by Phillyguy for The Saker Blog
Summary
The US emerged from WWII as the world’s preeminent military and economic power. All of the pillars supporting US power are now threatened by decades of neoliberal economic policies, spending vast sums of taxpayer money propping up financial markets, the military and attainment of economic/military parity by the Russia-China-Iran axis. In this essay, I link the continuing economic and social decline in the US/EU (collectively referred to as the ‘west) to an increasingly reckless US foreign policy, the role corporate media serves in promoting these policies to the American/EU public and the rise of Russia, China and other countries in the global south.
Introduction
This is a continuation or my previous article, linking US economic decline and global instability [1]. Briefly, the US emerged from WWII as the world’s leading economic and military power. Since that time, US global power has rested on: 1) unrivaled military and economic power, 2) control of world’s energy reserves (primarily in the Middle East), and 3) maintaining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Following the conclusion of WWII in 1945, the US had the world’s largest economy and was the major ‘growth engine’ for western capitalism for the next 3 decades. In the mid-1970s, this began to change as US corporate profits began to stagnate/decline, a direct consequence of spending large amounts of taxpayer money on wars on the Korean Peninsula (1950-1953) and Vietnam (1955-1975) and increased competition from rebuilt economies in Europe, primarily Germany (Marshall Plan) and Asia- Japan, South Korea (Korean and Vietnam wars) and more recently China. Starting in the early 1980s, the US financial elite began pressuring policy makers to pursue neoliberal economic policies, including multiple tax cuts for the wealthy, financial deregulation, austerity, attacks on the poor and labor and outsourcing manufacturing jobs to Mexico, China and other low-wage platforms. The Soviet Union officially dissolved on Dec 26, 1991. This was viewed by the US ruling elite as the removal of the major rival to US global power and would allow unrestrained actions of the American military to invade and occupy countries which are rich in natural resources and/or occupy geo-strategic locations and expand NATO into Eastern Europe up to the Russian border. Since 1991, US/NATO have been involved in conflicts in Yugoslavia, Persian Gulf/Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine [2].
Role of Corporate Media
First Amendment of the US constitution-
‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’
It is commonly stated that the press (aka the proverbial ‘4th estate’) in the US is ‘free’ and ‘independent’ and ‘essential for the functioning of a free society’, serving as a ‘watchdog’ on government actions and policies and vital to protect the ‘liberty’ of American citizens. As is often the case, things are not always as they seem.
In a recent interview with Brian Berletic, Mark Sleboda commented that “Western media is in ‘lockstep’ with government on foreign policy to a degree that would make real dictators blush” [3]. While there is no doubt that Western (read corporate) media is indeed promoting US foreign policy, it is not the US government that formulates these polices, rather they are formulated and developed by the ruling elite, using corporate-funded foundations and ‘think tanks’, academic institutions and prominent politicians. These include the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Rand Corporation, Rockefeller Foundation, American Heritage Foundation, Atlantic Council, Brookings, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Academic institutions such as The Kennedy School (Harvard), Hoover Institution (Stanford), Walsh School of Foreign Service (Georgetown) and School of Advanced International Studies (Johns Hopkins) not only provide ‘experts’ and government officials, such as Wendy Sherman (Kennedy School) current US Deputy Secretary of State in the Biden Administration, they serve as training grounds for government officials and corporate management, some of whom are employed by above listed universities and foundations.
Once formulated, these policies are ‘sold’ to the American public by a compliant and well-disciplined media. Approximately 90% of US media is controlled by six large corporations- Comcast, Walt Disney, AT&T, Paramount Global, Sony, and Fox, with a combined market cap of circa $500 billion [4] [5]. Like other large corporations, media conglomerates have the same class interests as the financial elite, i.e., promoting policies which increase corporate power and profits and maintain US global hegemony. So called ‘public’ media, such as National Public Radio (NPR) and the BBC, in the UK, function in a similar manner. Corporate media is closely integrated with large financial interests and serves as a ‘cheerleader’ for the Pentagon and US foreign policy.
Not surprisingly, major broadcasters, the paper of record (NYT), Wall St. Journal (WSJ), Washington Post, etc. are little more than a sounding board for the US ruling elite and thus, function primarily as the ‘ministry of propaganda’ for large financial interests. Any reporter, military analyst, aka ‘TV General’, etc. who ‘steps out of line’, such as telling the truth about the military debacle facing Ukraine will either be severely reprimanded or find themselves out of a job. Some examples-
1) CBS recently ran a documentary claiming that only 30% of ‘military aid’ sent to Ukraine actually arrived. The video was removed following complaints from the Ukrainian government. [6] [7].
2) David Sanger (Harvard graduate) is chief Washington correspondent for the NYT and also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) [8], whose members include corporate executives, bankers, and other representatives of the ruling elite.
3) David Ignatius (Harvard graduate) is a foreign affairs columnist for the WaPo and has close ties to the intelligence community- CIA and Pentagon.
Sanger and Ignatius serve as pundits for US global power, promoting the use of military force to promote American interests.
When you do not toe the corporate line…………
4) Gary Webb was a journalist working for the San Jose Mercury News. In 1996, Webb published a series of articles, “Dark Alliance”, describing how Nicaraguan Contra rebels, working closely with the CIA, supplied crack cocaine to the Black community in Los Angeles and used proceeds from these sales to purchase weapons to overthrow the government of Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front. Following publication of the Dark Alliance series, corporate media became hysterical, denouncing Webb, effectively ruining his career; he committed suicide in 2004 [9]
5) Julian Assange- In 2010, Wikileaks, founded by Julian Assange, published a series of leaks obtained from Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, documenting US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Following publication of these leaks, the American government began a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks. In 2010, Sweden issued an arrest warrant for Assange over allegations of sexual misconduct. To avoid extradition, Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. In 2019, Assange was arrested by British police at the Ecuadorian embassy and transferred to Belmarsh, a Category-A men’s prison in London. Up to this point, Julian Assange had not been formally charged. However, on May 23, 2019, the United States government charged Assange with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and is currently awaiting potential extradition to the US [10].
The US has been almost continuously involved in overt and covert military conflicts since 1940 and as a result, war and associated violence has been normalized and institutionalized by corporate media to the point, where these policies are readily accepted by a relatively docile and ignorant American public. When foreign governments deemed hostile to US corporate interests limit press ‘freedom’, they are immediately labeled as repressive/terrorist regimes and potential candidates for direct attack and ‘regime’ change by the US State Department. Apparently, what is ‘good for the goose’ is ‘not good for the gander’. As pointed out above, any journalist that threatens the American empire risks losing their job, imprisonment and/or death.
Accelerating Decline of late-stage American Capitalism
Multiple factors have contributed to the decline of American economic power. These include economic policies, spending astronomical amounts of taxpayer money on the military and war, social instability and rise of China-Russia-Iran axis.
Economic policies
Since the mid-1970s, US policy makers have pursued neoliberal economic policies- financial deregulation, austerity, tax cuts for the wealthy, attacks on labor and job-outsourcing, which has resulted in the massive growth of the FIRE sector of the economy composed of finance, insurance, and real estate. These polices precipitated the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) 2007-2008, the largest financial shock since the Great Depression. Rather than resolve the severe structural problems confronting American capitalism which created this crisis, the FED used the Treasury as a de facto taxpayer-supported ‘piggy bank’ (the FED cannot print money) to prop up equity markets, bonds, over-priced real estate and [still] insolvent banks. To put this in perspective, since 2009, the FED has injected over $40 trillion into financial markets, increasing the wealth of the financial elite, the proverbial ‘1%’. Not surprisingly, over the last 5 years, US government deficits have increased circa $2 trillion annually, currently exceeding $30 trillion (Fig. 1); this figure does not include municipal, corporate or consumer debt. This begs the obvious question of how long can the FED continue this orgy or money printing and debt? Note- for comprehensive background information on the FED’s financial activities, see Wall Street on Parade [11].
Military Spending and War
Since its inception, the US has been built on theft and violence, justified by ‘Christian’ religion and ‘White man’s burden’. The first permanent British settlement in North America was established in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. A decade later, African slaves were introduced by Dutch slave traders. Over the next 250 years, the US government would continue stealing land and displace/murder circa 90% of the indigenous population. In the mid-19th century, the US had the world’s leading economy, largely built on cotton produced by Black slaves [12]. Fast forward 150 years, the US has been almost continuously at war since 1940. 911 was a godsend for the military- US taxpayers have spent circa $21 trillion ($7.2 trillion going to military contractors) on post-911 militarization [13] [14]. The military appropriation for 2023 exceeds $760 billion. Despite this taxpayer largess, the Pentagon has not ‘won’ a war since 1945, was forced out of Afghanistan after spending $2 trillion, and confronts looming strategic debacles in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Ukraine. This has vividly shown the rest of the world the limits of American military power. Unfortunately, after expending so much financial and human capital, the Pentagon appears incapable of extricating itself from these conflicts as doing so is an admission of failure and by extension military weakness. This was clearly seen following Joe Biden’s decision to remove US troops from Afghanistan in 2021 and the push-back he received from corporate media and people in Congress.
Political Chaos and Social Instability
We frequently hear that US society has progressed to the point, where the country appears to be increasingly ungovernable. Indeed, American society is plagued by economic inequality, racism and ubiquitous violence. The American working class has watched their standard of living plummet- a result of decades of neoliberal economic policies, including job outsourcing, austerity, stagnant income growth and since the Covid 19 pandemic, high inflation, reflected by increasing costs for rent, transportation, energy, groceries, medical care and other necessities. To put this in perspective, 60% of Americans do not have $500 in savings and thus are one expensive car repair, medical emergency or job loss away from financial ruin. At the same time the wealth of American billionaires has increased circa $1 trillion during the Covid19 pandemic. Not surprisingly in 2016, Donald Trump skillfully exploited the justifiable anger and frustration of working people, stating that he would ‘Make American Great Again’, blaming American economic problems on immigrants from Mexico and Latin America and China’s economic rise.
Rise of BRICS/SCO and US/NATO debacle in Ukraine
We are seeing the continued rise in the global power and influence of Russia, China and allied nations, on multiple fronts, including organizational, economic and militarily. The BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are expanding. Original BRICS members included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Iran and Argentina have applied for admission, while the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Turkey and Egypt are applying for entry next year. SCO is the largest regional economic institution in the world, covering 60% of Eurasia with a population > 3.2 billion and combined GDP of member states circa 25% of global total. Trade between BRICS and SCO member states is increasingly being carried out using local currencies.
The Mir payment system operated by the Russian National Card Payment System [15] is a direct competitor to Visa and Mastercard and now accepted throughout the Russian Federation and in 13 countries including India, Turkey and South Korea and will soon be used in Iran. BRICS nations are developing a global currency for international trade that will directly compete with the dollar [16]. Russia is developing a new international trading platform for precious metals: the Moscow World Standard (MWS) [17]. The Russian Finance Ministry believes this new independent international structure will ‘normalize the functioning of the precious metals industry” and serve as an alternative to the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA; https://www.lbma.org.uk), [18] which for years has been accused of systematically manipulating the price of precious metals markets to depress prices [19]. Collectively, these policies have been designed to significantly reduce the dependence of economies in Russia, China, India and other countries in the Global South on the US/EU and eliminate dependence on the US dollar and Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system [20] for international trade. No doubt this is being done in close collaboration with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) whose goal is to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks with the aim of improving regional integration, increasing trade and stimulating economic growth [21] [22]. This trajectory has been accelerated following enactment of US/EU sanctions on Russia, Iran and China.
Over the last decade, the military power of Russia, China and Iran has greatly strengthened. The Russian military is a global leader in air-defense systems and hypersonic weapons, which are impermeable to any air-defense systems currently deployed by the US/NATO [23]. Over the last 25 years, China has modernized its military, focusing on People’s Liberation Navy and Army Air Force [24] [25]. China has developed a robust missile arsenal including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) [26]. The Pentagon now considers China a ‘formidable military force’ and a ‘major challenge’ to the US Navy in the Western Pacific. The Islamic Republic of Iran has also developed a formidable defensive military capability, which has positioned Iran as a major power broker in the region. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has concluded- ‘Iran possesses the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East, with thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles, some capable of striking as far as Israel and southeast Europe.’ [27]. Iran has repeatedly warned the US/NATO that it can target US military bases in the region, including Al Udeid base in Qatar, the largest US base in the Middle East. We are seeing increased assertiveness from the Russia-China-Iran axis in Syria, Ukraine and Western Pacific. This was clearly articulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June, declaring an end of “the era of the unipolar world” [28]. The Pentagon is being increasingly challenged by the Russia-China-Iran axis in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Western Pacific.
Ukraine- another US/NATO debacle
For background and historical information covering Ukraine and her relationship with Russia, see [29]. Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe after Russia and occupies a strategic location in Eastern Europe, sharing a circa 2300 km (1227 mi) border with Russia [30] (Fig. 2). As of 2021, Ukraine had the second largest military (circa 200,000 military personnel), after the Russian Armed Forces, in Europe and has the dubious distinction of being one of the most corrupt countries in the world [31]. Historically, the predominantly Russian speaking population in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine has maintained close ties with Russia.
In February 2014, the US- instigated Maidan coup took place, replacing the democratically-elected President Victor Yanukovych with a Russia-phobic and far-right politician/economist/lawyer, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Not surprisingly, the Ukrainian government was soon dominated by an alliance of far-right/fascistic organizations including the Right Sector and Svoboda and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland. This was predictable, as these groups were the most virulently anti-Russian factions in Ukraine [32] and are still very active in the government and military [33] [34]. Soon after the coup took place, the Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples Republics declared their independence, initiating the war in the Donbas. Over the next 8 years, the US/NATO would train circa 100,000 Ukrainian troops and channel $ billions in military aid [35], which was used to equip Ukrainian army and fortify positions adjacent to the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics [30] (Fig. 3). This buildup was accompanied by increased shelling of residential areas in the Donbas region by the Ukrainian military [36] [37], setting up a potential invasion of this region [38]. In response to the escalating attacks by Ukrainian forces. Russia recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples Republics as sovereign states on Feb 21, 2022, just prior to the Russian invasion on Feb 24, 2022, describing this campaign as a Special Military Operation (SMO) [39]. For an excellent overview of why Russia made the decision to invade Ukraine, see [40].
Going up against a well-trained, well equipped and an entrenched Ukrainian army, Russian forces have managed to take control of circa 20% (~47,000 square miles) of southern Ukraine and are incrementally removing Ukrainian forces from this region [38] (Fig. 3). Significantly, this territory contains prime agricultural and resource-rich land. It appears that Russia is planning on annexing littoral territory extending from the Donetsk/Luhansk region to Odesa [41]. Once this happen, any future Ukrainian state will not only be land-locked and lack direct access to the Black Sea, it will also lose valuable land as well. Military analyst Andrei Martyanov [42] has pointed out the ‘combined West doesn’t have material and technological means of fighting Russia in Eastern Europe without losing catastrophically. Western weapons turned out to be nothing more than commercial items not designed to fight the modern war, plus–no Western economy, including the United States has the capability to produce them in needed quantities anyway.’
The collective west has responded to the Russian invasion by blocking the opening of the Nord Stream 2 energy pipeline, which would directly supply Russian natural gas to Germany, imposed sanctions on Russian energy exports and disconnected Russian banks from the SWIFT system. To the dismay of the US/NATO, these actions have led to large increases in EU energy costs while strengthening the Russian economy [43]. Indeed, the paper of record (NYT) published a recent OpEd bemoaning the fact that despite western sanctions, Russia is making more money than ever on energy exports to China, India and other countries [44]. Despite nonstop condemnation from the US and EU of Russia’s SMO in Ukraine, many nations have not criticized the war [45]; only 1/3 of UN members supported a new anti-Russia resolution this August [46]. Thus, dwindling international support for Ukraine, coupled with success of the Russian SMO indicates that the country will not exist in its current form.
Concluding Remarks
The decline of late-stage American capitalism has been ongoing since the mid-1970s, but has been accelerated by the GFC, Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and Russian SMO in Ukraine. Not surprisingly, the ruling elite and their representatives in Washington have responded by shifting the costs of this decline onto the public, who have watched their living standard plummet, homelessness increase [47], imposed reactionary legislation such as the criminalization of pregnancy by the US Supreme Court, ratcheted up state violence against working people and people of color, while engaging in an astronomically expensive and reckless foreign policy. It appears the ruling elite view the Russia-China-Iran axis as an intolerable obstacle to US global power, reflected in the ongoing war in Ukraine, which is a de facto proxy war between the US and Russia. US-imposed sanctions on Russian energy have driven global energy prices higher; natural gas prices in the EU are 14-fold higher than the 10-year average. As a result, the UK/EU are at risk of not having sufficient quantities of natural gas for the winter, while EU industry will not be competitive with their rivals in Asia, who are being supplied with cheaper Russian energy. This is going to lead to increasing unemployment and social instability in the Eurozone.
The continued presence of US troops in Iraq and Syria is a desperate attempt to maintain control over Middle East energy reserves. The continued recklessness of this occupation can be seen from the constant Israeli attacks on Syrian and Iranian-allied forces by Israel/US, increasing the chances of a war with Iran, which can rapidly escalate, potentially incinerating the entire Persian Gulf region. It appears the US is abandoning the ‘one-China’ policy’ that has guided relations between the two countries for nearly 5 decades and is preparing to recognize Taiwan as an ‘independent’ state, a redline for the Peoples Republic of China. No doubt, this was one motivation for sending House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, from ‘’liberal’ San Francisco, with a net worth exceeding $100 million, to visit Taiwan. The Pentagon is actively encouraging Japan, which is little more than a US stooge/vassal and still occupied by circa 50K US troops, to join in this effort [48]. This begs the obvious question- did Japan learn anything from their defeat in WWII? As Glen Ford has pointed out, hegemons do not have ‘allies’ they only have subordinates [49].
The decline of late-stage American capitalism has progressed to the point where the very survival of the American empire is now contingent upon endless money printing to prop up financial markets and the military. This is becoming increasingly tenuous as this orgy of money printing and debt has created gigantic bubbles in every asset class- ‘everything bubble’, increasing inflation and threatening to derail the dollar’s role as world reserve currency and viability of western capitalism. Considering the weak state of US/EU economies, what economic incentives does the US have to encourage countries in the Indo-Pacific to reduce trade with China? Obviously, this is a nonstarter [50]. The ruling oligarchy are well aware of US economic decline and in desperation, are attempting to directly confront the Russia-China-Iran axis, which has attained economic and military parity (superiority?) with US/NATO. Perilous times ahead.
Notes
1. US economic decline and global instability. The Saker Jan 19, 2021; https://10.16.86.131/us-economic-decline-and-global-instability/
2. American Involvement in Wars from Colonial Times to the Present- Wars From 1675 to the Present Day By Martin Kelly Nov 4, 2020; https://www.thoughtco.com/american-involvement-wars-colonial-times-present-4059761
3. Ukraine’s Growing Dependency on Terrorism w/Mark Sleboda The New Atlas Aug 25, 2022; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgiRKbTYbZQ&t=1997s
4. The Big 6 Media Companies By Adam Levy Jun 10, 2022; https://www.fool.com/investing/stock-market/market-sectors/communication/media-stocks/big-6/
5. The 6 Companies That Own (Almost) All Media; https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media-infographic
6. Why military aid in Ukraine may not always get to the front lines. By Adam Yamaguchi and Alex Pena CBS News Aug 7, 2022; https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-military-aid-weapons-front-lines/
7. CBS censors its own report on Ukraine weapons corruption Multipolarista Aug 14, 2022; https://soundcloud.com/multipolarista/cbs-ukraine-weapons-corruption
8. Council on Foreign Relations; https://www.cfr.org/
9. How Gary Webb Linked the CIA to the Crack Epidemic — and Paid the Ultimate Price by Marco Margaritoff Feb 18, 2022; https://allthatsinteresting.com/gary-webb
10. Julian Assange, Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Seth_Rich
11. Wall Street on Parade Pam Martens and Russ Martens; https://wallstreetonparade.com/
12. Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist 2016 (Book)
13. State of Insecurity- The Cost of Militarization Since 9/11 by Lindsay Koshgarian, Ashik Siddique and Lorah Steichen Institute for Policy Studies; Link: https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militarization-since-9-11/
14. Costs of war; https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/
15. The exponential rise of Russia’s Mir payment system by James King The Banker
July 20, 2021; https://www.thebanker.com/Transactions-Technology/FX-Payments/The-exponential-rise-of-Russia-s-Mir-payment-system?ct=true
16. Russia and China are brewing up a challenge to dollar dominance by creating a new reserve currency by George Glover Markets Indiser Jun 24, 2022; https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/dollar-dominance-russia-china-rouble-yuan-brics-reserve-currency-imf-2022-6
17. Precious Metals: Russia Proposes New Standard to Compete with LBMA Goldbroker Aug 17, 2022; https://goldbroker.com/news/precious-metals-russia-proposes-new-standard-to-compete-with-lbma-2826
18. London Bullion Market Association (LBMA); https://www.lbma.org.uk
19. Rigged Gold Price Distorts Perception of Economic Reality by Paul Craig Roberts and Dave Kranzler Sept 22, 2014; https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/09/22/rigged-gold-price-distorts-perception-economic-reality-paul-craig-roberts-dave-kranzler/
20. Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system; https://www.swift.com/
21. China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the global trade, investment and finance landscape 2018;
https://www.oecd.org/finance/Chinas-Belt-and-Road-Initiative-in-the-global-trade-investment-and-finance-landscape.pdf
22. Belt and Road Initiative; https://www.beltroad-initiative.com/belt-and-road/
23. Trends in Russia’s Armed Forces- An Overview of Budgets and Capabilities by Keith Crane, Olga Oliker and Brian Nichiporuk Rand Corporation 2019; https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2573.html
24. China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress. Congressional Research Service Mar 8, 2022; https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/RL33153.pdf
25. An Interactive Look at the U.S.-China Military Scorecard Rand https://www.rand.org/paf/projects/us-china-scorecard.html
26. China is building more than 100 new missile silos in its western desert, analysts say
Image without a caption By Joby Warrick Washington Post June 30, 2021; https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/china-nuclear-missile-silos/2021/06/30/0fa8debc-d9c2-11eb-bb9e-70fda8c37057_story.html
27. Missile Defense Project, “Missiles of Iran,” Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies; https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/iran
28. President Putin’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum Speech, June 17, 2022. Defense Info; https://defense.info/global-dynamics/2022/06/president-putins-st-petersburg-international-economic-forum-speech-june-17-2022
29. Ray McGovern: Historical Context for Conflicts in Ukraine Consortium News Jul 10, 2022; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gLzsQA3UGY
30. Map Explainer: Key Facts About Ukraine By Bruno Venditti, Graphics/Design: Nick Routley Feb 23, 2022; https://www.visualcapitalist.com/map-explainer-ukraine/
31. Welcome to Ukraine, the most corrupt nation in Europe by Oliver Bullough The Guardian Feb 6, 2015; https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/04/welcome-to-the-most-corrupt-nation-in-europe-ukraine
32. How and why the U.S. Government Perpetrated the 2014 Coup in Ukraine by Eric Zuesse Modern Diplomacy June 4, 2018; https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/06/04/how-and-why-the-u-s-government-perpetrated-the-2014-coup-in-ukraine/
33. Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are on the March in Ukraine- Five years after the Maidan uprising, anti-Semitism and fascist-inflected ultranationalism are rampant.
By Lev Golinkin The Nation Feb 22, 2019;
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
34. Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies Fair Observer Mar 11, 2022; https://www.fairobserver.com/region/europe/medea-benjamin-nicolas-js-davies-ukraine-war-russia-ukranian-neo-nazi-fascists-azov-battalion-89292/
35. Ukraine- World Socialist Website; https://www.wsws.org/en/topics/country/ukraine
36. Ukrainian Army terror bombings By Laurent Brayard Jun 6, 2022; https://mronline.org/2022/06/06/ukrainian-army-terror-bombings/
37. Donbass Update: Ukraine Continues to Shell Residential Areas Telesur Feb 24, 2022; https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Donbass-Update-Ukraine-Continues-to-Shell-Residential-Areas-20220224-0004.html
38. Important — A Message for Americans Gonzalo Lira June 18, 2022; https://www.strategic-culture.org/video/2022/06/20/2022-06-18-important-a-message-for-americans/
39. Putin Announces Start to ‘Military Operation’ Against Ukraine by Anton Troianovski and Neil MacFarquhar NYT Feb. 23, 2022; https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/world/europe/ukraine-russia-invasion.html
40. Why Russia Invaded Ukraine by Eric Zuesse The Duran Sept 1, 2022; https://theduran.com/why-russia-invaded-ukraine/
41. All the way to Odessa by Pepe Escobar The Unz Review Aug 26, 2022; https://www.unz.com/pescobar/all-the-way-to-odessa/
42. Reminiscence of the Future (Andrei Martyanov); http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/
43. Europe’s Markets and Energy Security Disrupted by Russia Sanctions by Kenneth Rapoza Forbes Aug 23, 2022; https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2022/08/23/europes-markets-and-energy-security-disrupted-by-russia-sanctions/?sh=6d2312b45097
44. Russia Is Making Heaps of Money from Oil, but There is a Way to Stop That
July 29, 2022; https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/29/opinion/russia-oil-sanctions-biden.html
45. Why have many nations not condemned the war in Ukraine? by Bernd Debusmann News Decoder Apr 4, 2022; https://news-decoder.com/why-have-many-nations-not-condemned-the-war-in-ukraine/
46. Only one in three UN members back new anti-Russia resolution- International support for Ukraine has dropped dramatically since March RT Aug 26, 2022; https://www.rt.com/russia/561627-un-ukraine-resolution-support/
47. Census Bureau: 3.8 million renters will likely be evicted in the next two months — why the rental crisis keeps getting worse by Brian J. O’Connor Yahoo Sun, Aug 28, 2022; https://www.yahoo.com/video/census-bureau-3-8-million-100000978.html
48. U.S. presses Japan to cancel Constitution’s peace-clause. China and Japan must thus finally agree now, to avoid a war by Eric Zuesse The Duran Aug 25, 2022; https://theduran.com/why-a-deal-is-needed-now-between-china-and-japan/
49. Glen Ford’s Ukrainian Crystal Ball Black Agenda Report Jul 27, 2022; https://www.blackagendareport.com/glen-fords-ukrainian-crystal-ball
50. A New World Order is Looming and the West Doesn’t Like it by James ONeill Aug 24, 2022; https://journal-neo.org/2022/08/24/a-new-world-order-is-looming-and-the-west-doesn-t-like-it/
3 Figures
Figure 1: Total US Public Debt
Figure 2. Map of Ukraine
Figure 3. Military situation in Ukraine Aug 31, 2022
Figure 1. Total US public debt. Note that debt in Q1 2020 was $ 23.2 trillion while in Q2 2022 was $ 30.5 trillion, an increase of $7 trillion.
Source: Total Public Debt; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN
Figure 2. Map of Ukraine
Source: US Department of Defense
Figure 3. Military Situation in Ukraine for Aug 31, 2022. Areas in Red are controlled by the allied forces of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Militia and Russian military.
Source: Ukraine interactive map; https://liveuamap.com
Thanks for posting this very informative essay.
The USA imperium is in decline, true, but I think it remains a very formidable hegemon – one that BRICS or Eurasian bloc understimate at their own peril. I am not too sure or confident that the Russia and China “alliance” has reached military, economic and scientific-technological parity with the “West and allies”. Now that the conflict between the Euro-Atlanticists and Eurasia bloc has escalated and soon may become a full blown open warfare, it’s time for the Eurasia bloc to up the ante on all the above-mentioned fields.
Military – maybe near parity : the Chinese(+ Russian) might overwhelm US/West military with sheer numbers of weaponry and the threat of nuclear annihilation. But as the Ukraine war reveals, the West/NATO is no pushover.
Economic – the USD is still the world reserve currency and the global financial architecture is designed to give inordinate advantage to the USA and allies/vassals via manipulation. It is a positive-feedback loop involving ruling and financial elites of global south nations which breaks political will of these nations to break away from this matrix. Until global south nations are willing to break this loop and maybe suffer initial “sanctions” + economic warfare from the West , they are unable to extricate themselves from this spider’s web.
Scientific-technological : West and “allies” are still superior to China and Russia. The Chinese are still lagging behind in chip design, especially high end ones, being extremely dependent on Taiwanese, South Korean and Western allied nations. This is despite heavy investment on chip technology by the Chinese Government. Current AI is dependent on high end chips – thus this is now Western trump card. Quantum computing is still in its infancy to challenge these high end chips. Alternatives to silicon wafers such as carbon nanotube ICs are still experimental -and though the Chinese(not sure about the Russians) are said to have an edge over USA /West in this, the race is not over yet and these cannot be put to commercial use. This is just chips. In terms of biological sciences such as the pharma industry and basic science research in cellular and molecular biology, the West still trumps both China and Russia. In fact, the superiority of Western scientific-technological academia and high end industry leads to another positive feed back loop in which the brightest brains all over the world go over to the West , contributing to Western high end scientific-technological hegemony. This in turn deprives global south nations , including China and Russia , from native scientific talent – impeding progress towards parity to challenge the West in this arena.
The above academic positive feedback loop also has another effect. It re-enforces the thinking of the smartest people from the Russia, China and the global south in the superiority of the Western ‘system’ coupled with a disdain for those of their native countries. In other words, Western elites won over the best from Russia and China. This perhaps explain why academia and those with university education tend to be Western worshipping liberals. I , from the global south, though not a liberal, was a Western worshipper in the past.
USA remains a formidable challenge because of these ‘positive feedback loops’ which re-enforces the THINKING that the USA/Western model is superior and resilient . To break USA hegemony means destroying these loops and thus decimate this view of US resilience .
Just my views.
The article is a good breakdown of US decline,America was supreme after1945 with the rest of
the world in ruins,the Marshall plan and the debt restructuring of Europe and the world made the
USA the largest creditor country in the World with undamaged industrial production and undamaged
farmland,within seventy years the US is now the worlds biggest debtor nation with public debt at
30+trillion private debt 40+ trillion corporate debt 10+ trillion, all the cities bankrupt,infrastructure
falling apart needing trillions just to fix existing never mind new infrastructure,and a power grid
Still running on 50s 60s technology,this accounts for the desperation and frustration that is now
boiling over into war promotion as a means of redressing these massive problems.
China is now equal to anything the USA can design and engineer. The combined cooperation of China/Russia will exceed quickly anything the EU/USA can do. The proof is already here. The brain drain from China is now reversing, quickly, for 2 main reasons: the ‘brains’ can receive salaries higher than those in the USA, in a country with zero violence, zero woke, zero drugs, highest safety for their children, no racism against them, etc; they can further their careers faster and more extensively. The China train left the station long ago, with the USA biting dust. The USA is desperate to do anything to contain China and Russia, which is the reason for Ukraine and subjugating Europe completely, and for Taiwan.
Nobody wants the USD. It is used because people are forced to use it, by military threat. The day is coming soon when the USD will be trending to a minor currency. The risk is what will the USA do to prevent or mitigate the resulting collapse of the country into violence and chaos. Given the USA predilection for war and nuclear weapons, the threat to the planet is very real. Today we see the Ukrainians shelling DAILY the largest NPP in Europe, all supplied and coordinated by the zionists in the USA.
We are but one misplaced shell away from a catastrophe and the start of Armageddon. Yet the Europeans and Americans cheer on the Ukrainians. The inmates are running the asylum, truly.
Orwell 1984 is here.
@ grune
I agree with many things you say about the trends. Hopefully the Chinese brain drain reversals happen speedily so as to intensify Chinese scientific-technological progress to reduce Sino-Western scientific/technological gap. I am not sure if there is a Russian brain drain reversal as well. With the racist anti-Russian climate in the collective West, I presume there should be one? In a rather “perverse” way, I am actually happy the West treats us Chinese, and also the Russians, badly. This will only strengthen the motherlands of China and Russia…when the brightest and the best come back to their native countries.
Hopefully there is more Sino-Russian scientific/technological corroboration. Both countries have strengths in different scientific fields and a deep corroboration will speed scientific/technological parity with the West.
The Chinese indeed can equal or even surpass the US and collective West in many things – but there are some where the gaps are still huge such as the ones I mentioned ie microchips and pharma.
As for the USD, I think many global south do want alternatives , but they do not have the political will nor the resilience to break free from the spider’s web. Agree, military threat is one fear. The other is economic retaliation/manipulation + regime change operatives from USA/West. They , as separate countries, are not as resilient as Russia or China to withstand shocks from the West , either military and/or economic/financial. Even the Chinese and, up to recently and to a lesser extent the Russians, are ‘delicate’ in handling this beast called the ‘West’. One way to render a shock to USD hegemony is a coordinated , unexpected and sudden + simultaneous ‘rejection’ of USD by a huge throng of global south countries, coordinated by Russia and China with a new basket of alternative reserve currencies hedged on commodities. There will be too many countries for US to bomb or sanction and too fast for the Fed to manipulate. I am no economist , so I am not even sure if this is a good idea.
I also agree that lunatics are now running Washington and EU. These loonies are ideological fanatics commited to woke values.
The problem with US and EU is that they are rotten to the core internally. I am pessimistic and I think ww3 is very highly possible because these lunatics will never accept defeat and believe in their destiny to rule the world. They will burn all humanity down than to ever lose their supremacy. As for the majority of American and European populations, they are a lost cause.
Saker has banned the use of username ‘anonymous’ or the spoofing of ‘anonymous’ pick another username .. mod
comment removed … mod
I want to quote a NZ PM who responded to concerns about the brain drain to Australia, thus:
Think positively, such migration increases the Average IQ of BOTH countries!!!
Deep…
Your statement starts out well with an admonition that the strengths of the US are not to be minimized.
However, most of the rest of it (while logically set forth) is problematic. This is doubtless because you are not engaged in any of the functional areas you discuss at least not at the interface with China developments. Perhaps I, by contrast, could make a few comments.
Your attempt to locate China’s position in the military, economic and scientific areas by position. In particle physics, position is insufficient to accurately describe a particle: velocity, momentum, spin, field position etc are required.
Similarly, the location of China within any technology domain must be described as more than its position at any moment. The US, with its International Space Station, blocked China’s participation by arguing that its rudimentary capabilities did not warrant a place. The ISS is nearing the end of its lifecycle with no replacement. China is nearing completion (2 of 3 stages in place as of June) its Tiangong space station and has openly invited all nations to discuss participation. None of this space technology was shared by the US so it was endogenous development. Try a search on this topic and you will see the panic in the US and West.
You mention chips — design and fabrication are distinct capabilities. TSMC is a foundry, manufacturing chips for others, having little design. China OTOH is focussed on design — and assuredly lags the West (at least in protectable IP). Its rapid development is creating much consternation — this is the impetus for the sanctioning of Huawei. Try a search on China and ASML (the Dutch company that makes the lithography machines) — you will see the US concerns — the dynamics are fascinating with ASML both moving its HQ to the US, but putting up resistance to locking out China.
In Pharma, your assumption seems to be more drugs are better but that is quite different to the Chinese way of thinking. China’s healthcare system has positioned Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) alongside of western medicine as an alternative treatment path — the only major country afaik to recognize naturopathic treatment. In the US, there is an unspoken (but evident) belief that the FDA is moving to “control” this area. You may think that the “advanced” mRNA gene therapies are desirable “vaccines” — China does not authorize them, correctly imho.
The economic front is likely the nexus where the totality of East/West conflicts engage. I would simply say that China has huge headroom in this area and is likely to move conservatively yet steadily to provide attractive alternatives to (in particular) its many partners in BRI. I can’t elaborate further.
As for the West attracting and retaining the “best and brightest” — this has been true in the past, but it’s unclear whether this will continue. Dr Dawei Di of Cambridge’s Cavendish Lab, a rising star in OLEDs, stunned Cambridge (where he received his PhD) by accepting an appointment at Zhejiang University. This doesn’t seem to be an isolated case.
The partnership with Russia is extremely powerful in that the two countries strengths are somewhat complementary, but share profound scientific proclivities. This is in addition to their clear collinearity on a multipolar world order.
@ J Huizinga
Thanks for your critique.
I will be addressing my thoughts on the scientific developments part.
I am aware of Chinese technological advances, and am aware where the Chinese may have surpassed or reached parity with the West. On the whole, though, I still think China has not yet reached parity with the West on scientific-technological advances. I do concede that the gap is rapidly narrowing in many scientific fields. The US knows its days of scientific-techno supremacy are numbered if Chinese scientific progress is unimpeded- that’s why it is coming up with all kinds of “legal” means to suppress China on the techno front, especially with regards to microchips. These methods can still potentially derail Chinese progress to scientific-techno parity if China is unable to alleviate several chokepoints speedily.
Will address the chips issue because this is the ongoing ‘tech war’ between USA/West Vs China for ‘tech supremacy’, and also discuss about pharma /biological sciences.
With regards to microprocessor fabrication, the reason why I think China has not reached parity is because China has no indigenous DUV lithography(some pro China sites claim there are indigenous Chinese DUV machines but I can’t verify this) and EUV lithography machines, relying on ASML for these machines. To me, this is fatal for further progress in Chinese semiconductor advancement. This sole monopoly by ASML(beholden to US) is a stranglehold on Chinese tech. Although ASML still sells DUV machines to China(partly because China plays a big part in the microchip supply chain for now) and technically 7nm node is achievable with DUV, US is trying to address this – and if (a big if, I concede) the US ultimately succeeds in having alternative supply chains bypassing China, ASML will no longer have the incentive to sell DUV to China. That is fatal without indigenous purely Chinese made DUV machines. As it is, ASML is banned from selling EUV to China, which is used to fabricate top notch chips of 5nm and below. Recently, it has been reported that SMIC ‘secretly’ achieved 7nm node using ASML DUV lithography(apparently rattling Washington). The problem remains that chip fabrication in China remains dependent on Western made lithography machine. Until that is addressed, Washington still has ‘chip supremacy ‘. Some techies also pour cold water on the practical significance of this Chinese achievement in contending with 7nm nodes by TSMC and Samsung. Example :-
https://www.techarp.com/computer/china-7nm-chips-us-sanctions/?amp=1
With regards to the pharmaceutical industry and biological sciences, I do not mean that “more drugs are better”. The issue is the West remains the center of innovation in terms of pharmaceuticals and basic science (molecular biology, cellular biology , immunology etc). Well ,to be fair to China and the rest of the non Western world, the West had a head start as well as the tradition and are rich enough to invest in pharma and biological basic science for decades. If any talent from China (or other parts of the world) has the intention of gaining fame, reputation and wealth for innovation and basic science research in biological sciences – the West is still where he/she will go to. Going through medical and life-sciences journals, most innovation and top notch discoveries are from Western academia. There are many Chinese (and Russian and Indian) names as authors/co-authors -ie many innovations and discoveries are made by Chinese , but they are mostly affiliated to Western academia. Small molecule inhibitors, monoclonal antibodies, cellular therapies like CAR T etc are all developed in the West(or Japan, which is Western-allied) – of course with non Western including Chinese scientists contributing to these innovations . The West innovated and the Chinese in China (and Indians in India – the best copycats for generic /biosimilar pharmaceuticals) copy – means they are lagging and have not reached parity. Again, this becomes a stranglehold in which Western pharma companies have complete or near complete monopoly on top notch, high tech pharmaceuticals. The very healthcare of every global south nation must bow prostate to Western pharma supremacy and monopoly.
I am not trying to disparage Chinese progress. I myself am ethnic Chinese from Malaysia and am pro multipolarity and sick and tired of US hegemony. Just highlighting that the Chinese still needs to work on these chokepoints to beat the US/collective West. These are not insurmountable issues but now that US is out to impede Chinese (and Russian) success, or even beat them down to submission, the need to eliminate these chokepoints is more acute. In other words, we have to be realists and be careful not to fall into the trap of wishful thinking and not acknowledging where we are still lagging.
And as my original comment tried to allude, I view US/Western success to be dependent on its PRESTIGE and FAITH on its resilience. IE Western success now is built on multiple positive feedback loops in which global south talents and elites are beholden to ideas of Western superiority, resilience and prestige. People want to be associated with winners, not losers. Why do ex Warsaw pact countries line up to enter EU? part of the reason is the thinking of their elites and their population on the prestige of joining a ‘Western’ organization like the EU. it explains the behaviour of Taiwan youths who think themselves Taiwanese rather than Chinese. Explains the behaviour of Russian liberals(who tend to be the educated and business class) who hate their “backward” motherland. It explains Ukraine and why they rather die but for the prestige of being ‘in the West’.To beat the US/West requires China, Russia and the Eurasian bloc /brics population and elites to have a paradigm shift in mindset – IE the US/collective West is perceived and TREATED no longer as a partner but as a rival , even an enemy, to beat. To do that, we must acknowledge our deficiencies and improve on them. To destroy US hegemony requires us to destroy the THINKING/FAITH that US system is resilient and superior. This must be matched with TANGIBLE , measurable evidences of parity or even superiority in military, economic/financial, internal sociopolitical stability and scientific-techno fronts. The US and many EU states current success relies on prestige and faith in its system. They are highly indebted states , which if not for US hegemony ,are bankrupt countries, which are using a global system designed by them to forever choke non Western countries. In other words, Western power has a lot to do with its prestige. Destroy that faith and it’s game over for the West…. We shall see USD hegemony crash(its hegemony relies a lot on faith of its resilience), we shall see the whole system crumble. Only then will the West be agreement capable and will there be true multipolarity. There is no other way but for Russia, China etc to design for the collapse of the US if they want multipolarity. Because if not, the US/ West will make sure rivals like Russia and China will collapse and beaten to submission.
Just my views.
@sinotibetan
Very interesting and compelling post from you. I had to mentally concede to many of your fact-based arguments, much against my hopes and wishes.
You have correctly identified the great scientific and technological strengths of the west but i respectfullyly submit that the world has changed a lot – a lot – in the past 20-30 years. The delta of change is now almist a vertical graph. India, for example, is a world leader in pharmaceuticals. It took an Indian company merely a couple of years to develop a drug to combat HIV/AIDS. The Indian Govt of that time was weak and could not stand up to Western pressures to kill that drug in the name of intellectual property rights. The Russian Sputnik vaccine was developed quickly and has been acknowledged to be better and far safer than the offerings from western pharma. So I dont quite see the west’s great lead in cellular and biological sciences the way you do.
The bright minds that emigrate from Asia, Eastern Europe and Russia to the West do so not for gaining knowledge but to gain more more money and a more comfortable life. Yes, the western life style, pop music, and Hollywood had cast a seductive spell and a lot of the world was in thrall. But that spell is wearing off. So here again you ignore the changes that have occurred over the past 20 years.
The next few years will see monumental changes in the world, the way non-western people see the west, the way Asians come to see themselves, and the discarding of many paradigms. Let us hope that the end result is a non-hegemonic, multi-polar world in which more and more countries regain their self-respect, self-confidence, and full freedom to chart their own course in history.
I’ll keep my comments short as it’s clear that you don’t actually work in the two areas you discuss: “chips and pharma”.
Your discussion of DUV/EUV is common knowledge (after all, the US sanctioned Huawei in 2019) and China’s research started before that on novel, non-lithographic methods (there’s a fair amount of information on the web if you want to come up to speed as the Chinese have filed many preliminary patents so they are likely to own the IP). You do realize that spacing distances are converging on 0?
I think you’re further off the mark on the biosciences. Western basic research has been increasingly geared toward drugs — what you term “top notch, high tech pharmaceuticals” resulting in your vision of the “global south prostrate to western pharma supremacy”.
If you actually had knowledge about the US pharma industry, you would realize it is deeply mired in controversy — such as the recent “accelerated approval” for the drug aducanumab (Alzheimer’s) by the FDA — despite several committee members in public disagreement. The drug’s developer had earlier withdrawn the drug in 2019 for lack of efficacy. In April 2022 Biogen withdrew their request for approval from the EU. Does this sound like scientific “supremacy” to you?
I won’t go further except to say you’re entitled to believe whatever you want, but the situation is more complex than it appears.
@J Huizinga
You nailed it with the US pharma and bio sciences. The US pharma indistry is corrupt and way, way over-rated. The basic research capability in developing new pharmaceuticals is now no longer a US monopoly. India has a strong capability as am sure has China. Russia of course has it and had had it since Soviet times. These countries do not make a song and dance about “Intelectual Property Rights”, that is all. The US remains in the lead in pure research and pure sciences in the various cellular and certain other life sciences but China has been advancing by leaps and bounds in recent years. That is why I pointed out to sinotibatan that his perceptions are 20 years out of time. In any case, a lot of basic science and research in US are done by European, Indian, and Chinese researchers. Given the way the US is heading, I expect these high-brain inflows into US to start drying up.
@ visitor
Thanks for both your posts and reply to my comments. I wrote a lengthy reply to J Huizinga -hopefully it is ok with the moderators and you will be able to peruse it at your leisure .
My reply to you is going to be a short one because all these writings are having a strain on my eyes(which are not too well) . Just to say I do not have any major disagreements with you or J Huizinga on your points regarding corrupt Western pharma, some of their bad /botched up pharmaceuticals or that of the scientific-techno progress in China or the beginning of reversal of brain drain. I acknowledge the great strides India has made in the pharma industry. I am a medical doctor, and we use many generic novel agents , not to mention other less novel therapeutics, which are made in India. We are all three on the same chapter for multipolarity .
Where we disagree is this: that BRICS or China have NOW achieved parity with the US/West in certain scientific -techno fields.. At least in terms of therapeutics, as a clinician “on the ground” I can confidently say, not yet. In Malaysia at least , all local medical experts ultimately parrot/modify clinical guidelines from the West , and for new pharmaceuticals, still almost completely dominated by those from Western pharma. This is how Western pharma ‘reigns’. Again, there are elements of the prestige of Western medicine advancement involved . But also undeniable is that some of these novel therapeutics from Western pharma are actually efficacious. I have extensive clinical experience with some of them to confidently say so. Western medicine prestige is one reason why many botched therapeutics from Western pharma get into many patients. Medical doctors and health allied professionals the world over are beholden to Western pharma and scientists and health experts. To deny this reality is wishful thinking.
As I iterate again and again… To self critique and know our deficiencies and improve on them is the way to counter the West. And never underestimate the West.
That’s all I have to say and I don’t think I want to engage in anymore long posts regarding this. Where we ultimately disagree, I have to respectfully leave it as that. All these reading and writing strain my eyes. Those are my views as a practicing clinician .
@sinotibetan
Dear friend, thank you for a most thought-provoking and respectful exchange of views-cum-debate. As I said at the outset, your arguments forced me to change my mind in some ways, somewhat against my wishes and hopes. Your caveats are well-grounded and you are right to remind everyone that “the road ahead is still long and tortuous”. All I point out is that “the road ahead may be long but the journey is likely to end in success”. Of course, many of us here wish for a fairer world, a world that is multi-polar, a world in which Asia, Russia, and Africa shake off the tyranny of political, intellectual and cultural slavery to the West. With best wishes to you and all here.
@ visitor
Thanks so much , dear friend.
You summarized my thoughts perfectly!
“The road ahead may be long but the journey is likely to end in success” is my (and many people here) hope and I am cautiously optimistic this will indeed be the case. Ultimately you and J huizinga are correct in so many ways and I have learned much from these exchanges.
Take care!
@ J Huizinga
I am actually a medical doctor/clinician- albeit trained in “Western medicine” – to openly state how I may be biased , but not in neurology(so am not well versed in the neurology drug you mentioned) , hence I do know a thing or two about Western pharma although I am just an “end user”. So, please don’t assume that you know what I don’t know about Western pharma industry.
I do not deny that the US pharma is corrupted , nor deny that it is mired in controversy. We had had so many controversies in the past and present on drug efficacy and adverse reactions. And yes, I do know controversies regarding FDA’s drug approvals. Your point about COVID vaccines taken. Another interesting thing, this COVID pandemic , which is perhaps for another discussion if an article on this ever comes up in this blog.
As I have said from the outset of my comment, the issue is what scientists and medical doctors from non Western world THINK about US/Western techno advancement. I have attended international scientific conferences after international scientific conferences -in which most of the basic science research , and novel pharmaceuticals are from Western pharma /Japan or South Korea(which are Western allied). In no way that I mean all medications from the West are without controversies like the examples you gave. As an end user like me who manages patients as a clinician(I deal with some niche subspecialty which I shall not name), I have yet to have Chinese made options of novel medications to treat these patients. PRACTICALLY, all the options I have are all from Western pharma , with medication costs way beyond the affordability of the average Malaysian. It is totally frustrating for me as a clinician . So, don’t get me wrong – I do want Chinese, Russian and Indian pharma to be able to compete with Western pharma. And yes, I also agree that Chinese basic science research in the health sciences have improved . It does not negate my point that it has not reached parity with the West, and as an end user, this is quite apparent still. Indian pharma has generics and that’s how we get cheaper options for patients. But that’s the thing – we have to generally wait for some drug discovery in the West before generics churn out from India.
You are correct about the corruption of FDA and Western pharma industry . It still does not negate my point that we in global south nations are too dependent on this pharma monopoly from the West. It is because Chinese, Russian and Indian pharma still haven’t reached parity to compete with Western pharma(except for generics or biosimilars) that FDA can go on with the current and worsening levels of corruption. Giving some examples of rotten medicines from Western pharma does not alter the reality of our dependence on the West/Western-allied nations for novel pharmaceutical discoveries because options from non Western pharma are still in generics or biosimilars.
As clinicians, we are practical people. It is what works for the patients that count. As for now, especially novel anti neoplastics, most are from Western pharma , slightly older novel agents are generics from India – these are the patient ‘s options . It probably takes some time before Chinese pharma do develop original pioneering anti neoplastics that have practical implications for patient care. I am saying here from the ground, and not from a hypothetical situation or reports in the newsroom or news article . When I state my point about the pharma industry, I state my point as a practicing clinician, and not based on my own wishful thinking or ‘beliefs’ which you assumed.
As for anti-neoplastics, two discoveries by the Chinese are arsenic trioxide as well as all trans retinoic acid(ATRA) for acute promyelocytic leukaemia(APML). However, in terms of novel tyrosine kinase inhibitors, or immune checkpoint inhibitors or those targeting molecular pathways or monoclonal antibodies which are efficacious, almost all are from Western or Japanese pharma. To China’s credit, there were several PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitors , BiTE(bispecific T cell engagers) and CAR T and CAR NK therapies now in phase 1 trial. I want to point out though that Western pharma have already completed phase 3 trials for these classes of drugs and cellular therapies and many are already in clinical practice in my country, albeit at a hefty cost. Also the ideas of targeting these molecular or immunological pathways were from Western pharma and then picked up by Chinese pharma . Ie China is still playing catch up. Chinese pharma needs to replicate its pioneering therapeutic discovery in APML to other cancers and diseases to be a true rival of Western pharma. See :-
https://jhoonline.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13045-020-00877-3
As for the chips industry, I am not involved with this, and I concede I am not an expert. As for non lithographic methods – I am unaware of such – so thanks for this information. Will read up. Whatever these novel methods may be , in terms of PRACTICAL use, these have not (yet) been able to produce 7nm nodes and below in an industrial/manufacturing scale. Until there are such tangible results, China remains in that chokehold. All these developments by China are important but will remain theoretical or considered research until it can compete in the mainstream. This is akin to EU and the West talking a lot about ‘green energy’ and ‘renewables’ when the techno for these alternatives are way behind and not matured yet to replace fossil fuels. For me..the proof is in the pudding. Promising developments remain that until they deliver .
Both you and visitor are correct that China is closing in the gap. I have no dispute with that. I have no dispute about the corruption in Western pharma -happens in all monopolies/near monopolies. What I am pointing out is that China (and India and Russia) still need to catch up on these fields. And catching up fast is crucial because the US/West know their supremacy days are numbered and so will do anything to derail Chinese and other non Western progress in these fields .
Do not underestimate US/West and do not think we have won yet (ie do not fall into the trap of overconfidence or wishful thinking)is the message I was trying to say as a warning to the optimism of this article regarding the rise of BRICS to bring down US hegemony. Optimism must be tempered with realism is my message. Not sure why we are having these disagreements when we are on the same side for multipolarity…
Thanks for your response — and to “visitor’s” contributions as well, especially clarifying your professional background. Yes, as I stated in my first sentence of my first response to you, it is dubious to underestimate the capabilities and resources of western science/technology. And, yes, we’re pretty much in agreement about what the challenges are (especially those of prestige or perception, as you rightfully point out).
I shift the discussion here a bit and take a step back — this may be interesting to you or not.
Western “medicine” (pharmacology) as currently practiced (clinically and commercially) is based on the germ theory of disease. From this idea arises the search for “magic bullets”. But these wondrous entities have existed across all human societies from historical times, and their use was predicated on qualitatively observable results.
Post Watson-Crick, magic bullets derive their prescriptive powers not from empiricism, but from increasingly complex genetic associations (eg bioinformatics). In recent years (I use an example in an area I’m familiar with, small non-coding RNAs) the FDA has approved three drugs to treat Duchenne’s (Sarepta) — over the objections of the technical committee. All three drugs show (very) limited clinical succès and all three drugs are very expensive. How could this occur? If the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), formerly the China FDA, hasn’t approved a drug in this area, does this mean that there are is no Chinese R&D in this “cutting edge” technology? The answer is no (my own information). The standards for novel drug approval in China may be more rigorous, and less subject to external factors than in the US.
US pharma, as is well known, has long picked the low-hanging fruit and thus is increasing targeted to rare/orphan disease. Zokinvy “reduces the risk of death for Hutchinson-Gilford progeria”, a rare condition. Typical daily dosage: 200 mg (4x50mg capsule). Cost (list): $90k/month.
In short, “absence of evidence” isn’t “evidence of absence”.
Which allows me to circle back to the topic you mentioned in passing: Covid. As you know, the China vaccines (China and WHO-approved, I believe there are now 3) are constructed more or less on classic methodologies (eg inactivated whole virus etc). They are not approved in the US. The two mRNA gene therapy “vaccines” used in the US are not approved in China. The US vaccines are just short of being legally mandated in the US. On the other hand, vaccines are recommended but not mandatory in China.
Why the difference? Scientifically, China still believes in natural immunity. In the West, as we are witnessing, natural immunity is gradually being discarded by the medical establishment (think of all the textbook changes!)
and put into force through “top notch drugs” (your words) by a government that supposedly represents a free people.
Regards.
I couldn’t agree more: everyone in the alternative media bangs on about the “decline of the West”, but the West – particularly the US – is by far the World’s leader when it comes to finance – think Wall Street and the City of London, plus trillions sitting in bank accounts in British Tax Havens – aerospace technology – no country other than the US could have landed a rover the size of a small car on Mars, then flown a helicopter over the planet’s surface, and the US is the only country in the World to have a substantial fleet of stealth aircraft: B2 bomber, F-22 and F-35. By contrast Russia has a grand total of twelve Su-57s with sub-standard engines – cultural dominance – in every Third World country, the ideal remains the “American Dream”, and US “soft power” is unrivalled – and of course there is the US dollar, which for all of it’s failings is not going anywhere, in fact central banks the World over have *increased* their holdings of dollar-denominated debt as it is seen as the ultimate safe-haven, thereby contributing to US military hegemony, like some sort of obscene uroboros. Give me a call when median earnings in China reach one-half of the US median earnings of $65,000 a year, then I’ll talk about the “decline of the hegemon”.
Being African I can tell you no African believes in the American dream.or thinks America is a fair and just nation.
We also see the race issues, the ugly politics and we are aware fully of all the wars including on our own continent, Libya, Somalia, Yemen etc.
However, if you are poor or want a decent university education, US is a viable option. Expediency.
Increasingly in recent times there is a sense of disgust with the West and America in particular in Africa.
Even as viewers from the fastest growing continent on Earth, we are exhausted by the never ending US wars, tired of their bullying and bragging, disgusted by their multilation of children and oppression of women in the name of transgenderism.
We don’t see America and the West the way we once did. When USSR existed and America was consequently better behaved.
We see it now in all its ugliness as an arrogant colonial power.
Most Africans however study abroad in India not the the US.
And increasingly, we would far rather stay home. The rates of Africans returning from West is increasing.
Africa retains a society of respect for elders and a good belly laugh with neighbours, of strong community and love of nation that increasingly contrasts with a fast changing and reckless West.
So Western culture not the icon it was. Still popular movies etc but when you visit California expecting Hollywood and see more beggers in California than all of Africa you have to wonder if America really is the place of dreams or nightmares. Maybe both.
The stealth fighter F-35 typifies the ‘decline of the hegemon’. The cost of maintenance of this IMO whacky plane is absurdly high. As soon as a F-35 is fully rigged with missiles, its ‘stealth’ is becoming fake, because the missiles degrade the stealth quality of the F-35. So why does one design such a no-brainer? As long as a F-35 is not combat ready, it may boast some stealth quality, but as soon as things become real the F-35 is easily spotted by any quality air defense. So the whole idea of ‘stealth’ needs to be combat tested, which is its weak spot.
The decline of the hegemon has become manifest during the SMO. Its Javelins and Stingers are failing in true combat conditions, ist howitzers are breaking down during prolonged use. Why does the hegemon produce weaponry that happens to be unreliable in true combat conditions and which is carrying price-tags that are impossible for use on a true battlefield.
Compared with the hegemon’s attitude towards fighting a SMO/war, the Russian attitude is no frills realistic: all weaponry is combat-proof, is cheap to reproduce, easy in maintenance and actually saving the lives of Russian soldiers. One shouldn’t fool oneself with stealth that isn’t stealthy anymore as soon as missiles are protruding from the plane body. Ons shouldn’t fool oneself with the might of mighty price-tags. The US has acquired arrogance as its second nature. The ancient Greeks and Romans still knew what to fear most: hubris.
Speaking of who has the scientific/technological advantage today, this list is, imo, one of the best, most vivid, examples of how things have been and are today:
The list of winners by year of one of the most prestigious collegiate programming competitions in the world.
It speaks volumes:
Year Country Institution
2021 Russia Nizhny Novgorod State University
2019 Russia Moscow State University
2018 Russia Moscow State University
2017 Russia ITMO University
2016 Russia St. Petersburg State University
2015 Russia ITMO University
2014 Russia St. Petersburg State University
2013 Russia ITMO University
2012 Russia ITMO University
2011 China Zhejiang University
2010 China Shanghai Jiao Tong University
2009 Russia ITMO University
2008 Russia ITMO University
2007 Poland University of Warsaw
2006 Russia Saratov State University
2005 China Shanghai Jiao Tong University
2004 Russia ITMO University
2003 Poland University of Warsaw
2002 China Shanghai Jiao Tong University
2001 Russia St. Petersburg State University
2000 Russia St. Petersburg State University
1999 Canada University of Waterloo
1998 Czech Republic Charles University
1997 United States Harvey Mudd College
1996 United States University of California, Berkeley
1995 Germany Albert-Ludwigs-Universität
1994 Canada University of Waterloo
1993 United States Harvard University
1992 Australia University of Melbourne
1991 United States Stanford University
1990 New Zealand University of Otago
1989 United States University of California, Los Angeles
1988 United States California Institute of Technology
1987 United States Stanford University
1986 United States California Institute of Technology
1985 United States Stanford University
1984 United States Johns Hopkins University
1983 United States University of Nebraska – Lincoln
1982 United States Baylor University
1981 United States University of Missouri–Rolla
1980 United States Washington University in St. Louis
1979 United States Washington University in St. Louis
1978 United States Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1977 United States Michigan State University
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Collegiate_Programming_Contest#Winners
It’s not neoliberalism, though, a collectivist smear against people who advocated for certain perspectives of smaller/less powerful government. It’s neoconservatism. Or fascism or just generally authoritarianism.
Why does that matter? Because the war profiteers and the rentier class in education and healthcare and finance and so forth have been funded by global MMT. US gold reserves peaked in the 1950s. Silver was removed from the US money supply and the last vestiges of Bretton Woods gold manipulation collapsed in the 1960s.
The story should end there, but it doesn’t, because ruling elites all over the world embraced an era of global coordination through national fiat currencies anchored by DC in the ‘West’ and Beijing in the ‘East’. It’s a system that operates transnationally, often intentionally to degrade or outright suppress national opposition by ordinary citizens.
Some variant of ‘The Americans are historically/currently evil’ is what is said publicly from time to time to distract from the reality that, at the highest levels of power, incentives are more aligned than not towards the win-win of global/world/international coordination.
It makes little sense to talk about the CRIBS (both a fun pun on timing in the English language and the clearer order for country importance) until China actually divests from the prevailing global power structure and offers a concrete vision of something else. Only at that point can we analyze whether that ‘something else’ will dethrone the USD and, if so, whether things will get better or worse.
I’m afraid that the Ango-Zionists will continue to maintain their chokehold on the World, and am doubtful that they will just let the BRICS set up an alternative to the USD without a fight. These individuals control dozens of trillions of dollars’ worth of assets, and could easily thwart any attempt to change the system. The overwhelming majority of central across the World have dollars in their FOREX reserves and hold US government bonds, including China which has about $1.5 trillion’s worth, which they use to keep their currency artificially low and thereby their industries more competitive. I will only believe that the BRICS’s alternative is serious when China stops buying US government bonds and ditches it’s dollar FOREX reserves. I fear that I will be waiting for quite a while…
I would go a step further down that line of thinking. That framing still presumes that China ‘wants’ an alternative, that there is some meaningful power base in the ‘East’ that doesn’t like the current global power structure.
Here we are way past the collapse of the USSR and even well past the GFC. Yet neither the CCP specifically, nor the BRICS as a group, have even offered an idea of an alternative, never mind implementing anything.
@citizen8
Maybe you should read Pepe Escobar’s articles on this blog about the EAEU and the SCO-led initiative to establish a commodity-based reserve currency.
Just less than a year ago, nobody thought if there was any way to ditch the USD in global trade. Now, many countries are doing bilateral trade in their own national currencies. That’s just the first step.
Discussions are going on for a PetroYuan, and there’s an alliance of the top gas exporters coming two of which are top US adversaries (Russia, Iran).
By freezing of Russia’s forex reserves, the world became aware that the USD isn’t trustworthy. That was the most severe blow the USD suffered in decades. Right now, the US is keeping its USD hegemony by holding the Global South at gunpoint and the threat of sanctions. That won’t last long because the US military power itself is diminishing and the SCO, BRICS and the BRI are expanding.
Ah, quite the opposite. It’s reading analysis from authors like Escobar that interested me to start commenting over the past few months. While the aspirational and wishful thinking is certainly uplifting, especially for people with little background in macroeconomics and the international financial system, it’s disconnected from sober analysis of what has actually been happening over the past several decades.
China is deeply interconnected with ‘the West’. Could that change at some indeterminate point in the future? Of course! But nothing from Escobar or other authors advocating that something imminent was about to happen due to the SMO has explained either how or when.
The world – especially the BRICS – didn’t just become aware of anything when Russia’s forex reserves were frozen. The world has known ‘the West’ isn’t trustworthy for decades. The problem is, loosely speaking, everything else is untrustworthier. Just ask holders of Turkish liras or Argentinian pesos. And whatever happened to that Hussein guy who wanted the UN oil for food program simply to get Euros, never mind Gaddafi who actually uttered the word gold out loud?
So I’m curious how you would answer my comment. What, exactly, is the alternative reserve asset that Beijing specifically, or the BRICS as a group, will support? When will they publicly support it? IMF SDRs? Gold? Gold+silver? Some digital derivative of a whole bunch of commodities somehow magically linked together in a stable and transparent way? Bitcoin? The Yuan/Renminbi itself? A fixed peg between the Ruble and Yuan?
The analytical issue here is that no one is identifying the problem. There are at least three broad types of ways to interpret the problem:
1. The problem is the USD.
2. The problem is all currencies in Zone A (USD, GBP, EUR, JPY, CAD, etc.)
3. The problem is the concept of storing long-term savings (reserves) in abstract concepts like national fiat currency units and complex financial derivatives instead of simple, physical assets held within a country’s national borders.
Or said more practically, last December (or today, or whenever), why didn’t BRICS countries simply offer to buy any quantity of gold/silver for a USD price of 100K/5K? Why all the cloak and dagger about non-official discussions about maybe a basket of currencies or maybe a derivative of commodities or maybe this or that or the other thing?
What analytical framework or perspective better answers that question?
The origins of slavery date back to biblical times, but I believe the first delivery of slaves to what became the USA occurred in August 1619, at what is now Hampton, Virginia. These slaves were captured by an act of piracy weeks before delivery. About 350 captive slaves from present day Angola were loaded by Spanish traders into the ship, San Juan Bautista. As the Bautista approached today’s coast of Mexico, the ship was captured by two ENGLISH pirate captains of the ships, White Lion and Treasurer. John Jope captained the White Lion, who dropped anchor in the James River, August 1619. The 20 or so captive slaves were “acquired” by then governor, George Yeardly, and merchant, Abraham Piersey. The ENGLISH were the first to bring African slaves to the shores of America, not the Dutch.
Abortion was not criminalized, it was returned to the decision of the states, rather than mandated federally.
This is a pattern we are seeing more of in the US: localities making decisions for themselves without regard to federal legality. Gun right and immigration rights are the most prevalent of these departures.
US hegemony may not die with an apocalyptic grand moment, but rather quietly break down into a true confederation of independent states loosely organized by a weak federal government, literally returning to the founder’s original intent.
What Sinotibetan writes underscores my view that the weakness of socialism is its drive towards mediocricity.
And I mean all variants of socialism which have thus far been supported by many people. The upholdning of the collective mind.
This does not originate from the rivals of the west but just the opposite mechanism is at work;
The west, and mostly the anglosaxon elites have been bolstering collectivist thinking in many targeted populations, with the obvious motive to maintain these peoples in a state of underdevelopment.
On their own home front the economic system has relied on its superiority to form the feedback loop sinotibetan brings up.
And there too the western elite has been fostering another kind of collectivist mindset, one that doesnt interfere with the ruling class.
In the west there is in my view a fear of encouraging independent thinking but leaving room for certain elite groups within science to fulfil the needs of the MIC and the monopolies.
Thus there is an effort to balance the potential economic gains from creativity with the risk of encouraging an oppositional intelligensia.
Sinotibetan seems to think, as I understand it, that this balance has been successfully met in that even that intelligensia has been corralled into the extremely destructive liberalism which originally was clearly exposed by its adherents, like Jeremy Bentham.
If one has come to accept that the nation state must not in any organised manner attempt to provide for the citizens but that everybody must allow extremely selfish and evil people to have their way while certain mysterious blind market forces will automatically lead to the best of worlds, then, as it appears to me we get our current condition.
I believe that those who have sofar supported socialism, ought to be attentive to this aspect and ask themselves: How can we instead act so as to, in a sense ‘produce’ more smart creative people rather than celebrating the average so to speak.
I am not suggesting that Chinas leadership has this weakness but that all those who sincerely support socialism do have it, inside China as well as in the west.
It is all about creativity and about encouraging it!
I’m afraid that Figure 1. “Total US public debt” is somewhat misleading as it is presented.
The general direction (up) is correct. However, according to a simple internet search on these matters, $1 in 1970 is worth $7.64 today. https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1970
Therefore, by my simple math, $30 trillion in 2022 would be equivalent to around $4 trillion in 1970 terms.
I don’t know what the number is on the chart for 1970 but if we assume it is $1 trillion (it looks less) then it would be equivalent to $7.6 trillion today. So, if we round up to 8, and use 32 to make it simple, then it has effectively increased 4 times.
Then again, there is purchasing power parity etc.
All concerning, but hardly reason for hysteria.
Or am I missing something fundamental?
“Or am I missing something fundamental?”
Yes predicated on “global instability” is a constant sometimes called change, and this is constantly hoped to be obfuscated by immersion of others in linear paradigms, also known as being enmazed in virtual reality.
$35 bought an ounce of gold in 1971 and today you need $1,700 hence the $ had lost more than 7% value every year since!
So, how many ounces of gold can you buy with $30T today;17,647,058,824 ounces worth $123T back in 1971…
Maybe get a new calculator?
or am I wrong..
But that’s the point. The money printing (emitting currency units beyond taxation) is so extreme that the folks behind it have had to do two things:
1. Change the definition of inflation away from its plain language use of increasing the amount of money, and
2. Then finagle their arbitrary construct as even the new definitions can’t hide the obvious transfer of wealth from the general public to connected insiders.
This is what’s so revealing about proponents of yet more deficit spending and yet more powerful centralized government. They are willfully obtuse to both the cumulative magnitude of US net deficit spending since WWII and to identifying which connected insiders got all that money.
And what’s so revealing about most ruling classes in Zone B is how deeply they are interconnected with the USD system and the international structures that have grown up around it.
The answer is debt.
IMF loans are in dollars
Government bonds are issued in dollars
So it’s not a question of attachment it’s a fact of financial infrastructure
You cannot just tear down a house of dollars and rebuild it with setting else unless
A) that house is weak and rotten
B) there are alternative materials that are better
B is a way off. There are huge issues with alternative currencies
– ease of trade
– synchronization with existing financial infrastructure
– stability
– transparency
– avoiding the many problems of the euro which has been disastrous for some countries
– valuation
– access
– ownership
The euro has shown it’s extraordinarily hard to create a common currency amongst different nations
What makes more sense is for Russia, China and India to really internationalise their currencies and create trading exchange where nations can trade in own currencies on agree currency pair values
A common bricks currency etc will be extremely complicated and hard
Much better to create a new currency system of trade than to create a new common currency
Re the difficulties inherent to a common currency. A common currency is not needed nor wanted. The ₽ and 元 are not widely accepted for one reason only: the Zionist Mafia cannot control them, so the mafia bars them. By barring such currencies, the mafia hopes to contain the respective countries. The new system you allude, but not define, is in process as we live and breathe today. Trades denominated in ₽ and 元 are increasing explosively.
The house of USD is being torn down, indeed, trade by trade, and derivative by derivative. The USD value of derivatives today is incalculable; we have simply not the means to report and assess it all. Everything and anything is now made into a derivative: price, currency, commodities, natural resources, risks. We have derivatives of derivatives. “Fair” estimates range from 4 to 8 quadrillion USD. This is between 10 and 20 times the entire GDP of ‘the west’. And, it is all debt, valued by debt (USD). Worse, every western country GDP is debt; all have debts that exceed their GDP. And, guess what? Every single derivative tracks back to a barrel of oil.
The western economic model is pillage and plunder. China and Russia both have been plundered, and have decided no more. Russia is the world’s largest producer of, guess what, oil. China is the world’s largest consumer of, guess what, oil.
The USA claim they are the world’s leader in R&D is total bullshit. The USA can design a chip, but not design the machines needed to produce that chip; nor can the USA produce ANY machine to the level of sophistication required to manufacture a chip. The Germans and Dutch can; but they use the brains of, guess whom, Asians; not entirely so, but significantly so. Only one other country can design and manufacture the machines needed IN HOUSE, for the latest 7nm tech: China. The USA needs chips desperately. The USA entire military relies upon chips for everything: from the huge carriers down to night vision goggles, over to communications by satellites and mobiles; but particularly its missiles. Remove chips and the “mighty” sic USA military is neutered.
People think the Zionist Mafia’s fixation upon Ukraine and Taiwan is by chance only?
The interest paid on the 30 trillion at 2.5% is 500billion,with the increase of
interest rates that are being introduced to fight inflation means that a rise
In interest to 5% which traditionally was classed as a low figure then the
Interest bill doubles to a trillion a year,imo do you consider this sustainable ?
@mmo
The US dollar has lost 99% of its purchasing power since 1913 when the privately owned Federal Reserve bank was created.
You state that $1 in 1970 is now worth $7.60 today ! You have it the wrong way round.
It now takes $7.60 to buy what $1 could buy in 1970 !
The decline was inevitable but I believe the end of the Cold War and dismantling of Soviet Union really turbocharged things. Without that threat there was no need for real patriotism by the top 1% and the US just became a strip mining operation. Also, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that NAFTA was signed shortly after the dissolution of the USSR.
This should be required reading for all Americans. What is a shame is that such a small minority of evil humans have positioned themselves over the last 120 years in all the right places to destroy America from the inside out and damage peoples lives across the globe . The Christian church in America is nothing but a shell of its former self and is directly responsible for both the decline and the destruction of EU, USA, and Middle East.
Another great article Philly Guy. Went back & reread Part 1.
Leaving the economics aside, today Biden gave what can only be described as a Civil War speech. Even the backdrop is suggestive of The Omen films of the 1980s when Satan incarnates as a son (Dubya?) of a US politician (Papa?) to become US President.
“We must be honest with each other and with ourselves. Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.”
https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1565497535476662273 (3:06)
This “extremism” and “not normal” is the Independence.
The Democrats have been howling and crying this way since the 13′ amendment was voted in against their will in 1865.
Very Good read, one of the most despicable institutes the west has produced is this type of ”press” and ”journalism”. The fact that these b*st*rds made wars of aggression more fissionable is enough to condemn them all to hell.
It always reminds me of Hammurabi’s law, the ancient king of Babylon. It would be fitting punishment for these rascals; rip their tongues out so they say no lies, since all they do is lie.
Interesting overview, but I don’t think it’s true that the US Supreme Court has criminalised pregnancy!
Dont forget China, Russia, Iran stole the Mackinder theory from the West and used it for their own profit, without paying a buck to West for our intellectual property.
China stole America’s freedom. The Chinese were simply sucking our freedom out of America, the more homeless and slaves we became the more housing and freedom the Chinese got.
Conclusion: We cannot see it only from an internal standpoint but we have to see it in a global intellectual perspective. The recklessness with which certain countries have been pulling America around by the nose the last 30 years.
The point is America has to fight and take its freedom and intellectual property back from the East that they stole from us.
This is the only way forward for America and this globe, so it can be equal!
How does this comment make sense?
As for stolen intellectual property…
Gunpowder from China
Maths and the number 0 from India and middle East
Paper and glass from Egypt
List goes on
West hasn’t paid shit for what it’s got.
Did you pay for US, AU’s, NZ, Canada?
Did you pay for slaves and slave labour?
Did you pay for the gold and wealth you thieves steal?
You are the biggest thieves and pirates in the world
Parasites on the Earth
If global warming exists you caused it,mass pollution,you caused it, all you do is create trouble
The West is only the free world in the sense that everyone else is the slave world
How ironic that the greatest thieves calls others thief.
Well thief cheerleader, others get to take back their things too, where would that leave you, in a tent in the streets of Europe.
I think we are heading that way, toward tents. When a thing is on it’s head its sometimes useful to turn this head on its head so minus + minus get plus. Forgive me my friend for the sarcasm not noted in my comment.
“Eu fui diretor da CIA, nós mentimos, enganamos e roubamos, nós tínhamos cursos completos para essa formação. Lembra a glória do experimento norte-americano”, disse Mike Pompeo recentemente no College Station, Texas.
“I was director of the CIA, we lied, cheated and stole, we had full courses for this training. It recalls the glory of the American experiment,” Mike Pompeo said recently at College Station, Texas.
There is no inherent truth to intellectual property. Look at the animal kingdom, if a crow sees and understands another crow’s better hunting skill it copies and employs it for its own survival. You just cannot invent something and claim that it is yours to keep. It is a human artifact and a trick all on its own. In human history everybody copied something intelligent from one another. it is like air and is free for the intellectually capable party to action on it – much like the shrewd crow which observes the other. If there is no inherent and fundamental truth to that then it is purely a practice adopted by a certain entity, which in our case will have to be settled and agreed upon by all who practice onboard. It is called negotiation – there is no stealing involved. If you are fearful of sharing your invention then protect it at your own device. It is solely your responsibility not that of your adversaries.
Thats why I find the concept “intellectual property” so funny. I joke a lot with my Brazilian friends around this feature.
You tell your friends about your dream of travelling to Portugal for holiday some day. The next week your friends buy tickets to Portugal and tell you what a splendid idea you got there. They stole your idea……ha ha ha :-P
Probably the American Native Peoples ought to be taking back what was stolen from them. Better yet it might be smarter for the invaders to give back the lands, or at least pay compensation for it.
….fighting terrorism since 1492?
….by the way, most patents and copyrights have a “Fair Use” clause.
Please, for your own sake, stop doing drugs. Drugs harm your intellect (already evident, sadly!), make you lose all sense of reality (also evident, alas), and weaken your integrity and moral fibre. Remember, you can easily regain your sense of lost freedom by eating more “freedom fries”! And to uplift your mood try singing the old jingle “Life goes better with Coca Cola”.
I was told by my elders who went through many a bad time, one of the first items that goes scarce in times of trouble is toilet paper. Over the years I found this out to be true. Reports are out saying toilet paper is going scarce in the EU*. However, the EU really need not worry, for the U.S.A. is to the rescue! As it is, the U.S. is out printing dollars faster than ever. That should provide a fair substitute.
*https://thelevantnews.com/en/article/germans-warned-of-toilet-paper-shortageaugust-26,-2022,-11:45-am
The US lost its way when the CIA got into bed with organized crime.
Peddling drugs and the resulting harm it has done. 1950s & 60s was the danger period.
Its something Putin and Russia will have to watch, and Stalin would never have allowed it.
That was coupled with allowing too many foreign interests to control its financial system and that goes back to 1867 to 1913.
No country should allow foreigners to run its central banking system.
“The US lost its way when the CIA got into bed with organized crime.”
No, no, no. The US lost it’s way way before it was the USA. You need to go back at least 250 years, maybe more.
Thank you very much for the informative and well-referenced writing. Love to have references made available to dive deeper into a piece and also check source commentary.
As an aside, with video links in references, where possible would an Odysee link be able to be prioritised above a Youtube one? Some videos get removed or demonetized by YT so having an alternative go to source rather than YT would be advantegous to the ‘ageing’ of these pieces as well as impact on the creators of the reference ongoing income.
Kind regards
The Madness of Clowns
Russia can demand that its exports are settled in roubles or simply stop exporting – since there is no longer anything on the other side worth importing.
The first move is already in place. The second is undoubtedly incoming.
Beautifully explained here.
https://new-wayland.com/blog/madness-of-clowns/
«Russia can demand that its exports are settled in roubles or simply stop exporting – since there is no longer anything on the other side worth importing.»
It is indeed largely pointless to “sanction” a country that is self-sufficient in fuels and cereals like the RF.
As to other things, there is China-mainland, and their businesses are worried about USA “secondary sanctions” if they trade with the RF, but the PRC government will cover for them.
But that puts the Russian Federation in a dependency with China instead of the “Washington Consensus”. As to that I was reading an article about 5G some years ago, and a RF minister was saying that there was a big risk of back-doors in any such technology, and their only choice was whether to take that risk with “western” or chinese 5G infrastructure, and they had decided that for the RF the chinese option was the less risky.
This article loves to use only one side of the balance sheet.
The liability side of the balance sheet and ignores the asset side of the balance sheet.
It’s called balance sheet itis.
Let’s rewrite the economics bit using the asset side of the balance sheet instead of the liability side of the balance sheet.
US private sector assets have increased circa $2 trillion annually, currently exceeding $30 trillion ; this figure does not include municipal, corporate or consumer debt. Because municipal, corporate and consumer debt is private sector debt and is nothing like public sector debt.
Municipal, corporate or consumers are currency users not currency issuers so this debt is the most important.
Public debt is the ASSETS of households, businesses and foreigners.
The only constraints on $ issuance has nothing to do with the size of the public debt. The constraints are the human and real resources available.
the constraint on TAX CUTS is whether the economy has the productive resources and capacity to absorb such spending without it leading to excessive price rises
The constraint on BANK LENDING is whether the economy has the productive resources and capacity to absorb such spending without it leading to excessive price rises. If people can meet the borrowing requirements.
The constraint on GOVT SPENDING is whether the economy has the productive resources and capacity to absorb such spending without it leading to excessive price rises.
ALL different types of spending can be inflationary.
Finding the money is never the problem
How you are going to resource it always is and that is the skills and real resources you have available that can absorb the demand without it leading to excessive price rises.
The US govt budget deficit is the private sector surplus in $’s.
The US national debt is just that surplus that has been swapped for a US treasury.
businessinsider.com/goldmans-jan-hatzius-on-sectoral-balances-2012-12?op=1&r=US&IR=T
The decline of late-stage American capitalism has been ongoing since the mid-1970s … The decline of late-stage American capitalism has progressed to the point where the very survival of the American empire is now contingent upon endless money printing to prop up financial markets and the military.”
In my view, it has become utterly absurd to refer to the American political economy as “capitalism.” Every possible modification by some adjective inserted before “capitalism” also continues to be an absurd abuse of words.
There is nothing meaningful whatsoever left in the word “capitalism” when there is “contingent upon endless money printing.” Indeed, since 1971 the creation of money made out of nothing as debts no longer had any physical connection to the real world, other than the long history of money being measurement backed by murder. Hence, the American Money was backed by the American Murder.
“We” are collectively used to using absurd political language. The decline of the USA is due to its “parasites” overwhelming its “producers,” through symbolic robberies achieved by enforced frauds.
“ ratcheted up state violence against working people and people of color”
Actually, ratchet up “violence” against people who are white – critical race theory, encouraged violence against whites, ignore crimes committed against whites, media focus on any white crime or perceived white crime against a minority, will not update crimes when it was claimed falsely to be white and it is actually non white, all prior white leaders labelled fascist, white success is because of racism, blame whitey for injustice, etc.
Indeed so, Fred.
http://palladiummag.com/2022/06/17/epistemology-semantics-and-doublethink/
Epistemology, Semantics, and Doublethink
By Carroll Quigley, 1950.
“The history of mankind seems to indicate that he proceeds by a process of oscillation from one extreme to its opposite, passing through the sanity of the middle ground only en route from one lunatic fringe to another.”
The social pendulum swing slowly at the extremes, which can last an astonishing long time. (“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”) The more balanced states last the briefest period of time.
Reverse racism against white people is going to get worse and worse, at about an exponential rate. The momentum is now building and building, such that adverse discrimination against white people (as well as male and heterosexual, etc.) is surely going to get way worse.
I regard it as delusional to expect that the US economic decline and global instability is going to be miraculously improved by better people in better countries. Moreover, as civilization gets crazier and crazier, nature is also going to be going more nuts than ever before in known human history.
For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihwoIlxHI3Q
THE Earth Disaster Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2decDcEJqo&list=PLHSoxioQtwZcVcFC85TxEEiirgfXwhfsw&ab_channel=Suspicious0bservers
Divide and rule strategies have been pushed to oblivion all across the board, especially including the new kind of racism against “whites.”
The overall situation is several orders of magnitude worse than the mainstream media hype.
The exchange rate of the ruble is artificial due to the war in Ukraine and the related economic sanctions, which is why it is questionable to increase the value of let’s say two billion just by referring to the exchange rate change. If foreign investors were allowed to return their investments from Russia without restrictions, the ruble’s exchange rate would weaken significantly.
Frankie-dann schaff doch die Sanktionen wieder ab und schau zu ob dadurch der Dollar der durch ein manipuliertes BIT aufgewertet wurde noch höher steigt.
Welch eine Logik.
Mod – machine translation:
Frankie-then abolish the sanctions again and see if the dollar, which was revalued by a manipulated BIT, rises even higher.
What logic.
Big picture for Germany looks bleak while not perhaps not as bleak as believed during early summer.
“After a big jump last week, Europe’s natural gas prices have plunged sharply this week on news that Germany’s gas stockpiles are running ahead of schedule. Benchmark Dutch front-month futures crashed 21% on Monday, reversing last week’s 40% jump after Germany’s Economy Minister Robert Habeck revealed that the country’s gas stores are filling up fast and are on target to meet the October target of 85% full.
Monday’s plunge has brought some relief after a furious rally, though futures are still trading almost six times higher than a year ago. Europe is on the brink of a recession, with inflation running at the highest in decades in several countries. European Governments have collectively set aside some 280 billion euros ($278 billion) in relief packages.
However, the fundamental picture still looks bleak for Germany even with full storage sites, with the country in danger of not being able to go through the winter if Russia decides to halt flows. The Czech Republic, which holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, plans to call an extraordinary meeting of energy ministers to discuss bloc-wide solutions.”
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/European-Gas-Prices-Plunge-As-Germany-Fills-Storage-Ahead-Of-Schedule.html
I’ve been staying in GER( 2.1/2 year break) for personal reasons, but this will come to an end at the end of September. Then I’ ll return to my formal occupation in working for an organisation setting up projects, worldwide, for SO CALLED handicapped people (regardless how it does appear).
So normally I’m working 6 months in the US, CAN & South Amerika, than 4 months in China & Asia, to return to Europe & Russia for 2 months….
So I may claim I see the influences & politics & stage play dealings with my very own eyes since more than 20 years.
Unfortunately the amounts of utter mendacity, hypocricy & double standards are everywhere to find BUT the USA only IS that huge ICEBERG, where you see just the “TIP” of it, but a very bloody, cruel-greedy, murderous & massive REST lays below the viewable.
Americans are the most brainwashed people on this earth!!
I’d talks in the filthiest Indian slums, humans who never went to any school or in so called most indoctrinated places like NK, where citizens came up with a rather balanced & acurate reflection of our world than the vast majoriety of so called well educated Americans.
If I stay in the USA, I’ll prefer home-stay thats the only way to get a authentic picture of what is going on, REALLY… and I can tell you it isn’t pretty.
WHAT YOU SEE OR HEAR… mostly !!!
Since 1O years it’s almost disintegrating.
How come, those rotten inner cities in general ?!… in one of the richest countries!?… all those mentally impaired people on the streets (also there’re working poor, people/families living in their cars, kicked out youth, other homeless, drug adicts etc.) or in prison, not in places (there are some, ofc, yet too little drops on a very hot plate!) to help, cure or support. All in all that’s MILLIONs , and it’s just one factor.
Even when the packaging seems to be affluent or even rich. So much hate (well hidden under phoney blah, blah, blah) for each orther, so much envy and excuses for taking advantages, regardless how cruel or inhuman.
And so called racism has a nice pillow everywhere, among all ethnics backgrounds. Sometimes I was quite surprised what blacks, latinos and asians had to say about each others… and also what they did to each other.
If you look at the bigger picture, you start to understand… all of this gives you the right impressions about the true face of the USA… and to me its seems impossible to come up with any movement big enough to generate a more social & humane society, without destroying the foundations of the actual one!!!
The only way to bring change, an better alternative, of course not perfect but nonetheless more just and balanced, is the falling down & defeat or how the Germans say: Die Niederlage of the USA. Even physically… if neccessary.
Unfortunately, this might be the case, then Americans will learn themselves how it does feel & hurt to be eradicated for purely political reasons.
And the moment the USA-Cancer is erased, all those puppets will be silient, including bloody scheming UK.
That’s the lesson in history you read over and over in those writings of mankind.
I remember that fake prediction, lol,
that the USA where that country best prepared to overcome a mega pandemic.
After one MILLION deads: a rather braindead & imcompetent govermental USA – REALLY – is that emperor without clothes, enriching corporations & owners, the ONE %, but leaves the commons – more than ever – helpless and eventual dead.
And believe me you have no idea what will hit you, the moment hot war between US – CHN will break loose, especially concerning RUS also involved, somehow.
And sorry to tell you, in the aftermath the USA won’t be relevant anymore. In stark contrast to CHN & RUS.
Like your outdated airports, when I arrive from China in the USA, let allone from its first tier cities, you REALLY look, feel and behave quite outdated and rather banana-republic-like.
It’s painful to read that 51% of all Americans believe Dinos & Humans walked the same earth together according to some publications. Over 35% still think Iraq had WMD, at least 42% do believe Iraq did attack the USA via 9.11., even so the VAST majority of planning and executing terrorists were Saudi-Arabians. And so on, on and on…
The USA reminds me of our former cousin the Homo Erectus, almost 2 million years on earth, who conquered quasi the entire landmass, only to go down surprisingly fast.
That’s you, America: Created on ethnic cleansing & genocide of the natives !!
(You broke or “adjusted” every single CONTRACT, more than 500 !!, during the first 200 years, there’re about 500 nations, far more than just 8 million people, latest studies estimated 24-35 million people lived before the Europeans came along. Where are they!? What happened? 8 years ago the UN wrote: native proverty of appaling & extreme levels, a genocide of culture almost complete, the native’s elite as corrupt as greedy as the ‘white’ ones, the financial damage scince settlers’ arriving counts on double diggit trillons of dollars… got it any better… ?! )
And concerning the empire, compared to the Roman one, you haven’t even gotten the 300 years touchstone, and definitely you won’t reach its almost 950 years.
You’ll stuck with the as greedy as sad bloody end of the Roman Republic – it’s such a mirror to the USA, historically.
And it won’t take the next 50 years to lay your “IMPERIUM” to rest.
If so… a bright new day may arise for the homo sapiens sapiens.
Ciao
AW
i