (criminal immigrants). The US is waking up to the crime and deception, and states have begun to use their powers as co equals. While the second amendment will play a key role in this fight, a capture of the house and senate by non-RINO republicans, and a judicial system fed up with executive overreach, will be an excellent start.
watching and listening to hudsen and matte is always worthwhile but i caution those who support halper that not only is she pro vaccine mandate but is totally onboard with censorship and censoring anyone who questions that narritive.
They’ve got the rest of the interview paywalled. There’s a lot more to it, a total of 84 minutes run-time. How very chickens*it of Halper.
Fallout from her “Commie Camp” indoctrination?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Halper
We will get the full transcript.
Anyway, it is not Halper that is important here. It is Michael Hudson.
Can you please control your urge to attack someone that is not really important, and take in what Hudson says? Or wait for the transcript.
Understood. However, so often ‘the devil is in the details’ that I cannot let them slide. I am too old a dog to unlearn experience gained through many decades. Her background, with Hudson being on her show, is of critical importance for a complete understanding of the influences affecting our world.
If I go ‘too far’ continue to block, as you have, and I will adjust or refrain.
All I understand is that she is a different topic altogether.
And what I also understand is that with the disappearance of Russian news to the West, all hands are on deck. That is Michael, Pepe is doing interview after interview, and others are doing interviews and writing and really we’re doing the comms in this roughly east/west divide. So I am thankful for all of us (and we do consider ourselves as the comms brigade or something like that – I just made that up – it is nothing formal), putting out information as best and as fast as we can.
Taking it a bit wider, see how our Saker translators are just pouring out translation after translation. It is a dead serious task that some of us took on. So, I have not much time or energy to worry about the specific platform, as long as we get our platform.
Different perspectives here.
Hello Amarynth. First of all my sincere thanks for the hard work you put into this. Secondly, I’m not putting this up for publication on this thread; I really just wanted to touch base with you. It is indeed about Michael Hudson for me too. And that’s why its being a truncated interview was so disturbing to me.
Here is what I wrote to Professor Hudson—and his response in The Unz Review re: the same article/interview:
David from Alaska says:
May 3, 2022 at 9:30 pm GMT • 200 Words
I don’t know if you monitor this yourself Professor Hudson, but I thought it a rather lowbrow act by Katie Halper to hide the rest of your interview behind a paywall while leaving much other content up and available.
It appears to be an action of using your gravitas and credibility—I am always “all ears” whenever your take on world matters is being discussed—for Halper’s personal profit. If I wanted to get my news from Halper on a regular basis, if I found her presentation consistently amenable to my values, well, I’d have long-since signed up.
As it is, I DO fund many other indy journalists including Aaron Maté her co-host, and Max Blumenthal, Matt Taibbi (her former co-host) among another dozen or so across the political/cultural spectrum.
I just wanted to document my disappointment in feeling I was being extorted to “take it or leave it” with a compulsory subscription when it came to missing out on what else you had to say.
Michael Hudson says:
May 3, 2022 at 11:02 pm GMT • 100 Words
Well, to answer David, I didn’t realize that some part would be hidden, or that I would not get a transcript of the whole interview.
I have done interviews with Aaron Mate for years (on other sites), so the “new” rules were indeed new to me.
But this part of the interview has my overall analysis. The rest was largely chit-chat.
I was wondering about the abrupt cutoff of the interview.
Halper is a jab nut? Oy vey!
Aaron Mate is very good on his own as an interviewer.
Try comparing Mate to Pepe Escobar – a true heavy-hitter as a world journalist. As for Ms. Halper……she’s worthless.
Thank you, The Saker, for having on Dr. Michael Hudson.
It’s unfortunate the questions he was asked didn’t include the following:
“How do you explain that the EU remains a solidified block against Russia if you onsider this:
Germany and Italy are still receiving gas/oil from Russia, while Hungary is buying Russian energy from a “black-flow” effort from Germany? Moreover, Austria is purchasing Russian energy using the Ruble conversion via Euros?”
It’s those kinds of questions that should have been asked, but were not by these interviewers.
This calls into question the depth of their understandings.
What is also interesting to note is that Janet Yellen has urged the Europeans NOT to stop their imports of Russian energy supplies.
As a result, what the EU leadership is doing now totally on their own.
In addition, countries such as Poland who believe they will be able to purchase Russian energy supplies by going through third-party EU suppliers are about to find out that Russia will not increase their exports to allow them to do so.
As a result, these nations are “f**ked”, literally if they maintain this stance.
The US plans always are pipe-dreams that have no way of ever succeeding and will only bankrupt the US completely…
The UK tabloid Daily Mail has just announced that President Putin will have cancer operation and will be temporarily replaced by an ex-KGB hardliner.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10770541/Putin-cancer-operation-near-future-hand-power-hardline-ex-KGB-chief.html
Other online newstalk about thyroid cancer and Parkinson’s disease.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/world/is-putin-sick-and-why-is-russian-presidents-health-in-question-3598823
https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/vladimir-putin-plagued-by-thyroid-cancer-rumours-is-constantly-accompanied-by-doctors/news-story/8467545896de2d05d0e32254866262b5
It seems that the UK wants desperately to get rid of him.
Oh, no!
Something like this has been my nightmare for a while.
A health crisis for President Putin.
I’m sure I am not alone in this.
He seemed to look a bit puffy.
I wonder if that is the thyroid problem.
He has to have been under enormous stress for years now.
Please let his treatment be successful.
Let’s await more reliable news on this topic before we reach any conclusion. UK news sources on the Ukraine SMO are a joke. Further discussion on this subject will only be allowed if there are hard facts. Mod
Taffy, are you really believing the UK Tabloids?
I give up. Who is this person who posted this crap anyways?
anything in the UK press has no basis in reality. stopped reading the lot 2 days after SMO started its just disinfo and distraction, trying to sow discord in Russia, their reporting on SMO is as delusional as the Ukraines. UK iscdespetate, Johnson is desperate and Truss is desperately trying to position herself as leadership material. UK is in collapse mode, economy is finished so non of this will play out well for them.
A very interesting report on the economy with good statistics on Ukrainian resources:
Back in 2017, a certain Alexander Kayukov wrote an interesting note about the essence of the concept of “GDP at PPP” and what the service sector has to do with it.
There will be many letters, but if you master this note, then you will understand why the Anglo-Saxons will now lose and why the holiday of the worker and peasant is so important, and not the holidays of the banker and office manager.
So, everyone is very fond of comparing different countries with each other, in search of the best or the strongest. This is what mankind has been doing for a long time. Since the days of Adam Smith, the question has been how to value national wealth. Most often, countries are compared by GDP. But in most cases, already at this stage, they make a mistake, since they take GDP at a nominal exchange rate, which does not take into account the difference in prices for goods and services in different countries.
To understand that it is impossible to compare countries by nominal GDP, it is worth giving the following example. The cost of paying for water supply in Russia is quite low, and certainly lower than in Saudi Arabia. Thus, despite the fact that in terms of the volume of this very water supply, Russia is obviously significantly ahead of Saudi Arabia, due to the difference in prices, in the structure of GDP at the exchange rate, the difference will not be so significant. I do not know the exact figures, but I do not rule out that there will be even more in Saudi Arabia. Naturally in terms of dollars at the current exchange rate. With clear differences in water availability and consumption, this is absurd. Thus, nominal GDP at the exchange rate is an incorrect indicator.
It is necessary to use GDP at purchasing power parity (GDP at PPP), which levels out the difference in prices. Its essence boils down to the fact that the prices of all goods and services are equated to the prices of similar goods and services in the United States. However, it is not entirely accurate, although it is closer to the real picture.
However, it is not worth taking this indicator in its pure form. The fact is that many quite rightly assume that it is worth excluding the service sector, in which most of the profit is now concentrated. It is worth noting that in economics itself, the service sector belongs to the “tertiary sector”. The economy itself is divided into three sectors, and the service sector belongs to the latter. And what people tend to call the “real sector” is included exclusively in the first two. The “primary sector” is agriculture. The “secondary sector” is industry, which is subdivided into mining, manufacturing, power generation and construction. In other words, the first two sectors include everything without which the economy is impossible. Of course, if we are not talking about a tiny state that lives on tourism, where all goods are imported, and the GDP is formed by retail sales as well as the tourism sector. However, the stability of such economies is extremely low, and a slight breath of financial wind is enough to change the exchange rate so that such an economy turns into ashes.
The service sector should also be excluded for the reason that no serious economist will ever argue that it is possible to build a strong economy without food and production bases. The service sector is a superstructure that speeds up the process of delivery and sale of goods. It is also worth excluding it because it is extremely prone to bloat. For example, if doctors in a country receive high salaries, then this will be reflected in the structure of GDP in the form of a growing share of medical care. However, this does not reflect the fact that simply profits from the real sector flow into medicine, due to the high cost of medical services. This can be expressed both in cost, if medicine is paid, and in the form of taxes, if it is state-owned. In other words, the service sector tritely withdraws profits from the real sector, namely through salaries, since in it, most of the costs fall on them. But the trouble is that if in the two main sectors of the economy it is quite easy to calculate the costs and cost of production, then in the service sector it is no longer so simple, since the question arises of the adequacy of existing salaries.
Thus, it is worth comparing countries in terms of GDP at PPP, minus the share of the service sector. But even such a method, the maximum will give only the result closest to reality. Since PPP estimates all prices in the economy as a whole, it is difficult to isolate precisely the differences in prices in the “primary” and “secondary” sectors from it. However, this is the most accurate indicator.
Before proceeding to the comparison, it is worth making a couple of reservations.
The fact is that in many developing countries, despite the huge GDP, the share of agriculture is very large, and in comparison, it will greatly exceed that in Europe or the United States. The fact is that in developed countries, agriculture is subsidized, which greatly reduces its contribution to the structure of GDP, as this affects prices. But in developing countries, even if there is subsidization of agriculture, it is extremely small, which affects prices, despite the cost of labor costs. Likewise, many developing countries (such as China and India) still have a huge proportion of the rural population that lives off small allotments.
The second point is that no matter how many people would like to, but we cannot exclude the extraction of minerals from the structure of industrial production. The fact is that without a resource base, there will be no industry at all. And no matter how powerful the manufacturing industry is, if access to raw materials is lost, it dies very quickly. This is clearly seen in the Second World War, in the actions of Germany and Japan, which, having a powerful industry, in the first place, sought to seize the raw material base. Now, according to most historians, even if the United States had not entered the war, Germany would have lost it. And this becomes apparent by the end of 1942. Germany was unable to quickly capture the USSR and break through to the sources of raw materials. The USSR was able to move the production base behind the front line. A positional war of attrition began, which Germany could not win due to a lack of resources. So the result would still be the same, it would just end not in 1945, but, for example, at the end of 1946.
I want to digress and answer in advance the question of why countries with large reserves of resources export them, and do not produce products at home. This is a very large and complex topic, and there are reasons for this. And I intend to analyze this issue in the future, but for now I take the data of the World Bank as a basis, the link to which I provide here.
All countries will be placed in descending order, and the shares of agriculture and industry (in that order) in the structure of GDP will be separately indicated in brackets. All figures are in billions of dollars. And we will consider only those countries whose GDP at PPP exceeds 1 trillion. dollars.
1. China – 10,365.9 (8.6% and 39.8%)
2. India – 4,020.7 (17.4% and 28.8%)
3. USA – 3,918.1 (1.1% and 20.0%)
4. Indonesia – 1,600.9 (13.5% and 39.3%)
5. Japan – 1,551.9 (1.1% and 28.9%)
6. Russia – 1,260.4 (4.7% and 32.4%)
7. Germany – 1,252.8 (0.6% and 30.5%)
8. Brazil – 838.7 (5.5% and 21.2%)
9. Mexico – 831.5 (3.8% and 32.7%)
10. Saudi Arabia – 808.1 (2.7% and 43.3%)
11. Turkey – 757.6 (6.9% and 32.4%)
12. South Korea – 747.5 (2.2% and 38.6%)
13. France – 579.8 (1.5% and 19.4%)
14. United Kingdom – 553.8 (0.6% and 19.2%)
15. Thailand – 513.7 (8.3% and 35.8%)
16. Canada – 488.8 (1.8% and 28.8%)
17. Iran – 477.5 (10.8% and 24.5%)
18. Egypt – 477.2 (11.9% and 32.9%)
19. Pakistan – 450.3 (25.2% and 19.2%)
20. Spain – 436.8 (2.6% and 23.3%)
21. Nigeria – 433.2 (21.2% and 18.5%)
22. Australia – 303.7 (2.6% and 24.3%)
This list does not reflect the level of wealth in any way, since it does not take into account the population in each of the countries. It does not even strongly reflect the degree of stability of a single economy, since it does not take into account the availability of resources. But it reflects the real influence of certain countries in the world, and it is clearly seen how weak the positions of the so-called West are. However, it will take a long time for developing countries to convert their real economic power into political and military power. Likewise, if many of the developing countries fail to modernize their agriculture, or provide it with their own engineering products, they will remain impoverished and primitive.
In order to remove in advance all the talk that Russia has only oil and gas, and all this does not matter, I inform you that the share of the entire commodity sector in the structure of GDP is 10.3%. It turns out that without it, the industry gives 22.1% of GDP, which is more than in some of the above countries, even taking into account the raw materials sector.
Remember, we once wrote that Ukraine is a fat prize worth fighting for, and if you choose it entirely, then the standard of living in the Russian Federation will definitely increase.
So, there are such figures, some of which we ourselves checked, they are definitely true, we think that the rest of the figures are also true.
So rate:
Ukraine can meet the food needs of 600 million people.
Ukraine occupies:
1st place in Europe in terms of explored recoverable reserves of uranium ores;
2nd place in Europe, 10th place in the world in terms of titanium ore reserves;
2nd place in the world in terms of explored reserves of manganese ores (2.3 billion tons or 12% of world reserves);
2nd place in the world in terms of iron ore reserves (30 billion tons);
2nd place in Europe in terms of reserves of mercury ores;
3rd place in Europe (13th in the world) in terms of shale gas reserves (22 trillion cubic meters)
4th place in the world (!!!) in terms of the total cost of natural resources per capita;
7th place in the world in terms of coal reserves (33.9 billion tons)
In the agricultural sector of Ukraine it is:
1st place in Europe in terms of arable land;
3rd place in the world in terms of black soil area (25% of the world volume);
1st place in the world in the export of sunflower and sunflower oil;
2nd place in the world in production and 4th place in the export of barley;
3rd place in the world in production and 4th place in the export of corn;
4th place in the world in terms of the volume of potatoes grown;
5th place in the world in rye production;
5th place in the world in beekeeping production (75 thousand tons);
8th place in the world in wheat export;
9th place in the world in the production of chicken eggs;
16th largest cheese exporter in the world
Ukraine in world industrial production:
1st place in Europe in ammonia production;
2nd place in Europe and 4th in the world in terms of the capacity of the gas transmission system (outgoing throughput capacity of the gas transmission system with the EU countries – 142.5 billion cubic meters of gas);
3rd place in Europe and 8th in the world in terms of installed capacity of nuclear power plants;
3rd place in Europe and 11th in the world in terms of the length of the railway network (21.7 thousand kilometers);
3rd place in the world (after the USA and France) in the production of locators and location equipment;
3rd place in the world in the export of pig iron
4th place in the world in the export of turbines for nuclear power plants;
4th place in the world in the market for the construction of launch vehicles and their commercial
use for launching payloads into orbit;
4th place in the world in the export of clays
4th place in the world in titanium export
8th place in the world in terms of export of ores and concentrates;
9th place in the world in terms of exports of military-industrial complex products;
10th place in the world in terms of steel production (32.4 million tons).
It is these figures that should be shown to liberda and students in the Russian Federation, and not any crap from morning stars.
And to be honest, we can already directly state that in addition to the destruction of the Nazis in Ukraine, there is a secondary goal – the return of the rebellious province to the Russian Federation. And all this garbage about “Ukrainian statehood” should be left to the liberals, let them rush about with it.
And on TV we thought so, let them broadcast what they want. Apparently they put up a smoke screen, because. real plans normal people do not tell on TV. But in universities and in the kitchens, plans should be heard specifically for the return of Ukraine, and not toothless garbage about “dear Kyiv partners” or whatever they are officially called there.
It is interesting to note how many of the Jews who emigrated to the USA before WW1 and were (and still are, somewhat sentimentally) described as “Russian Jews” came from the Ukraine.
(E.g., “So-and-so, grandson of Russian Jews who came to the USA to escape pogroms in Russia . . .” )
So, obviously, the Ukraine was viewed as part of Russia.
Now quite a few US Jews are suddenly pinpointing that their family came from some village in the Ukraine.
Very interesting.
How do reports that Monsanto has bought up a lot of Ukrainian agric. land fit in to this analysis?
@Taffy.
Monsanto shows how important are the natural resources in Ukraine for the continued expansion of Anglo Zio Capitalism; much more important than the oil and water in Syria are to the AZC. I expect the AZC’s armed wing, NATZO, will put up more a stiff fight to keep control of all those natural resources which Boris has listed. At present NATZO is scared and playing an arms-length role, with the Ukronazies as proxy; same way NATZO is scared in Syria and playing an arms-length role with ISIS as proxy. But I think Hudson is right: the economic stakes in Ukraine involve issues larger than a Special Operation.
“Alia iacta sunt” (the chips are down) — Julius Caesar.
@Boris. Re: “these figures that should be shown to liberda and students in the Russian Federation”.
A refreshing reminder of the former wealth, both in basic resources and in technology, of Russia’s former western Ukraina; as it used to be until the U$ installed its Nudelman cookie Zionazi regime that has reduced Ukraine to a war torn third world status equivalent to Niger in the Congo.
And a stirring call to return the Ukraina to its former status as one of the most historically important (Kiev), prosperous and advanced territories of Russia.
Didn’t see the whole interview but the issue on which Hudson is among the preeminent economists is debt and particularly debt jubilees, from Babylonian times to now.
Seems plausible the new financial order may well involve a massive debt jubilee (unilaterally declared, in the Global South).
We talk about gold backed currency. How about a grain/ bread based currency. What if you went to India, or Iraq, or Africa and said, “a loaf of bread for ten rubles (or for less I guess – help).” Would they buy? You bet, over the insistence of the USA. Russia should grow as much wheat as it can and feed the world like we should have.
Why wouldn’t this work rather than having 3rd world countries go hungry? Why have the banking system take them over as described by Hudson.
Michael Hudson is one of the few people we have to give real insight as to how the Western financial system works. But then I always see a path where the hegemony continues for many years, and people around the world starving.
I see distress coming to the global South but I do not see the majority bending and breaking and complying with Zion west dicktats. I see all Russian excess food going to help the friendly countries, and the west floundering. This summer will be so hot.
There is no way that USA can keep their control and bullying up until 2030, and I do not fault good Americans for wanting their ignorant country to last.
Years ago, Argentina had to default due to oligarchs raping the country, but still standing.
In America, it is entirely a different matter, with system racial divide, drugs, homelessness, madness, weekly mass shootings and so much more and only military power to project. I have no idea why Americans never comment on their problems at home.
2 years ago America distributed an extra 2 billion bullets to law enforcement agencies. But if a few hypersonic missiles hit your country for the first time; do you believe that your police would stop the millions on the street?
I can hide gold inside an ancient Egyptian pyramid and in three or four thousand years someone can find it and become rich. I can hide wheat inside an ancient Egyptian pyramid and in three or four thousand years someone can find it (maybe) and all they will have is something that won’t grow, can’t be eaten, and won’t be accepted as payment by anyone for anything.
@Roger M: “wheat inside an ancient Egyptian pyramid … in three or four thousand years… it … won’t grow, can’t be eaten”.
Are you sure? I don’t know the answer but I read in a book by the great Hungarian biochemist Szent-Georgi that King Tut’s breakfast wheaties would have been still ready to eat when he woke.
That is totally frightening shit, humanity at its worst, and all for some rich bastards to enjoy there caviar and wine.
resp. interview Harper/Maté/Hudson:
When the USA starts squeezing those indepted countries, China should step in and lend/give them (on fair longterm conditions) the neccessary dollars to pay their dollar-obligations,
a win-win situation for both China and the exposed global south.
Very gloomy perspectives for the Global South. However, crises is opportunity for China and other countries in Zone B to throw off the yoke of Empire and bypass the IMF.
Russia has already formulated plans to counter this global class war by selling food/commodities to friendly countries and other forms of support, military etc.
Someone, help me please!
I tried to buy Prof. Hudson’s new book “Destiny of Civilization” (the one you see at the end of the interview) via Amazon, but I cannot have it sent to Helsinki, Finland and no e-book seems to be available. How can this be? If someone knows how I could buy this book, do let me know!
It’s rather odd that the title of the usefulidiots video is “Sociopath neocons”, when first and foremost it is “Sociopath neolibs” that are pushing this war.
It’s well known fact that inner circle of Deep State is totally elite of English speaking countries, Germans and French are not allowed to there. It’s like in Cosa Nostra where made men were Italians, others even when being good earners were just associates. Ukraine is just ass selling prostitute.
Surprisingly there are people in this blog who are taking seriously numbers of nominal GDP. They seems to understand nothing how much currency fake curse is distorting result. However even GDP-PPP while correcting that currency distorting can’t eliminate things like corporate HQs adding fake value on it. In Ireland estimated 20% or even 25% of GDP-PPP has this corporate money harbor effect. Irish people don’t have 20% higher PPP compared to Britons.
So far I have never seen table of countries with real economy per capita adjusted with PPP. This is likely biggest taboos in western world. Less than decade ago Chinese study estimated that just 5 000 billion dollars of U.S GDP was based on real economy and 13 000 billion was based on fake virtual economy, making money with money. So the real economy share was around 27% of GDP. It’s relatively safe to claim that in UK real economy share is hardly bigger, likely the opposite. In Germany since 1980’s share of real economy has also shrunk fast. There is hardly an old EU country where real economy has even near 50% share of GDP.
But as I said, they don’t like to publish these kind of very important studies. They feed us nominal GDP nonsense.
( real economy, as I do understand consists of primary production, industry, construction and service and logistics necessary supporting them)
China has adopted a blend of capitalism between the state and corporate ownership, but produces its own domestic money supply the yuan free of debt using its government owned central bank to fund infrastructure building, education and healthcare.
Generally speaking China has most likely moved during last 10 years to direction where it someday doesn’t have export much more than 5-10% of what it produce. Chinese business people after seeing European and American markets seem to have growing consensus that west has not much to offer to China, which means that China can offer to itself much more. Nation with far better productivety and higher IQ needs in future actually just necessary vital strategic raw material and energy.
Let’s put it clear. Since retirement of western generation born between1930 to around 1955 their level of science and culture of innovations has started to go down faster and faster. Every old professor of any western university working with maths, physics and chemistry has seen this fast collapse. The latest IQ studies are claiming that western teenagers and students even when coming from academic families have now clearly lower IQ results than their parents had. Fast decline started especially after 1970’s. Since 1990’s process has accelerated. Students do poor with maths, they read not well and write like like little children.
The western cultural decline is hardly any kind of big news. The speed of it is. Amazingly these fools are even proud of their “progress”. No need to wonder why decent self respecting Muslims and Chinese have no reasons to admire those soulless westeners. Let them keep their “freedom”.
Dr. Hudson says that Carl Gershman was a Trotskyist but that is not true. Many of the old neocons started their political careers on the Left including the Kristols, Shatman, Reagan, etc., but ended up completely selling out to the Imperialist right wing as they matured and became more deeply entrenched in the two-party “duopoly”.
The purging of all the “Soros’s errand boys” when Putin took over has prepared Russia well. People always make a mistake about a crumbling nation due to external factors, but it is always from within, as you are experiencing here in the GAE if you are an American. Read John Glubb
While much attention, rightly so, is on the Ukraine/Russia/US/EU issue, back home in the US, William Engdahl is revealing how the US’s Agricultural Corn Monopolists are using 40$ of all corn to produce bio-fuel. (Part of The Great Reset – Schwab.) AS a result….less cornmeal is made for chicken/turkey feed, causing the slaughter of millions of poultry animals.
Net effect: huge price increases in chicken/turkey meat in the US store; huge increases in cereals, potato chips and snack food.
So what we are seeing happening is much higher food costs. Many blame The FED, but in some cases these rising costs are entirely due to our own US Monopolists.
Engdahl:
https://journal-neo.org/2022/04/26/biden-cynically-uses-ukraine-to-cover-food-sabotage/
You talk about putting nukes in Ukraine as this big threat to Russia. Why is this such a threat? The U.S./NATO have missiles that can deliver nuclear bombs to any part of Russia without having to be “next door” in Ukraine (or Poland, or Czechia, or etc. etc..
Holy Christ Michael Hudson is firing on all cylinders in this essay/post today. Holy Cow. What a great mind. and I am only 1/2 way through this. but oh geeze I hope not a 20-30 year war ? I can see what he is saying, the Empire is going to die hard, but I would see them losing all legitimacy to continue on in the next few years here, We just all have to shoulder through the propaganda shroud of MSM the US erects all over the place. I know the American public are dumb, they have to be to believe this nonsense, the American version of history, but, after 6 or 7 recent wars with no good outcome or purpose, na, they have to revolt, 50% live day to day, they voted in trump, too bad he wasn’t more of a real deal.