The Trump “event” has come and gone, and we’re really no closer to knowing precisely what happened, as details have only become more convoluted, with endless conspiracy theories floated by click- and ragebait-happy pundits.
No, no...CET>EDT....Its Simplicius on here for breakfast then on X after lunch followed by Duran in the afternoon and Mercouris before bed. Sprinkle in some Dima, Valterson or Cassad in between, if anything special is going on. There you have it
Mercouris isnt that simplistic - he has a much greater understanding of history, geopolitics and Russian culture than your juvenile drive by slur suggests.
Let me guess, Russian who blames Jews for Ukraine? Your antipathy is as facile and it is superficially shallow in its epistemic roots. America's longstanding antagonism and history of provocation towards Russia has more to do with the dismantling of the American military and intelligence complex in the post-Cold War era than anything else.
They needed a Russian bogeyman to prevent the complete gutting of the American capacity for future wars, or even the ability to defend themselves. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the Jews, just as American Shock Therapy was the product of an ideological hubris, which didn't acknowledge economic realities on the ground. Poland is likely to surpass UK GDP per capita precisely because their privatisation of public assets was more gradual and didn't provoke the types of massively destabilising labour shocks seen in Russia.
Stop blaming the Jews. It wasn't them. And racism doesn't win hearts and minds, either. People are individuals- and the success of countries like Botswana, despite massive geographical disadvantages, shows that many of the stereotypes you likely believe, are simply untrue. Many of the remaining 'inherent' racial differences you likely believe in are the result of vitamin D deficiency- easily curable with long-term supplementation, which explains why high IQ Black people are far more common than Bell Curve statistical maths would suggest- because the root of structural deficits are heavily biased by vitamin D deficiency related conditions, which vary tremendously within an ancestral population- low birth weight, premature birth, pre-eclampsia and maternal death in childbirth- to name but a few.
What was done to your country was horrible, but it was largely a cynical hedge bet on the part of America- they wanted to prevent a future nuclear war with China, but realised that the economic forces they were unleashing through neoliberalism could well precipitate a future Thucydides Trap, the peaceful outcome of which was largely dependent upon military and economic parity.
So Russia became the convenient bogeyman, the scapegoat to justify American military spending, calculated to prevent a flare up over Taiwan, as well as retaining the capacity to project power into the Middle East to secure vital oil supplies. The people who you should really be mad at are those who view humanity as an abstraction, a problem to be solved in pursuit of a future utopia of global governance.
I would start with the UN, the theosophical movement and the Lucis Trust. No joke- they actually praise Lucifer! The Lucis Trust is heavily affiliated with the UN, including through sponsorship. Theosophy was also a major philosophical factor influencing the Nazis, Hitler and the SS, particularly with regard to their occult obsessions.
You conveniently leave out the Jewish neocons' visceral hatred of Russia, as a consequence they have been pushing the U.S. non-stop into wars in the region and its destruction and millions of deaths.
As for theosophy's influence on Hitler, you leave out the fact that it was not theosophy that got Hitler in the saddle but U.S. corporations and politicians, while proto-ZioNazis helped him earn some further money (Haavar Agreement) and get rid of some Jews without killing them.
I don't dispute that several Jewish intellectuals had a profound influence on the neocons. However, if one is familiar with the Wolfowitz Doctrine it's plain it's a treatise on maintaining US global hegemonic unilateral power. There were only four other signatories to the NPT.
Britain and France were irrelevant because they were satellite Allies in geopolitical terms. China was dangerously out of reach- hence neoliberalist trade envelopment. The American planners hoped that economic desperation might convince post-Soviet Russia to abandon their nuclear veto. It was the type of naive wishful thinking that comes from civilian analysis and which didn't understand the role the Russian military in Russian life.
Besides, Russia possessed every advantage. Insane mineral wealth, agricultural abundance and a resilient educated workforce, particularly in hard engineering. There was every reason to think they might become a resurgent superpower, with modernisation and technological investment. Unfortunately, Russia never really got the Dutch financial innovations which the British (and later America) copied.
I'm not surprised. Bond confidence, actuarial science and the financial alchemy of summoning liability and asset out of nothing is voodoo economics, but it's incredibly useful if the money is used for militaries and building productive economics. It's only the misuse of the technology to support leviathan governmental structural liabilities which makes the technology so dangerous.
Nervos belli, pecuniam infinitam
Diplomacy and trade have always been amoral beasts. The Queen had to shake hands with monsters in human form, and pose for photographs. It has always been thus, thus it will always be. The fact that the Nazis at one point explored deporting Jews, doesn't imply that they actually liked or supported them.
My brother attended one of only two universities in the UK offering actuarial science courses. There was only one other Westerner in his class of 30. The rest were Asians, over half were Chinese.
When Western finance gets into trouble it's usually because they stopped listening to the actuarial maths guys (quants). It can be used to win wars. It's the sharp end of econometrics. The professional qualifications can be taken an infinite number of times, because they fully expect Maths Majors from Harvard to fail repeatedly.
China understands this- the West has forgotten it. Finance exists within proper boundaries and a dynamic equilibrium. I can't remember the exact quote, but Adam Smith said something along the lines of 'a nation which pursues profit to the exclusion of else is headed for collapse'. It's emblematic of the quarterly obsession and the failure to realise that without a view to long-term investment and future value creation, Great Nations are doomed.
Plus, we're sleepwalking straight into the wrong outcome of the Thucydides Trap.
FWIW: I have absolutely no problem with Bolshevik Jews. It is quite obvious to me that they are one of the few who stand up to the NeoFeudalists that are destroying the American Dream.
Russia never saw a resurgence not because of "lack of financial innovations" (it has plenty of those, go to Moscow and try paying with credit cards, you'll be looked at as if you fell from the sky), but because the same elites that betrayed the USSR, were still in power. And these elites wanted nothing more than to be a "part" of the West. Russia will only see a resurgence once it abandons its policy of "Reconciliation" with the West and pursues its own independent path, as it did during the Soviet era.
I need to expand, Putin has pretty much told the west after 2 decades of trying to reach an agreement with them to "be friends" to "Just Fuck Off".
The reason the BRICS have coalesced into "something" is because Russia had the guts to tell the West he wasn't going to deal with their hypocrisy any longer. China, while a greater economic power, is very much a junior partner in this new crusade against the greed of the American Oligarchy.
It is almost funny though to realize the the American Oligarchy is its own worst enemy.
Russia never saw a resurgence not because of "lack of financial innovations" (it has plenty of those, go to Moscow and try paying with credit cards, you'll be looked at as if you fell from the sky), but because the same elites that betrayed the USSR, were still in power. And these elites wanted nothing more than to be a "part" of the West. Russia will only see a resurgence once it abandons its policy of "Reconciliation" with the West and pursues its own independent path, as it did during the Soviet era.
I don't blame the "Jews" in general since there are any number of Jews I totally support like Norm Finkelstein and Max Blumenthal, but I will not deny that the number of Billionaire Jews in the USA far exceeds their presence in the American population as a whole. Some claim them to be Zionists, but I just think they are descendants of Meyer Lansky's "Murder Incorporated". Profit through any means necessary.
I don't believe this group "hates" Russia, but they do see it as an area full of promise to fill their pockets with even more ill-gotten gain.
Are they "more evil" than the standard American Billionaire? Hard to say, but as Berletic points out, Musk really, really wants to expand humanity into space because he has invested in reusable rockets, while ULA is solely interested in scamming the US government.
That's because of IQ. Generally, the race realists are mainly wrong when it comes to race and IQ. The picture is far more complex, especially when one considers that polygenic factors can be easily remedied by simple solutions like vitamin D supplementation.
But the Ashkenazi Jews are a specific exception to the general rule. Even if one excepts the lower end of the estimate for mean intelligence (106 to 108), then that means for every one white person at the right tail end of the distribution per population, there will be 6 to 8 Ashkenazi Jews per population. This is reflected in the fact that Ashkenazi Jews are only 0.1% of global population, but constitute 20% of Nobel prizes.
The reason why I consider the Ashkenazi an exception is because they are the only ones whose higher intelligence can be proven by a strong correlation between high intelligence and specific neurological genetic disorders. For everyone else, the picture is more complex and dependent upon polygenic factors.
'Some claim them to be Zionists, but I just think they are descendants of Meyer Lansky's "Murder Incorporated". Profit through any means necessary.'
That's not true, in the absence of corporatisation, only around 5% of any given market are bad actors. The problem is that the West has rapidly become both corporatized and crony capitalist. Musk was right when he said government was 'corporation at the limit'. It's a protection racket with a VIP lounge of preferred clients.
Here's a good quote for you: 'Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.' It's Benito Mussolini's original definition of Fascism, and highly ironic, given that those most often opposed to it are usually labelled Fascists.
It's the thing that really irritates me about libertarians- they are right about so many things, but because they won't compromise their principles towards populist issues, they don't stand a chance in Hell of breaking up the state/crony capitalist cabal.
"Even if one excepts the lower end of the estimate for mean intelligence (106 to 108), then that means for every one white person at the right tail end of the distribution per population, there will be 6 to 8 Ashkenazi Jews per population"
That's an abuse of statistics. There are 30+ white people for every jew in the us population. In absolute terms there should be a total glut of white geniuses....and there are.
Institutional control by jews is better explained, and better predicted, with game theory low trust vs high trust. You will hardly find a tormented lone jewish genius but there are boatloads of tormented lone white geniuses. I'm sure you can guess who funds most of the tormenting.
It wasn't deliberate, but I take your point. I was simply pointing to the fact that Ashkenazi Jews would be overrepresented. Plus, you have to recognise the representation bias- only forecasters are any good at estimating the number of Black and Brown people in a picture of thousands of people. Most people wouldn't naturally divide the picture into sectors and perform a manual count to extrapolate the total. People almost always overestimate that which is noticeably different from themselves, even relatively minor differences, like a last name.
You're right about the high trust vs. low trust phenomenon, because don't see the correct causes. It's not about patronage. It's about community social cohesion. Some Asian groups massively outperform White groups despite only relatively small differences in IQ. This is because they've maintained their work ethic, their stable family formation and retention, and community cohesion.
It's the same picture in Northern Ireland in the Catholic community. They used to be the ones living on council estates, whilst the Protestants lived in leafy suburbs. But once Civil Right were instituted and discrimination ended the situation quickly reversed. Why? Because they had strong communities and families, and with a stronger degree of cultural faith, they were able to resist the disintegrating power of liberalism pushed to unhealthy extremis.
I am not saying that nepotism and preferential treatment doesn't exist, because it does. That's human nature. But compared to factors like social cohesion and the healthy peer groups provided by communities with a high percentage of married, stable couples, it's a relatively minor factor. And let's face it most White cultures have fragmented down to the point that they no longer feel much in the way of community spirit or the social responsibility of staying together until the kids leave the roost. Experiencing divorce has been proven to have a higher impact on educational outcomes than losing a parent...
It's a good point about Game Theory though, but you're more likely to be able to explain it to others through the intergenerational accumulation of comparative advantage. Wealth doesn't correlate with success for kids income levels, but parental income levels does. Obviously Lysenko is horseshit, but there might be something to Lamarckian ideas as cultural inheritances. Kids who have their parents read to them at night possess a huge advantage, particularly if their parents social selection puts them in a group of similar peers.
I think I answered this elsewhere and shouldn't repeat myself. But your claim of only 5% "bad market actors" depends on a definition of bad that I don't agree with. IMHO just Black Rock by itself represents a "bad market actor" but they operate no differently than the other Oligarchs which own the government and are mostly funded by AIPAC and other Jewish organizations. Fascism is the same as end-stage capitalism which "rhymes" with Plato's progression of governments to tyranny.
You obviously missed my point about corporatisation. Any large organisation, by it's very nature, will become a perversion of everything good. Why? Because our normal human reciprocal interactions are disrupted by distance- people become abstractions beyond two degrees of separation, and interactions at the two step level are exactly ideal.
Plus, we need to recognise the distinction between authority and responsibility. Most human organisations have a tendency to want to keep the authority at the top, whilst immediately shirking responsibility to some witless and unaware underlings as soon as anything goes wrong. This is the opposite of how things should work in a human system- authority should be pushed down to the extent that any employee has the ability to contact an immediate boss when their entity needs to look like something other than an unfeeling beast. If you work for a bank and a recently bereaved customer contacts you, then you should bend over backwards to help. Besides, it's generally an axiom that one delegate authority, but one cannot delegate responsibility- even though many may pretend otherwise, for legal purposes. It's also why you should not listen to anyone who talks about accountability (unless to inform them of their error). It's a government dodge. Accountability removes the distinction between authority and responsibility and instead inherently seeks an underling to blame. Responsibility always, always resides at the top. It's why the UK introduced the Corporate Manslaughter charge under UK Law, back in the days when we still had an institutional backbone.
And government is the worst for such things. It's reflected by the fact that government employees are just as unhappy in their work as those who work for large faceless corporations. Meanwhile people who work in the SME sector show levels of happiness with their work and workplace which scores 'very' or 'extremely' happy at rates of 75% to 80%. People like to form communities, and that can happen in the workplace as much as anywhere else. The limit seems to be about 150 people.
And it's not end-stage in a chronological sense. Scale is a perennial threat- as witnessed by the fact that Adam Smith himself was a huge critic of the East India Company. It's obviously up to the citizenry as to the scale of government, but what they should remember is that there are core functions which are absolutely vital. Chief amongst them is competition. There ae various commercial advantages to scale which needs to be actively resisted by government in order to prevent the current Western scenario of emerging rentier economics.
Market systems are inherently flawed because they are unstable and vulnerable- but mainly because the dog set to watch the henhouse invariably goes feral. Even in Ancient China there were market and statist periods, and without exception the market periods were prosperous and socially stable whilst the statist periods were not. They even had more famines during the statist periods, pointing to Taleb's conclusion in other sectors that anti-fragile systems are distributed, and resilient through constant shock-testing of the nodes and networks. It's why the West's financial systems are such a mess and so prone to collapse- there aren't enough players, they are too big and we don't allow them to experience the results of risky behaviour, the shocks.
America's long standing hatred and provocations towards Russia are a result of 1) cold warriors still in power, 2) long term conditioning of Russia as the enemy 3) the soviets being direct competitors that prevented the expansion of US business. The hatred of the Soviets carries over to the Russians by momentum.
People aren't "individuals" (aka unique little snowflakes) but operate by a set of principles that can be used to track the behavior of populations on average. You do not need to predict the behavior of an individual when you can predict the behavior of a population to quite accurately predict the behavior of an individual. It's the same principle by which integrals work. What does this mean for Jews? It means that while some "individuals" may act a certain way, "most of them" "on average" act in a way that tends to destabilize societies.
While Russia was the bogeyman in the 90's-10's due to momentum, Putin's speech at Bucharest in 2008 gave the US competition anxiety which again renewed Russia's "bogeyman status". The rise of China's economic and scientific might seriously challenges America's hegemony and thus is a threat leading to the pivot towards China. However, Ukraine is Biden's pet project and couldn't be abandoned due to personal ambitions - for the US its a mistake as giving Russia Ukraine could have resulted in an ally on China's border.
Mostly an intelligent comment. My only quibble would be the cold warrior comment. The bellicose elements of the Washington Foreign Policy Establishment are far more likely to be civilians and in the political class. Most military men are far more rational, the exception being the careerists looking to get promoted.
Anyway,, the prevailing theory goes like this. America's decline is inevitable and only the aggressive demonstration of American military and economic power on the world stage can slow the decline. It's typical of the technocratic class- wrong about everything! (With the notable exception that most of the developed world is going to decline because of aging populations- China has it's own 421 problem, so does Russia).
The American decline is by no means assured, but any attempt to redress it will require major, major reforms, which the permanent state will resist. And the continual draining off of American blood and treasure is factor which speeds decline, rather than slowing it. Sure, the casualty rates might appear quite slow, but what about the broken men, the burn pits, the long-term consequences of large numbers of men unable to work? There truly is no such thing as the uninjured soldier.
As to the population behaviour issue, it's something I've raised before in this comments thread. We are talking about human proclivities, not tendencies specific to Jews. In this case it's intellectuals, and Ashkenazi Jews just happen to have more of them per population. And by intellectual, I don't mean highly intelligent individuals. By intellectual I mean those so unable to cope with the intermittent and inevitable tragedy of the human condition, who then seek to either 'reform' human nature or promise false utopia. Thomas Sowell has talked about it- the difference between the constrained and unconstrained view.
That doesn't mean there aren't great artists and great poets who create soaring odes to beauty and human frailty- Russian writers, for example. But generally the legacy of intellectuals on the world is a history of failed experiments, promoting human misery and suffering, with no apology forthcoming. Besides, most of the latest batch of destructive intellectuals were all French, or French Afro-Caribbean. Liu Cixin captured it beautifully in his book the The Three Body-Problem. Quite apart from introducing a new batch of historically ignorant young people to the realities of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (mirrored in our current Western Cultural moment), he maintained that it was only the elite intellectual class which could have such vitriolic contempt for their own nations and humanity as a whole.
If I had any advice for China it would be to isolate their highly cognitive class away from the Culture. Make them study science or engineering- both they and the world will be the better for it.
In a world that most believe already has too many people, I get really tired of the silly Peter Zeihan argument that an aging population must lead to economic decline.
China has a youth unemployment problem now, why would it need more unemployed youth? (although this does seem to create conditions which result in 8x the STEM graduates in China compared to the US)
Then there's the video of the Xaiomi Su7 manufacturing plant which showed at most 4 people running the robots that built the cars.
Thanks for that. It's useful info, and it's backed up by pretty poor labour participation rates. There are four things to remember. 1) China experienced the same type of shock as everyone else as a result of the pandemic hysteria. It's the equivalent of the shock of a world war, without the de-housing. Generally things don't fully recover from such effects for at least ten years.
2) China has been systematically offshoring it's lower value manufacturing in areas like textiles to Africa. In theory, this should work- everybody moves up, right? Unfortunately, it's a fiction. Large scale labour disruptions are generally a lot worse than economists claim. Labour doesn't always magically reallocate- some of its gets lost, people drop out of the workforce if they are mentally vulnerable, etc. A friend told me about peasant fisherman in one major coastal city- like the labour that time forget. That being said, it's great for Africa.
3) Like most of the West, China has an overproduction of Elites problem, of the Peter Turchin variety. It may not seem like it as a surface level. After all, at 27% the figure isn't far off that of Germany which is pretty rational at recognising little personal or economy value at offering tertiary education to more than a fixed percentage of the population (because of the cognitive spectrum). But it's important to remember that China is two countries. The China of the coast, which is an advanced economy, with a need for a high knowledge specialised workforce, and the China of the interior, which is far larger and doesn't anywhere near as many graduates per population. So, it's a mismatch of education to labour requirements. Too many chiefs, not enough Indians.
4) The global investment class got incredibly skittish after the pandemic. They realised the inherent risks in having all their eggs in one basket. China's loss is the rest of Asia's gain.
I agree with you on the automation issue. I worked automation back in the stone age of AS400s. It's why people should read Jeffery Sachs book on Globalisation (or at least the opening chapters about the shift from primary and secondary sectors to tertiary). Unfortunately, most service sector jobs are always going to be shit- they can't be scaled, they are inherently piss poor in terms of productivity and are limited in labour value- nowhere near as good as the old jobs in tradeable manufacturing. It's why people need to recognise the huge potential in libertarian land reforms, supercharging construction and providing the younger generations with cheap starter homes. And it actually increases value further up the housing ladder, but nobody can be bothered to explain that to the boomer generation, worried about depleting their housing pot of gold.
One thing I've learned is that civilians "don't think anything", mostly. They are told what to think and think that. When the policy of the government shifts, so does its messaging meaning that yesterday's friends suddenly become the most hated of enemies and the population goes along with it. Narratives are king. He who controls the narrative, controls everything. This explains the sudden change of few Ukrainians seeming themselves as "Ukrainian" in 2014, to being willing to die for it in a few short years. It also explains why people suddenly hate China when they were ambivalent before. The trick is to hijack the narrative, but this requires many people working in tandem to shift the overton window.
America's decline depends on abandoning the USD or losing a major military conflict to a "minor" nation so that countries begin to doubt America's ability to protect them, keep them in line and protect the USD. The USD and military might are linked and cannot be seperated from one another. OTOH, going isolationist (as Trump proposes) could be catastrophic for the USD/American power as it will be viewed as an "unreliable" partner and will thus cause many countries to leave NATO/dump the USD. This is what we want.
There are intellectuals and then there are Jewish intellectuals. Before Catherine let in many European jews into Russia, Russia had a healthy discourse amongst leading intellectuals and thinkers about Russia and its place in the world. The presence of Jewish intellectuals suddenly leads to terrorism and destability of the State. This has been consistent since the time of the Romans (and one of the main reasons why the Jews lost their homeland in the first place). It seems like its a cultural characteristic for them (unlike many claim, each nation has a defining characteristic that characterizes a large percentage of their population).
I read Liu Cixin (btw highly recommend in Russian, excellent translation) and intellectuals led humanity to potential extinction due to aliens. Intellectuals are generally problematic, but this is exacerbated by Jews being present and leads to instability whereas before them things are controllable.
If I were the Chinese, I'd stop girls from going to study abroad (since they acquire toxic Western traits and beliefs) and I would cut off the population from harmful Western propagandistic media (which they have mostly done, but not entirely. For example "Friends" remains a huge thing and it promotes casual sex for example. I do not know how it passed censorship. This is also why I believe Russia needs to be cut off from youtube, this will insulate (and make it more difficult) for the youth to integrate into western culture and will cause the development of a countries own culture and thus be more susceptible to narratives that are "your own" rather than foreign ones.
Echoes my comment about housing and the Great Migration reversing. It's funny how the Left won't accept reality when the 'It's the economy, stupid!' line works against them...
People with memory span (all five hundred of them) might recall that back in 2021 Bernie explained how Democrat party with its globalist pro-immigration policy has turned into a job-killing faction, and Republicans likewise turned into protectors of local workforce, paradoxically implementing Left ideals. Recent addition of union representatives to GOP rally, first in half a century, shows for it.
The union reps represent the union hierarchy, the bureaucracy, and not the rank and file. There's nothing "left" about them whatsoever. They're rightwing nativists--that's why they were there, t that reactionary circus. Those guys are down with war and Wall Street.
Their presence at GOP events is good news. There was an uproar in US unions from the rank-and-file members in 2016 and 2020, when the union brass supported Hillary and then Biden against their members' wishes.
G'day Marcos, surely is hard to work that out when the referred to groups will suffer the most under DJT policies. A true disconnect from reality or just got sucked in with propaganda by a classic showman spruiker!
When Trump wins, the federal departments will simply refuse to implement any of his directives, R team in Congress will refuse to pass his laws, they will bring on economic calamity, blame him, and carry on as usual. The only question is if the proceed to war in Lebanon and Ukraine sequentially or simultaneously.
I think Ukraine will get better - Israel might get worse but I agree with the rest of your comment. Like last time and he seems to be doing the same thing as last time in picking his staff...this Vance guy is a bad choice.
Trump might well try to shut down the Ukraine war, but the military, the State Department and the CIA likely will not obey his orders, just as they didn't in Syria.
Second, use the presidential authority to declassify to declassify everything on the premise at Langley and all other intelligence buildings.
Third, send in the guard to confiscate/copy/secure all physical and eletronic records for review.
Fourth, announce an amnesty for all intelligence personnel who cooperate fully in the review and full prosecution for all who obstruct. Anyone who cooperates will have their name redacted from any releases and anyone who obstructs will have their name published.
Fifth, do the review. Publish the most egregious abuses in full. Reclassify anything that is a legitimate security program. Clean house. Use an executive order to fire the top 3 to 5 levels of the hierarchy and and managers who obstructed or were involved in shenanigans.
Do the same thing concurrently at DHS, FBI, and DoJ. Afterwards, having set an example, maybe do it at the FDA, CDC, NIAID, FCC, FTC, SEC, and any other agencies with financial oversight or that engaged in egregious abuses during covid, the financial crisis, or the war on terror.
Only reason Ukraine will get better is because NATO and the US/UK etc are helping them which is disgusting. Either Ukraine fights Russia on it's own and loses or don't pretend it is getting NO help!
No. Everyone with power has now seen what unfettered democrat ideology looks like and they want no more of it. In the corridors of power there will be a huge sigh of relief that this dark time is over, and general co-operation in getting everything back on an even keel which means shutting down those overseas conflicts, and swiftly.
Yeah a quick scroll of my FB shows that literally nothing will bother someone still voting Democrat. They see nothing, hear nothing, and it's really sad.
Trump wins , US troops go into Gaza. Israeli troops back off. Better to waste American lives than Israeli.Maybe also Lebanon. Zionists got US Mid East Policy 110 percent under control. America is just a puppet now.
That is AIPACS agenda, but the Pentagon knows they will suffer unacceptable losses if they take on Hezbollah. There is growing hatred of Israel worldwide and here in the US.
The hatred is so systemic, I do not think Israel will exist in its present form in 10 years.
Fighting-age Americans hate Israel. The only age group that seems to still like them is the over-60s. I don't know if jews realize how, once the boomers are gone, they have zero friends left; but, of course, this is the infiltration-alienation-expulsion cycle they always do to themselves.
They run the White House. Don't matter about popularity. The US military is very professional and will follow orders. Not saying this WILL transpire just saying DON'T be supprissed to see American goy blood spilt in the interests of Israel while they sit back and gloat. American blood is acceptable to Israel. "I do not think Israel will exist in its present form in 10 years"-I tend to agree but much blood until then.
You have a good point about Federal Departments. Civil Service Bureaucracies are the professionals playing gentleman amateurs when it comes to government. Think Tiger Woods vs. Justin Timberlake. The politics is less clear. It looks as though Trump is likely to take the Senate as well as the HoR.
In that case Trump proscribes AIPAC. Names it as a foreign and thus illegal organisation. Putin did more or less the same with the oligarchs and Rothschild.
I think the fact that the establishment will actually be willing to oppose the White House if it's Trump in there doing the same things as Biden, is part of his broader appeal as a candidate
The Chinese already have the image on tee-shirts. The NYT FORBADE the use of the word "genocide" in their reporting on the Gaza genocide. Too late to cancel the bleeding Trump-old glory meme. If the deep state assassination had been successful, the Republican convention would have been in disarray, probably allowing the likes of neocon Haley to seize the reins. The missed assassination makes Trump even more likely to get the presidency. Good times. The scribblers at The Onion couldn't make this stuff up.
I think you're mostly correct about how Trump and Vance will act in the victory, but I think the key player will end up being Vivik. He is advocating for the part of "the Trump agenda" that is to dismantle the federal bureaucracy. They obviously haven't detailed their plan yet, but Trump and Vivik have both implied axing the federal agencies to bare minimums and pushing all the responsibilities to the state level. The federal level would basically just coordinate between state agencies. Not sure what they have planned for the non-domestic agencies but I'm sure a massive house cleaning. (If that is even something you can do to the CIA).
This is good news this is even talked about, giving me optimism for whatever's to come. At least with Trump at the helm, any changes will include the people's welfare, as any hint of it is sorely missing at this time with the current administration.
Whilst I dearly wish this were true, I'm afraid I have to consider it hopium. The Federal bureaucracy is enormously powerful - no president has the power to overcome it. Its end will not be murder, but suicide, taking America down with it.
Possibly. But to me it is like the marathon runner who is just about to take the lead near the finish line. He knows he is going to win. Everyone knows he is going to win. But then the lead runner crosses his lane and "accidently" knocks him out of the race.
So, if tomorrow Trump said we will closed down the EFA, FDA, ...these scientists will go up in arms? The only bad ass organizations are the CIA. NSA, FBI
The federal govt is the largest employer in the U.S. w/ nearly 4mn people on the payroll: bigley. However, Vivek's enthusiasm for paring back the bloat is a welcome & exciting development: he'll bring spirited energy to the project.
Such a task would also signal a privileging of the domestic focus, a sleeves-rolled-up effort to invest in creative solutions on the homefront
The general frame work I've seen them hint at is they want to cut each agencies budget about 75% and then distribute about half of that savings directly to the state (37.5%) for them to manage themselves directly. So basically cut the federal budget in half(25 fed + 37.5 state) and give the states more direct policy power. At least that's the idea. They used EPA and education department as their examples of agencies to do this too.
If there is food, water, shelter and children aren't being harmed, people can put up with a lot of disorder. Those are the only things that will get people to be violent en masse. That said, I would not at all be surprised to see martial law, blackouts, riots, (more) looting. For there to be a civil war, there needs to be leaders and different factions of the military going to different sides.
Add internet access to your list. Some of us would be fine without it, but there’s a shitload of people in this country who would absolutely lose their minds if their phones suddenly stopped working.
I grew up without the internet and though today I am reliant on it for sites like this, I could probably do without if needed. But those who grew up in the 90s and naughties will likely have a very difficult time of it.
Joe's admin is in its most seriously Lame Duck decline: did you see Joe trying to climb out of his motorcade on the Vegas tarmac to board Air Force One & the guy was scarcely ambulatory--?
This is not just steep Lame Duck decline--it's like deboned Lame Duck w/ orange glaze hanging in the window of a Chinatown restaurant.
Yes, the PTB could try to call for martial law, etc--the things Pym lists above--but the counter-PTB will step in & calmly take the dangerous toys from them.
GenZs & Millennials will innovate a workaround to internet communications--Dixie cups & string anyone?--and the ability of normal people in the normal U.S. will assert itself bigley.
Simplicius, please be thinking about how you'll send us in the Lyceum the High Sign
"Predictions are hard, especially about the future."
Trump wins. The crash may happen before he's sworn in. Anyone making 50K US or less knows the economy is crap, and those making more suspect it. Trump will still be blamed. By himself, Trump can't win. At best he's a start at U.S. rehabilitation. My 3 cents.
It is looking increasingly likely we will see a crash in Oct. if not before. The banks are getting weaker by the day, as CRE crashes and they are stuck with portfolios full of 30yr treasuries paying .5% and have to take a 40% haircut every time they have to sell some.
The FED knows that if they start cutting rates the economy will implode as it does every other time. Google " every recession followed a peak in fed funds rate", and look at the chart.
Anyone who says you cannot time a recession has never seen that chart.
Getting rid of Joe is bad. Not getting rid of Joe is bad. Not pardoning Hunter is bad, because it admits it was not "Russian disinfo". Pardoning Hunger is bad, because it admits it was not "Russian disinfo".
The way Dems cornered themselves with their own crap is unbelievable. There really isn't any way out for them. But, they are still finding ways to make it worse.
The party should be allowed to suicide itself. For example, if RFK or someone else from the more reasonable wing of Dem party founded a "New Democratic party", a lot of people would vote for them. Large part of Democratic voters realize there's something wrong, but they stay because they need to oppose Republicans or hate Trump. It's not unreasonable to think they could score well in midterms.
There was no choice for stolen election and that might be what happens. I guess I choose the most popular choice, assuming the election is stolen again. You say we're passive. I think we don't give a shit and just carry on trying to survive. How can real people get enthusiastic about such a fake show
The incentive to act precipitously, whatever that might mean, has not happened. A fake show placed before us is not incentive enough: a fake show is a fake show. It does not inspire action
Great points. I live in an affluent mid-western suburb. Because I'm in the urban flow and affluent, I live around many Jews. I have Jewish friends. There are Orthodox Jews around, in their tiny hats, and I NEVER see anyone bothering them or hear anyone speaking Ill of them. Ever. I'm about one mile away from the 'hood. I'm a 72 y/o white guy. I go to a Walmart on the edge of the 'hood. I'm there maybe 2-3 x/week. The customer base is at least 75% black. I never encounter any bad vibes and it's typical that a young black guy addresses me as "sir". Without sarcasm. Everyone I encounter follows Rodney King's advice and in fact "gets along". Sure I smell weed in the parking lot at 6:30 AM but I really don't give a shit about that. People are civil and I see more laughter and conviviality out of black folks than whites. People just want to live and it'd be nice if our government made it easier for them to do just that.
Quoting Pym (in this thread...and I agree):
"If there is food, water, shelter and children aren't being harmed, people can put up with a lot of disorder. Those are the only things that will get people to be violent en masse."
There certainly is dysfunction. I hear of carjackings and that happened to an elderly friend. The police routinely have 70-80 mph high speed chases on city streets. Stolen cars-a typical problem. My parents went thru the Great Depression and WW2. The present era, with all the troubles and unnecessary wars, is still a cake walk compared to episodes of the past. As a lefty history Prof friend of mine remarked one day, "I'm constantly amazed at the ability of capitalism to reinvent itself and adjust." There's a bit of wisdom there.
My "passivity" is limited to preparing for harder times. Practicing water glass egg storage, preparing to expand my hidden garden next spring, stocking up on dry-good essentials such as cleaning supplies, etc.
Aside from internet griping, my total gov action this year has consisted of advising local public works that fisherpeople are not cleaning up after themselves, putting swimmers at risk. (Dogs & I have been tangled in line multiple times, 2 weeks ago narrowly missed stepping on a rubber worm with 3 hooks in it tied to a rock, & yesterday puppy came home with a rubber worm hooked to her leg. Just caught in her fur, thank God).
Because as regards higher up government, there isn't a fucking thing I can do.
exactly, that's so sad about fisherfolk not cleaning up. But the last sentence is exactly how we feel...there's nt a fucking thing we can do about it. Canada likewise. I guess us white folk feell that way.
Yes, Antifa will riot against Trump, but not in areas like Texas or southern Arizona, from which they were summarily ejected last time after tentative efforts....the gloves would really come off this time...
There are two forms of Antifa in the USA - old Antifa, groups with roots stretching back decades, and new Antifa, who "sprung up" after Trump's win in 2016, astroturfed Soros 'Spring' movements.
You can easily tell the difference. The old Antifa hate Biden and the Demonrats as much as they hate Trump. Some of them considerably more.
So any "Antifa" supposedly fighting for the Demonrats are not actually Antifa. And you can bank that.
G'day Gnuneo, you have describe the division of the centre left almost and the socialist or soviet style left.
I think you would be as rare as hen teeth in your analysis as usually the Dems get the sobriquet of being left. A joke I think but the McCarthy House of unAmerican activities lingers to this day or the influence of the propaganda does.
Put down by police... and more than likely put up to it by police. Europe's "Black Bloc" are police provocateurs sent in to discredit any movement the public might identify with. Seen it a thousand times.
I don't disagree with the treeofwoe conclusion either, but man, a Hooverstan? Uggh. TL;DR: everybody devalued their currencies, those that did it first (the Japanese) did the best (US in the middle of the pack -under FDR-, France last) to get out of deflationary crisis. When you read any detailed history of how the banking system almost collapsed, and about how Hoover's solution to problems was essentially to do nothing, anybody that thinks Hoover was a good prez on economic policy has serious ideological blinders on.
Overheated rhetoric claiming to survey the overheated rhetoric.
There is nothing wrong with the USA that is 'more wrong' than with any other mature economy. And a lot less wrong with it, not least its possession of huge natural resources which is the real bottom line source of wealth.
The problem with the USA is its FOREIGN POLICY, Penrose! and that could be put right in ways that strengthen the US domestic economy and US international repute in one fell swoop. Dem donors are actually moving over to Trump. There is no deep ideology at work at the level of the deep state. The deep state 's own clear sighted sense of self preservation is the bedrock on which the USA is built.
Sweep aside several years of dark end times fantasy, world dominion, and truly potty warfare, and it is back to business as usual with the benefit of, as JD Vance says, having allies as opposed to colonies (he used the word 'clients'), grown up peer leaders who are NOT to be treated as adversaries let alone primitives, a moving on from an imperialist overhang from the second world war when the US thought it could assume the Nazi mantle and be the home of the thousand year reich- a time of power-mad white people- to world governance through consent. That is progress, and that is where we are going, having thoroughly ploughed the other furrow first, and seen what grows there...... stuff that is not a wealth producing commodity.
Nothing unusual. It happens every time a hegemonic empire declines. Seeing it as something out of the ordinary produces biases. Stay focused on the big picture.
Oh, Gerrard, it is always worth taking off the adversarial cap now and then to look with cooler detachment at the world as a whole. Have India, Iran and Russia got it all more right than us? Overall?
We have got the wrong foreign policy, and that needs to change. As for what is wrong at home, try a big sweep change for anything that works better for the public as a whole and you fall into the very real danger of left wing lunacy. It is as if we always teeter on a very narrow ledge of stable relative prosperity with all around it the prospect of total collapse. Within these terms there are various ways of addressing the real domestic problem which is FREE LOADERS, rich and poor. And we might get a chance to look at this if we were not so rigidly fixated on the deficiencies of the rest of the world, determined to make them all our subjects IN THEIR OWN BEST INTERESTS of course, like some demented parent.
Pointing out the failures in US gvmt and society is adversarial?
That's another of the many problems I did not mention, I'd be up all night otherwise - the we know it all shining hill light nonsense imported with the brit 'first' settlers
I'll be brief - this is the very last in a very very long line of 'we are going to reform' which never got nowhere (unless you cut in FDR perhaps, how long did that last)
As for RF China etc - read the documents - just the recent ones May 16 Joint Declaration, the May 7 Executive order - the results of the Third plenum just coming in
These countries try hard
- that's the difference - degrees of success you can argue about all night - and you have to know what you are talking about, unlike...
One man's quest on why so hard to find homeless in Beijing, despite the propaganda from the Economist (that's another problem I did not mention, the belief in propaganda you peoples like)
– mind you – for balance – this report is from Portlander who knows what he’s talking about, but does not know China – so it’s very incomplete, but a is therefore a gentle introduction into the structural differences and priorities
The "vagrant & beggars" solution in China is reminiscent of a time in the U.S. when most municipalities had space set aside for the Poor House: dwellings in which the destitute sheltered
There are plans I read in I think in California - to open concentration camps in the far off countryside (apparently Rwanda declined, but Patagonia said yes) for the homeless, to concentrate them and to allow the honest burghers to breath easy - the SValley software implant solution was postponed
During the early decades of the 20th Century there were more Californians in mental institutions than in prison. By the early 1970s this began to flip as mental institutions got repurposed as drug treatment centers. So 100 years ago there was a way to deal w/ mentally ill people & soon enough drug addicted people too--and neither solution involved "rough housing": sleeping on the street
Back to early 20th Century California, it was exceedingly easy to have a family member committed. Sometimes relatives got together, decided they had to do something about Aunt Martha, who had always been kind of high maintenance, & they drew up a list of her *symptoms*, presented the list to the authorities--and soon enough Aunt Martha was flying over the cuckoo's nest. This ease of solving one's familial problems continued into the 1960s in California.
Thank you for this - I had forgotten that bit of history, if ever I knew much about it, but I remember Saint Jack busting out
The fake use of fake medicine and fake social science to justify more prisons is discussed by the Foucault - and although his name sends shivers he was very right about this ruling class lock them up mentality
It was easy to see the Chinese housing bubble coming from miles away. I've worked in both housing supply and retail banking, and back in 2004 I started warning people about a real estate bubble in the UK- DTI ratios carry huge risks of upending entire economies, given that Hayek's observations apply across debt sectors. There was me having kittens in 2004 over x6.0 DTI ratios.
In the run-up to China's current woes, DTI ratios were x35! Housing equity had become a marriage leveraging tool, with families clubbing together so that a favoured son could get married... And it goes without saying that a large part of China's economic miracle was based upon real estate value creation.
If you want a good model for public housing acting as a vehicle for home ownership, Singapore is probably the best. Although Thomas Sowell wasn't a fan of public housing, he did at least acknowledge it was at its best when it was an aspirational move for upstanding working poor couples looking to start a family, rather than as a welfare provision.
Disconnected from reality is closer to the mark Gerrard or cognitive dissonance might be more accurate. Also did you note how anything that helps the people is left wing lunacy and your correct analysis is defined as adversarial. The deepstate sic. would be pleased with the result of their efforts.
One addition to your list could be the super wealthy tech trilionares perverting of the system completely which shows in your list.
I had to cut short the list, else people would have thought I had a bone to pick
I'll try and concentrate on real news - like what's going on in the ME or West Asia, China, Africa Sahel, and Russia - in all these places progress is being made
Do Iran and Russia have it "more right" than the USA?
Yes.
A couple of years back, some rich Iranian decided to corner the market in imported vehicles, and once he had good control, started hiking the prices of his somewhat monopoly. He became stinkingly rich quite quickly.
Right up until they beheaded him this probably seemed like a good idea.
Be a while before someone else thinks this might be a good get-rich-quick scheme in Iran, I'd guess.
Similar things have been happening in China and Russia, although a lot more quietly.
The health of an economy is measured by how many times currency circulates before it is withdrawn. Every time money passes hands it creates economic activity.
When the money ends up in the bank account of a rich person, that's where it ends its travel.
And that, in a nutshell, is the main problem with the US economy.
Your rich grab every cent and hoard it.
And they are REWARDED for so behaving. The more you have, the less % tax you pay.
No society will survive for long with such an economic/financial system.
In case it's not obvious, by hiking up the prices of imported vehicles for his own pocket, he caused severe inflationary pressures within that market. A van that should have cost $15k, could cost 25%+ more. PURELY for his profit-seeking due to market-control.
Now you'll say "But that's just normal behaviour!".
And that is why America will end up in a dustbin. You have been brainwashed until you cannot even see Reality anymore.
Rich people's wealth, their great wealth, is not readily liquid--so it sits, *hoarded*
But the money does not really *sit*--because banks are making bank on it. Great wealth, which is not liquid & readily spendable, is how banks make money.
No matter how rich you are, you can only wear one necktie @ a time. You can only eat one breakfast
Used to be magnates re-invested in the tangibles & deliverables of their lucrative companies: a new printing press for a bricks & mortar media operation, for instance. Coal mining companies built housing for their employees & created micro-villages: the coal miners had their housing & also a company store--and the mining company itself reaped the benefits, tangibly, of these amenities in worker-satisfaction.
The culture of work & wealth had more of a marriage under this concept
Bottom line is wealth is a zero sum gain. There is at any point, a fixed amount of wealth, and in order for the filthy rich to have a grossly disproportional share of it, you and fellow deplorables must have less. You cannot spread the wealth, and steal it at the same time.
This, though I've no doubt you believe it, simply isn't true. You're talking, I think about money. Of course it's not true about money either. Wealth and money are not synonymous. Money is an abstraction, economies are lagging descriptors of implied wealth measured in money exchanges. Wealth is an immeasurable, fluctuating conflation of everything contained within a border that provides future resources to it's population. Borders, resources and populations fluctuate.
What makes your view appear plausible is essentially a group decision to act as if it were so.
It would take several years to type a list of all the things wrong with the empire of lies.
Huge natural resources? That's a common misconception, most of the easily accessible stuff has been gone for decades. Natural resources lose much of their value when you no longer have the ability to manufacture anything with them.
I know it won't happen, but I wish Trump would ditch the ridiculous 1787 Constitution and bring back the original United States.
As for what I think WILL happen - spooks are gonna spook. They'll either gum up everything he tries to do or straight up assassinate him for realzies this time.
You don't have to so take it back
Well done - You're doing yourself a favour - keep away from that controverse, I'll fill in for the while
Listen, I've booked you a comfortable pad up on the North Pole, very mod con, good views over Russia a stone's throw away......
I just love me a big fresh cup of Simplicius around bed time!!
Getting a notification from Simplicius is like getting a msg notification from my girlfriend. Makes me happy
Even better with morning coffee...
Nah, that's Duran time!
No, no...CET>EDT....Its Simplicius on here for breakfast then on X after lunch followed by Duran in the afternoon and Mercouris before bed. Sprinkle in some Dima, Valterson or Cassad in between, if anything special is going on. There you have it
"Mercouris before bed"
- at 1.5x speed so there's chance to finish the video
1,75x for me...
Has to be on two, so all the waffling doesn't make me drift off.
Been years now - if I ever meet ether Alex in the flesh, I'll wonder why they are as slow and slurring as Biden IRL, lol. :D
He is a bit of a windbag
...a barrister's professional deformation. Perfectly clear from his hand movements 😁
👍😂🤣😂
You've just described my average day lol.
Add a little Judge Napoleono and you have it all covered.
No Meirsheimer?? Lol kidding
Pfftt Mercouris is a Maga asshat
Mercouris isnt that simplistic - he has a much greater understanding of history, geopolitics and Russian culture than your juvenile drive by slur suggests.
I suppose you need to go to San Francisco for that :P...
Every black and Hispanic working man and their families I know are rabid Trump supporters. I’m a large employer in rural areas.
The Republican Party has been nigrified. Look at the R convention. Jew bootlickers. Rappers and porn stars.
Let me guess, Russian who blames Jews for Ukraine? Your antipathy is as facile and it is superficially shallow in its epistemic roots. America's longstanding antagonism and history of provocation towards Russia has more to do with the dismantling of the American military and intelligence complex in the post-Cold War era than anything else.
They needed a Russian bogeyman to prevent the complete gutting of the American capacity for future wars, or even the ability to defend themselves. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the Jews, just as American Shock Therapy was the product of an ideological hubris, which didn't acknowledge economic realities on the ground. Poland is likely to surpass UK GDP per capita precisely because their privatisation of public assets was more gradual and didn't provoke the types of massively destabilising labour shocks seen in Russia.
Stop blaming the Jews. It wasn't them. And racism doesn't win hearts and minds, either. People are individuals- and the success of countries like Botswana, despite massive geographical disadvantages, shows that many of the stereotypes you likely believe, are simply untrue. Many of the remaining 'inherent' racial differences you likely believe in are the result of vitamin D deficiency- easily curable with long-term supplementation, which explains why high IQ Black people are far more common than Bell Curve statistical maths would suggest- because the root of structural deficits are heavily biased by vitamin D deficiency related conditions, which vary tremendously within an ancestral population- low birth weight, premature birth, pre-eclampsia and maternal death in childbirth- to name but a few.
What was done to your country was horrible, but it was largely a cynical hedge bet on the part of America- they wanted to prevent a future nuclear war with China, but realised that the economic forces they were unleashing through neoliberalism could well precipitate a future Thucydides Trap, the peaceful outcome of which was largely dependent upon military and economic parity.
So Russia became the convenient bogeyman, the scapegoat to justify American military spending, calculated to prevent a flare up over Taiwan, as well as retaining the capacity to project power into the Middle East to secure vital oil supplies. The people who you should really be mad at are those who view humanity as an abstraction, a problem to be solved in pursuit of a future utopia of global governance.
I would start with the UN, the theosophical movement and the Lucis Trust. No joke- they actually praise Lucifer! The Lucis Trust is heavily affiliated with the UN, including through sponsorship. Theosophy was also a major philosophical factor influencing the Nazis, Hitler and the SS, particularly with regard to their occult obsessions.
https://www.lucistrust.org/arcane_school/talks_and_articles/the_esoteric_meaning_lucifer
You conveniently leave out the Jewish neocons' visceral hatred of Russia, as a consequence they have been pushing the U.S. non-stop into wars in the region and its destruction and millions of deaths.
As for theosophy's influence on Hitler, you leave out the fact that it was not theosophy that got Hitler in the saddle but U.S. corporations and politicians, while proto-ZioNazis helped him earn some further money (Haavar Agreement) and get rid of some Jews without killing them.
I don't dispute that several Jewish intellectuals had a profound influence on the neocons. However, if one is familiar with the Wolfowitz Doctrine it's plain it's a treatise on maintaining US global hegemonic unilateral power. There were only four other signatories to the NPT.
Britain and France were irrelevant because they were satellite Allies in geopolitical terms. China was dangerously out of reach- hence neoliberalist trade envelopment. The American planners hoped that economic desperation might convince post-Soviet Russia to abandon their nuclear veto. It was the type of naive wishful thinking that comes from civilian analysis and which didn't understand the role the Russian military in Russian life.
Besides, Russia possessed every advantage. Insane mineral wealth, agricultural abundance and a resilient educated workforce, particularly in hard engineering. There was every reason to think they might become a resurgent superpower, with modernisation and technological investment. Unfortunately, Russia never really got the Dutch financial innovations which the British (and later America) copied.
I'm not surprised. Bond confidence, actuarial science and the financial alchemy of summoning liability and asset out of nothing is voodoo economics, but it's incredibly useful if the money is used for militaries and building productive economics. It's only the misuse of the technology to support leviathan governmental structural liabilities which makes the technology so dangerous.
Nervos belli, pecuniam infinitam
Diplomacy and trade have always been amoral beasts. The Queen had to shake hands with monsters in human form, and pose for photographs. It has always been thus, thus it will always be. The fact that the Nazis at one point explored deporting Jews, doesn't imply that they actually liked or supported them.
Their problem with the Chinese is they're better capitalists than the West and the Russians are better industrialists. Marriage made in heaven.
My brother attended one of only two universities in the UK offering actuarial science courses. There was only one other Westerner in his class of 30. The rest were Asians, over half were Chinese.
When Western finance gets into trouble it's usually because they stopped listening to the actuarial maths guys (quants). It can be used to win wars. It's the sharp end of econometrics. The professional qualifications can be taken an infinite number of times, because they fully expect Maths Majors from Harvard to fail repeatedly.
China understands this- the West has forgotten it. Finance exists within proper boundaries and a dynamic equilibrium. I can't remember the exact quote, but Adam Smith said something along the lines of 'a nation which pursues profit to the exclusion of else is headed for collapse'. It's emblematic of the quarterly obsession and the failure to realise that without a view to long-term investment and future value creation, Great Nations are doomed.
Plus, we're sleepwalking straight into the wrong outcome of the Thucydides Trap.
I notice you do not have anything to say about the Jewish genocide of the Palestinian's, or the fact they own the US Government lock stock and barrel.
Haha. Admits “Several Jewish Intellectuals had a profound influence on Neocons.” Go back to ZeroHedge or Twitter.
Here the Overton window is pogroms and the Pale for Bolshevik Jewish parasites.
FWIW: I have absolutely no problem with Bolshevik Jews. It is quite obvious to me that they are one of the few who stand up to the NeoFeudalists that are destroying the American Dream.
Russia never saw a resurgence not because of "lack of financial innovations" (it has plenty of those, go to Moscow and try paying with credit cards, you'll be looked at as if you fell from the sky), but because the same elites that betrayed the USSR, were still in power. And these elites wanted nothing more than to be a "part" of the West. Russia will only see a resurgence once it abandons its policy of "Reconciliation" with the West and pursues its own independent path, as it did during the Soviet era.
Looks like they have chosen that path.
I need to expand, Putin has pretty much told the west after 2 decades of trying to reach an agreement with them to "be friends" to "Just Fuck Off".
The reason the BRICS have coalesced into "something" is because Russia had the guts to tell the West he wasn't going to deal with their hypocrisy any longer. China, while a greater economic power, is very much a junior partner in this new crusade against the greed of the American Oligarchy.
It is almost funny though to realize the the American Oligarchy is its own worst enemy.
Russia never saw a resurgence not because of "lack of financial innovations" (it has plenty of those, go to Moscow and try paying with credit cards, you'll be looked at as if you fell from the sky), but because the same elites that betrayed the USSR, were still in power. And these elites wanted nothing more than to be a "part" of the West. Russia will only see a resurgence once it abandons its policy of "Reconciliation" with the West and pursues its own independent path, as it did during the Soviet era.
I don't blame the "Jews" in general since there are any number of Jews I totally support like Norm Finkelstein and Max Blumenthal, but I will not deny that the number of Billionaire Jews in the USA far exceeds their presence in the American population as a whole. Some claim them to be Zionists, but I just think they are descendants of Meyer Lansky's "Murder Incorporated". Profit through any means necessary.
I don't believe this group "hates" Russia, but they do see it as an area full of promise to fill their pockets with even more ill-gotten gain.
Are they "more evil" than the standard American Billionaire? Hard to say, but as Berletic points out, Musk really, really wants to expand humanity into space because he has invested in reusable rockets, while ULA is solely interested in scamming the US government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yNIsVbtuxQ
That's because of IQ. Generally, the race realists are mainly wrong when it comes to race and IQ. The picture is far more complex, especially when one considers that polygenic factors can be easily remedied by simple solutions like vitamin D supplementation.
But the Ashkenazi Jews are a specific exception to the general rule. Even if one excepts the lower end of the estimate for mean intelligence (106 to 108), then that means for every one white person at the right tail end of the distribution per population, there will be 6 to 8 Ashkenazi Jews per population. This is reflected in the fact that Ashkenazi Jews are only 0.1% of global population, but constitute 20% of Nobel prizes.
The reason why I consider the Ashkenazi an exception is because they are the only ones whose higher intelligence can be proven by a strong correlation between high intelligence and specific neurological genetic disorders. For everyone else, the picture is more complex and dependent upon polygenic factors.
'Some claim them to be Zionists, but I just think they are descendants of Meyer Lansky's "Murder Incorporated". Profit through any means necessary.'
That's not true, in the absence of corporatisation, only around 5% of any given market are bad actors. The problem is that the West has rapidly become both corporatized and crony capitalist. Musk was right when he said government was 'corporation at the limit'. It's a protection racket with a VIP lounge of preferred clients.
Here's a good quote for you: 'Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.' It's Benito Mussolini's original definition of Fascism, and highly ironic, given that those most often opposed to it are usually labelled Fascists.
It's the thing that really irritates me about libertarians- they are right about so many things, but because they won't compromise their principles towards populist issues, they don't stand a chance in Hell of breaking up the state/crony capitalist cabal.
"Even if one excepts the lower end of the estimate for mean intelligence (106 to 108), then that means for every one white person at the right tail end of the distribution per population, there will be 6 to 8 Ashkenazi Jews per population"
That's an abuse of statistics. There are 30+ white people for every jew in the us population. In absolute terms there should be a total glut of white geniuses....and there are.
Institutional control by jews is better explained, and better predicted, with game theory low trust vs high trust. You will hardly find a tormented lone jewish genius but there are boatloads of tormented lone white geniuses. I'm sure you can guess who funds most of the tormenting.
It wasn't deliberate, but I take your point. I was simply pointing to the fact that Ashkenazi Jews would be overrepresented. Plus, you have to recognise the representation bias- only forecasters are any good at estimating the number of Black and Brown people in a picture of thousands of people. Most people wouldn't naturally divide the picture into sectors and perform a manual count to extrapolate the total. People almost always overestimate that which is noticeably different from themselves, even relatively minor differences, like a last name.
You're right about the high trust vs. low trust phenomenon, because don't see the correct causes. It's not about patronage. It's about community social cohesion. Some Asian groups massively outperform White groups despite only relatively small differences in IQ. This is because they've maintained their work ethic, their stable family formation and retention, and community cohesion.
It's the same picture in Northern Ireland in the Catholic community. They used to be the ones living on council estates, whilst the Protestants lived in leafy suburbs. But once Civil Right were instituted and discrimination ended the situation quickly reversed. Why? Because they had strong communities and families, and with a stronger degree of cultural faith, they were able to resist the disintegrating power of liberalism pushed to unhealthy extremis.
I am not saying that nepotism and preferential treatment doesn't exist, because it does. That's human nature. But compared to factors like social cohesion and the healthy peer groups provided by communities with a high percentage of married, stable couples, it's a relatively minor factor. And let's face it most White cultures have fragmented down to the point that they no longer feel much in the way of community spirit or the social responsibility of staying together until the kids leave the roost. Experiencing divorce has been proven to have a higher impact on educational outcomes than losing a parent...
It's a good point about Game Theory though, but you're more likely to be able to explain it to others through the intergenerational accumulation of comparative advantage. Wealth doesn't correlate with success for kids income levels, but parental income levels does. Obviously Lysenko is horseshit, but there might be something to Lamarckian ideas as cultural inheritances. Kids who have their parents read to them at night possess a huge advantage, particularly if their parents social selection puts them in a group of similar peers.
I think I answered this elsewhere and shouldn't repeat myself. But your claim of only 5% "bad market actors" depends on a definition of bad that I don't agree with. IMHO just Black Rock by itself represents a "bad market actor" but they operate no differently than the other Oligarchs which own the government and are mostly funded by AIPAC and other Jewish organizations. Fascism is the same as end-stage capitalism which "rhymes" with Plato's progression of governments to tyranny.
Precisely what Simplicius was writing about here.
You obviously missed my point about corporatisation. Any large organisation, by it's very nature, will become a perversion of everything good. Why? Because our normal human reciprocal interactions are disrupted by distance- people become abstractions beyond two degrees of separation, and interactions at the two step level are exactly ideal.
Plus, we need to recognise the distinction between authority and responsibility. Most human organisations have a tendency to want to keep the authority at the top, whilst immediately shirking responsibility to some witless and unaware underlings as soon as anything goes wrong. This is the opposite of how things should work in a human system- authority should be pushed down to the extent that any employee has the ability to contact an immediate boss when their entity needs to look like something other than an unfeeling beast. If you work for a bank and a recently bereaved customer contacts you, then you should bend over backwards to help. Besides, it's generally an axiom that one delegate authority, but one cannot delegate responsibility- even though many may pretend otherwise, for legal purposes. It's also why you should not listen to anyone who talks about accountability (unless to inform them of their error). It's a government dodge. Accountability removes the distinction between authority and responsibility and instead inherently seeks an underling to blame. Responsibility always, always resides at the top. It's why the UK introduced the Corporate Manslaughter charge under UK Law, back in the days when we still had an institutional backbone.
And government is the worst for such things. It's reflected by the fact that government employees are just as unhappy in their work as those who work for large faceless corporations. Meanwhile people who work in the SME sector show levels of happiness with their work and workplace which scores 'very' or 'extremely' happy at rates of 75% to 80%. People like to form communities, and that can happen in the workplace as much as anywhere else. The limit seems to be about 150 people.
And it's not end-stage in a chronological sense. Scale is a perennial threat- as witnessed by the fact that Adam Smith himself was a huge critic of the East India Company. It's obviously up to the citizenry as to the scale of government, but what they should remember is that there are core functions which are absolutely vital. Chief amongst them is competition. There ae various commercial advantages to scale which needs to be actively resisted by government in order to prevent the current Western scenario of emerging rentier economics.
Market systems are inherently flawed because they are unstable and vulnerable- but mainly because the dog set to watch the henhouse invariably goes feral. Even in Ancient China there were market and statist periods, and without exception the market periods were prosperous and socially stable whilst the statist periods were not. They even had more famines during the statist periods, pointing to Taleb's conclusion in other sectors that anti-fragile systems are distributed, and resilient through constant shock-testing of the nodes and networks. It's why the West's financial systems are such a mess and so prone to collapse- there aren't enough players, they are too big and we don't allow them to experience the results of risky behaviour, the shocks.
Reed that Talmud. The Jews hate everyone who is not Jewish. Especially the Christians.
America's long standing hatred and provocations towards Russia are a result of 1) cold warriors still in power, 2) long term conditioning of Russia as the enemy 3) the soviets being direct competitors that prevented the expansion of US business. The hatred of the Soviets carries over to the Russians by momentum.
People aren't "individuals" (aka unique little snowflakes) but operate by a set of principles that can be used to track the behavior of populations on average. You do not need to predict the behavior of an individual when you can predict the behavior of a population to quite accurately predict the behavior of an individual. It's the same principle by which integrals work. What does this mean for Jews? It means that while some "individuals" may act a certain way, "most of them" "on average" act in a way that tends to destabilize societies.
While Russia was the bogeyman in the 90's-10's due to momentum, Putin's speech at Bucharest in 2008 gave the US competition anxiety which again renewed Russia's "bogeyman status". The rise of China's economic and scientific might seriously challenges America's hegemony and thus is a threat leading to the pivot towards China. However, Ukraine is Biden's pet project and couldn't be abandoned due to personal ambitions - for the US its a mistake as giving Russia Ukraine could have resulted in an ally on China's border.
Mostly an intelligent comment. My only quibble would be the cold warrior comment. The bellicose elements of the Washington Foreign Policy Establishment are far more likely to be civilians and in the political class. Most military men are far more rational, the exception being the careerists looking to get promoted.
Anyway,, the prevailing theory goes like this. America's decline is inevitable and only the aggressive demonstration of American military and economic power on the world stage can slow the decline. It's typical of the technocratic class- wrong about everything! (With the notable exception that most of the developed world is going to decline because of aging populations- China has it's own 421 problem, so does Russia).
The American decline is by no means assured, but any attempt to redress it will require major, major reforms, which the permanent state will resist. And the continual draining off of American blood and treasure is factor which speeds decline, rather than slowing it. Sure, the casualty rates might appear quite slow, but what about the broken men, the burn pits, the long-term consequences of large numbers of men unable to work? There truly is no such thing as the uninjured soldier.
As to the population behaviour issue, it's something I've raised before in this comments thread. We are talking about human proclivities, not tendencies specific to Jews. In this case it's intellectuals, and Ashkenazi Jews just happen to have more of them per population. And by intellectual, I don't mean highly intelligent individuals. By intellectual I mean those so unable to cope with the intermittent and inevitable tragedy of the human condition, who then seek to either 'reform' human nature or promise false utopia. Thomas Sowell has talked about it- the difference between the constrained and unconstrained view.
That doesn't mean there aren't great artists and great poets who create soaring odes to beauty and human frailty- Russian writers, for example. But generally the legacy of intellectuals on the world is a history of failed experiments, promoting human misery and suffering, with no apology forthcoming. Besides, most of the latest batch of destructive intellectuals were all French, or French Afro-Caribbean. Liu Cixin captured it beautifully in his book the The Three Body-Problem. Quite apart from introducing a new batch of historically ignorant young people to the realities of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (mirrored in our current Western Cultural moment), he maintained that it was only the elite intellectual class which could have such vitriolic contempt for their own nations and humanity as a whole.
If I had any advice for China it would be to isolate their highly cognitive class away from the Culture. Make them study science or engineering- both they and the world will be the better for it.
In a world that most believe already has too many people, I get really tired of the silly Peter Zeihan argument that an aging population must lead to economic decline.
China has a youth unemployment problem now, why would it need more unemployed youth? (although this does seem to create conditions which result in 8x the STEM graduates in China compared to the US)
Then there's the video of the Xaiomi Su7 manufacturing plant which showed at most 4 people running the robots that built the cars.
Thanks for that. It's useful info, and it's backed up by pretty poor labour participation rates. There are four things to remember. 1) China experienced the same type of shock as everyone else as a result of the pandemic hysteria. It's the equivalent of the shock of a world war, without the de-housing. Generally things don't fully recover from such effects for at least ten years.
2) China has been systematically offshoring it's lower value manufacturing in areas like textiles to Africa. In theory, this should work- everybody moves up, right? Unfortunately, it's a fiction. Large scale labour disruptions are generally a lot worse than economists claim. Labour doesn't always magically reallocate- some of its gets lost, people drop out of the workforce if they are mentally vulnerable, etc. A friend told me about peasant fisherman in one major coastal city- like the labour that time forget. That being said, it's great for Africa.
3) Like most of the West, China has an overproduction of Elites problem, of the Peter Turchin variety. It may not seem like it as a surface level. After all, at 27% the figure isn't far off that of Germany which is pretty rational at recognising little personal or economy value at offering tertiary education to more than a fixed percentage of the population (because of the cognitive spectrum). But it's important to remember that China is two countries. The China of the coast, which is an advanced economy, with a need for a high knowledge specialised workforce, and the China of the interior, which is far larger and doesn't anywhere near as many graduates per population. So, it's a mismatch of education to labour requirements. Too many chiefs, not enough Indians.
4) The global investment class got incredibly skittish after the pandemic. They realised the inherent risks in having all their eggs in one basket. China's loss is the rest of Asia's gain.
I agree with you on the automation issue. I worked automation back in the stone age of AS400s. It's why people should read Jeffery Sachs book on Globalisation (or at least the opening chapters about the shift from primary and secondary sectors to tertiary). Unfortunately, most service sector jobs are always going to be shit- they can't be scaled, they are inherently piss poor in terms of productivity and are limited in labour value- nowhere near as good as the old jobs in tradeable manufacturing. It's why people need to recognise the huge potential in libertarian land reforms, supercharging construction and providing the younger generations with cheap starter homes. And it actually increases value further up the housing ladder, but nobody can be bothered to explain that to the boomer generation, worried about depleting their housing pot of gold.
One thing I've learned is that civilians "don't think anything", mostly. They are told what to think and think that. When the policy of the government shifts, so does its messaging meaning that yesterday's friends suddenly become the most hated of enemies and the population goes along with it. Narratives are king. He who controls the narrative, controls everything. This explains the sudden change of few Ukrainians seeming themselves as "Ukrainian" in 2014, to being willing to die for it in a few short years. It also explains why people suddenly hate China when they were ambivalent before. The trick is to hijack the narrative, but this requires many people working in tandem to shift the overton window.
America's decline depends on abandoning the USD or losing a major military conflict to a "minor" nation so that countries begin to doubt America's ability to protect them, keep them in line and protect the USD. The USD and military might are linked and cannot be seperated from one another. OTOH, going isolationist (as Trump proposes) could be catastrophic for the USD/American power as it will be viewed as an "unreliable" partner and will thus cause many countries to leave NATO/dump the USD. This is what we want.
There are intellectuals and then there are Jewish intellectuals. Before Catherine let in many European jews into Russia, Russia had a healthy discourse amongst leading intellectuals and thinkers about Russia and its place in the world. The presence of Jewish intellectuals suddenly leads to terrorism and destability of the State. This has been consistent since the time of the Romans (and one of the main reasons why the Jews lost their homeland in the first place). It seems like its a cultural characteristic for them (unlike many claim, each nation has a defining characteristic that characterizes a large percentage of their population).
I read Liu Cixin (btw highly recommend in Russian, excellent translation) and intellectuals led humanity to potential extinction due to aliens. Intellectuals are generally problematic, but this is exacerbated by Jews being present and leads to instability whereas before them things are controllable.
If I were the Chinese, I'd stop girls from going to study abroad (since they acquire toxic Western traits and beliefs) and I would cut off the population from harmful Western propagandistic media (which they have mostly done, but not entirely. For example "Friends" remains a huge thing and it promotes casual sex for example. I do not know how it passed censorship. This is also why I believe Russia needs to be cut off from youtube, this will insulate (and make it more difficult) for the youth to integrate into western culture and will cause the development of a countries own culture and thus be more susceptible to narratives that are "your own" rather than foreign ones.
From the horses mouth :
https://rumble.com/v1mfiva-you-are-amalek-part-one.html
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kVKGRB3cygg
"Jew bootlickers": so that shows who ultimately pull the strings, and it ain't your beloved rappers and porn stars. Get real!
Exactly. The Jew is the problem. Always has been.
Whatever you say, killah.
Go back to watching Fox News.
How on Earth did you conclude, utterly wrongly, that I watch Fox news because I made fun of your imbecile remark?
No the problem is people that refuse to recognized their own shortcomings and seek to blame others for them.
Once the Jew is recognized the solution becomes clear.
Phuckoff, bigot.
Go away Jew
Rinse, repeat.
and 90% of these people that you talk about who bothered to vote will vote Democrat
Echoes my comment about housing and the Great Migration reversing. It's funny how the Left won't accept reality when the 'It's the economy, stupid!' line works against them...
People with memory span (all five hundred of them) might recall that back in 2021 Bernie explained how Democrat party with its globalist pro-immigration policy has turned into a job-killing faction, and Republicans likewise turned into protectors of local workforce, paradoxically implementing Left ideals. Recent addition of union representatives to GOP rally, first in half a century, shows for it.
The union reps represent the union hierarchy, the bureaucracy, and not the rank and file. There's nothing "left" about them whatsoever. They're rightwing nativists--that's why they were there, t that reactionary circus. Those guys are down with war and Wall Street.
US unions? Sold out too.
Their presence at GOP events is good news. There was an uproar in US unions from the rank-and-file members in 2016 and 2020, when the union brass supported Hillary and then Biden against their members' wishes.
G'day Marcos, surely is hard to work that out when the referred to groups will suffer the most under DJT policies. A true disconnect from reality or just got sucked in with propaganda by a classic showman spruiker!
Reality disagrees
When Trump wins, the federal departments will simply refuse to implement any of his directives, R team in Congress will refuse to pass his laws, they will bring on economic calamity, blame him, and carry on as usual. The only question is if the proceed to war in Lebanon and Ukraine sequentially or simultaneously.
I think Ukraine will get better - Israel might get worse but I agree with the rest of your comment. Like last time and he seems to be doing the same thing as last time in picking his staff...this Vance guy is a bad choice.
Trump might well try to shut down the Ukraine war, but the military, the State Department and the CIA likely will not obey his orders, just as they didn't in Syria.
He'd botch it by trying to strike a favorable deal and push terms on Russia when only swift capitulation could have saved him.
If he's got the balls he can do it.
First, call up the National Guard.
Second, use the presidential authority to declassify to declassify everything on the premise at Langley and all other intelligence buildings.
Third, send in the guard to confiscate/copy/secure all physical and eletronic records for review.
Fourth, announce an amnesty for all intelligence personnel who cooperate fully in the review and full prosecution for all who obstruct. Anyone who cooperates will have their name redacted from any releases and anyone who obstructs will have their name published.
Fifth, do the review. Publish the most egregious abuses in full. Reclassify anything that is a legitimate security program. Clean house. Use an executive order to fire the top 3 to 5 levels of the hierarchy and and managers who obstructed or were involved in shenanigans.
Do the same thing concurrently at DHS, FBI, and DoJ. Afterwards, having set an example, maybe do it at the FDA, CDC, NIAID, FCC, FTC, SEC, and any other agencies with financial oversight or that engaged in egregious abuses during covid, the financial crisis, or the war on terror.
From your mouth to God's ear!
Only reason Ukraine will get better is because NATO and the US/UK etc are helping them which is disgusting. Either Ukraine fights Russia on it's own and loses or don't pretend it is getting NO help!
Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated. Look at how he twice cucked out of leaving Syria, to give one example.
No. Everyone with power has now seen what unfettered democrat ideology looks like and they want no more of it. In the corridors of power there will be a huge sigh of relief that this dark time is over, and general co-operation in getting everything back on an even keel which means shutting down those overseas conflicts, and swiftly.
Disagree I'm afraid. They will double down as they always have. They have no reverse gear.
Yeah a quick scroll of my FB shows that literally nothing will bother someone still voting Democrat. They see nothing, hear nothing, and it's really sad.
If only.
What do you plan to do with AIPAC?
A bounty on them would be nice.....
Trump wins , US troops go into Gaza. Israeli troops back off. Better to waste American lives than Israeli.Maybe also Lebanon. Zionists got US Mid East Policy 110 percent under control. America is just a puppet now.
Agree
That is AIPACS agenda, but the Pentagon knows they will suffer unacceptable losses if they take on Hezbollah. There is growing hatred of Israel worldwide and here in the US.
The hatred is so systemic, I do not think Israel will exist in its present form in 10 years.
Fighting-age Americans hate Israel. The only age group that seems to still like them is the over-60s. I don't know if jews realize how, once the boomers are gone, they have zero friends left; but, of course, this is the infiltration-alienation-expulsion cycle they always do to themselves.
They run the White House. Don't matter about popularity. The US military is very professional and will follow orders. Not saying this WILL transpire just saying DON'T be supprissed to see American goy blood spilt in the interests of Israel while they sit back and gloat. American blood is acceptable to Israel. "I do not think Israel will exist in its present form in 10 years"-I tend to agree but much blood until then.
You have a good point about Federal Departments. Civil Service Bureaucracies are the professionals playing gentleman amateurs when it comes to government. Think Tiger Woods vs. Justin Timberlake. The politics is less clear. It looks as though Trump is likely to take the Senate as well as the HoR.
Assuming Trump wins, which he probably would, Team D will simply use this as a fundraising bonanza.
In that case Trump proscribes AIPAC. Names it as a foreign and thus illegal organisation. Putin did more or less the same with the oligarchs and Rothschild.
I think the fact that the establishment will actually be willing to oppose the White House if it's Trump in there doing the same things as Biden, is part of his broader appeal as a candidate
Vance is on board with RAGE - retire all government employees. There’s at least a glimmer of hope, albeit faint of course.
That Trump fistpump picture is amazingly iconic. Whoever tried to kill him scored an own goal.
Out of the mouth of babies.
TPTB are actually trying to have the photo banned, seriously. How I don't know but all media publications will not be showing it for sure
The Chinese already have the image on tee-shirts. The NYT FORBADE the use of the word "genocide" in their reporting on the Gaza genocide. Too late to cancel the bleeding Trump-old glory meme. If the deep state assassination had been successful, the Republican convention would have been in disarray, probably allowing the likes of neocon Haley to seize the reins. The missed assassination makes Trump even more likely to get the presidency. Good times. The scribblers at The Onion couldn't make this stuff up.
:) Exactly, like someone has put out there on a meme "the Bullet that hit Trump, killed Biden".
The head of the SS health and safety excuse that the roof was too sloped to have anyone on had me laughing so hard I peed my pants a little.
Go to the local hire shop , hire a sissor lift. On button. Up button. Down button. Sloped roof excuse solved. Just BS.
All while the two SS snippers who took the fool out, even with some reluctance were on a sloped roof.
I want my last 10 minutes back.
I think you're mostly correct about how Trump and Vance will act in the victory, but I think the key player will end up being Vivik. He is advocating for the part of "the Trump agenda" that is to dismantle the federal bureaucracy. They obviously haven't detailed their plan yet, but Trump and Vivik have both implied axing the federal agencies to bare minimums and pushing all the responsibilities to the state level. The federal level would basically just coordinate between state agencies. Not sure what they have planned for the non-domestic agencies but I'm sure a massive house cleaning. (If that is even something you can do to the CIA).
This is good news this is even talked about, giving me optimism for whatever's to come. At least with Trump at the helm, any changes will include the people's welfare, as any hint of it is sorely missing at this time with the current administration.
He'll talk the talk, just like they do.
Whilst I dearly wish this were true, I'm afraid I have to consider it hopium. The Federal bureaucracy is enormously powerful - no president has the power to overcome it. Its end will not be murder, but suicide, taking America down with it.
While you are probably right, I think Trump does have an idea what he is up against. Knowing what your target is at least a start.
Possibly. But to me it is like the marathon runner who is just about to take the lead near the finish line. He knows he is going to win. Everyone knows he is going to win. But then the lead runner crosses his lane and "accidently" knocks him out of the race.
If they go after Trump again it will have to look like an accident. My guess is they'd sabotage his plane or something like that.
His first term isn't indicating much on that front. Even if he knew, he could hardly raise a finger against them.
A lot of his regular SS were reassigned to increase SS detail. for Dr Jill.
So, if tomorrow Trump said we will closed down the EFA, FDA, ...these scientists will go up in arms? The only bad ass organizations are the CIA. NSA, FBI
The federal govt is the largest employer in the U.S. w/ nearly 4mn people on the payroll: bigley. However, Vivek's enthusiasm for paring back the bloat is a welcome & exciting development: he'll bring spirited energy to the project.
Such a task would also signal a privileging of the domestic focus, a sleeves-rolled-up effort to invest in creative solutions on the homefront
The general frame work I've seen them hint at is they want to cut each agencies budget about 75% and then distribute about half of that savings directly to the state (37.5%) for them to manage themselves directly. So basically cut the federal budget in half(25 fed + 37.5 state) and give the states more direct policy power. At least that's the idea. They used EPA and education department as their examples of agencies to do this too.
If there is food, water, shelter and children aren't being harmed, people can put up with a lot of disorder. Those are the only things that will get people to be violent en masse. That said, I would not at all be surprised to see martial law, blackouts, riots, (more) looting. For there to be a civil war, there needs to be leaders and different factions of the military going to different sides.
Add internet access to your list. Some of us would be fine without it, but there’s a shitload of people in this country who would absolutely lose their minds if their phones suddenly stopped working.
I grew up without the internet and though today I am reliant on it for sites like this, I could probably do without if needed. But those who grew up in the 90s and naughties will likely have a very difficult time of it.
add psychotropic meds to the list. When they run out SHIT will REALLY hit the f###k'n fan
agree
Joe's admin is in its most seriously Lame Duck decline: did you see Joe trying to climb out of his motorcade on the Vegas tarmac to board Air Force One & the guy was scarcely ambulatory--?
This is not just steep Lame Duck decline--it's like deboned Lame Duck w/ orange glaze hanging in the window of a Chinatown restaurant.
Yes, the PTB could try to call for martial law, etc--the things Pym lists above--but the counter-PTB will step in & calmly take the dangerous toys from them.
GenZs & Millennials will innovate a workaround to internet communications--Dixie cups & string anyone?--and the ability of normal people in the normal U.S. will assert itself bigley.
Simplicius, please be thinking about how you'll send us in the Lyceum the High Sign
Out of Civil War there always come leader(s).
"Predictions are hard, especially about the future."
Trump wins. The crash may happen before he's sworn in. Anyone making 50K US or less knows the economy is crap, and those making more suspect it. Trump will still be blamed. By himself, Trump can't win. At best he's a start at U.S. rehabilitation. My 3 cents.
The quote is from Yogi Berra.
It is looking increasingly likely we will see a crash in Oct. if not before. The banks are getting weaker by the day, as CRE crashes and they are stuck with portfolios full of 30yr treasuries paying .5% and have to take a 40% haircut every time they have to sell some.
The FED knows that if they start cutting rates the economy will implode as it does every other time. Google " every recession followed a peak in fed funds rate", and look at the chart.
Anyone who says you cannot time a recession has never seen that chart.
"The FED knows that if they start cutting rates the economy will implode"
why? Isn't that helping the economy?
We're only a couple days away from President Harris. Good time :)
I'm pumped for that.
Watching the ensuing drama among the dems will be comedy gold!
President Harris will pardon Hunter
That wll create more problems for the Dems than it solves, though it is likely that Genocide Joe will demand it as a precondition.
3/4s of Demonrats are still convinced that the Hunter story is "Russian disinfo".
Imagine their faces when a Pressie Pardon confirms it was indeed all real.
Anything Dems do is only doing more damage.
Getting rid of Joe is bad. Not getting rid of Joe is bad. Not pardoning Hunter is bad, because it admits it was not "Russian disinfo". Pardoning Hunger is bad, because it admits it was not "Russian disinfo".
The way Dems cornered themselves with their own crap is unbelievable. There really isn't any way out for them. But, they are still finding ways to make it worse.
The party should be allowed to suicide itself. For example, if RFK or someone else from the more reasonable wing of Dem party founded a "New Democratic party", a lot of people would vote for them. Large part of Democratic voters realize there's something wrong, but they stay because they need to oppose Republicans or hate Trump. It's not unreasonable to think they could score well in midterms.
Excellent summary. (y)
Lowkey - Genocide Joe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1hloB-kU5k
Don't think so, unless it's temporary. Predicting they'll ditch both Biden and Harris in the pre-DNC maneuverings
There was no choice for stolen election and that might be what happens. I guess I choose the most popular choice, assuming the election is stolen again. You say we're passive. I think we don't give a shit and just carry on trying to survive. How can real people get enthusiastic about such a fake show
Like you, I don't see passivity.
The incentive to act precipitously, whatever that might mean, has not happened. A fake show placed before us is not incentive enough: a fake show is a fake show. It does not inspire action
Great points. I live in an affluent mid-western suburb. Because I'm in the urban flow and affluent, I live around many Jews. I have Jewish friends. There are Orthodox Jews around, in their tiny hats, and I NEVER see anyone bothering them or hear anyone speaking Ill of them. Ever. I'm about one mile away from the 'hood. I'm a 72 y/o white guy. I go to a Walmart on the edge of the 'hood. I'm there maybe 2-3 x/week. The customer base is at least 75% black. I never encounter any bad vibes and it's typical that a young black guy addresses me as "sir". Without sarcasm. Everyone I encounter follows Rodney King's advice and in fact "gets along". Sure I smell weed in the parking lot at 6:30 AM but I really don't give a shit about that. People are civil and I see more laughter and conviviality out of black folks than whites. People just want to live and it'd be nice if our government made it easier for them to do just that.
Quoting Pym (in this thread...and I agree):
"If there is food, water, shelter and children aren't being harmed, people can put up with a lot of disorder. Those are the only things that will get people to be violent en masse."
There certainly is dysfunction. I hear of carjackings and that happened to an elderly friend. The police routinely have 70-80 mph high speed chases on city streets. Stolen cars-a typical problem. My parents went thru the Great Depression and WW2. The present era, with all the troubles and unnecessary wars, is still a cake walk compared to episodes of the past. As a lefty history Prof friend of mine remarked one day, "I'm constantly amazed at the ability of capitalism to reinvent itself and adjust." There's a bit of wisdom there.
super nice comment - thanks
My "passivity" is limited to preparing for harder times. Practicing water glass egg storage, preparing to expand my hidden garden next spring, stocking up on dry-good essentials such as cleaning supplies, etc.
Aside from internet griping, my total gov action this year has consisted of advising local public works that fisherpeople are not cleaning up after themselves, putting swimmers at risk. (Dogs & I have been tangled in line multiple times, 2 weeks ago narrowly missed stepping on a rubber worm with 3 hooks in it tied to a rock, & yesterday puppy came home with a rubber worm hooked to her leg. Just caught in her fur, thank God).
Because as regards higher up government, there isn't a fucking thing I can do.
exactly, that's so sad about fisherfolk not cleaning up. But the last sentence is exactly how we feel...there's nt a fucking thing we can do about it. Canada likewise. I guess us white folk feell that way.
Yes, Antifa will riot against Trump, but not in areas like Texas or southern Arizona, from which they were summarily ejected last time after tentative efforts....the gloves would really come off this time...
There are two forms of Antifa in the USA - old Antifa, groups with roots stretching back decades, and new Antifa, who "sprung up" after Trump's win in 2016, astroturfed Soros 'Spring' movements.
You can easily tell the difference. The old Antifa hate Biden and the Demonrats as much as they hate Trump. Some of them considerably more.
So any "Antifa" supposedly fighting for the Demonrats are not actually Antifa. And you can bank that.
G'day Gnuneo, you have describe the division of the centre left almost and the socialist or soviet style left.
I think you would be as rare as hen teeth in your analysis as usually the Dems get the sobriquet of being left. A joke I think but the McCarthy House of unAmerican activities lingers to this day or the influence of the propaganda does.
BLM or antifa tried in Portland Maine tried just once & were put down immediately by the police.
Same here in Tucson...
Put down by police... and more than likely put up to it by police. Europe's "Black Bloc" are police provocateurs sent in to discredit any movement the public might identify with. Seen it a thousand times.
I don't disagree with the treeofwoe conclusion either, but man, a Hooverstan? Uggh. TL;DR: everybody devalued their currencies, those that did it first (the Japanese) did the best (US in the middle of the pack -under FDR-, France last) to get out of deflationary crisis. When you read any detailed history of how the banking system almost collapsed, and about how Hoover's solution to problems was essentially to do nothing, anybody that thinks Hoover was a good prez on economic policy has serious ideological blinders on.
However we are in a perilously similar world situation to the 1930s with new power blocs arising and trading blocs breaking up into autarky.
Overheated rhetoric claiming to survey the overheated rhetoric.
There is nothing wrong with the USA that is 'more wrong' than with any other mature economy. And a lot less wrong with it, not least its possession of huge natural resources which is the real bottom line source of wealth.
The problem with the USA is its FOREIGN POLICY, Penrose! and that could be put right in ways that strengthen the US domestic economy and US international repute in one fell swoop. Dem donors are actually moving over to Trump. There is no deep ideology at work at the level of the deep state. The deep state 's own clear sighted sense of self preservation is the bedrock on which the USA is built.
Sweep aside several years of dark end times fantasy, world dominion, and truly potty warfare, and it is back to business as usual with the benefit of, as JD Vance says, having allies as opposed to colonies (he used the word 'clients'), grown up peer leaders who are NOT to be treated as adversaries let alone primitives, a moving on from an imperialist overhang from the second world war when the US thought it could assume the Nazi mantle and be the home of the thousand year reich- a time of power-mad white people- to world governance through consent. That is progress, and that is where we are going, having thoroughly ploughed the other furrow first, and seen what grows there...... stuff that is not a wealth producing commodity.
Nothing wrong?
Imperialism, military bases overseas, the constant war mongering, the constant wars
The consequent opposition of most of the RoW - a pariah state
De industrialisation of much if not most essential industries
Financialisation of the economy and of economic relations
Decrepit infrastructure - inablity to repair reform or upgrade
The collapse of the health care system in parallel with it's elevated costs
The degradation of general health, rampant obesity
The slave era hangover embodied in the prison system
Politics and political culture as a fist fight to the death, despite basic political class agreements to prolong the current deadlock
The problem with the US is that everything is the problem
You got it right, this time.
Thanks do I get to vote please
That is all up to you.
Fast track to citizenship just like that - thank you
You don't need US citizenship to vote there
Nothing unusual. It happens every time a hegemonic empire declines. Seeing it as something out of the ordinary produces biases. Stay focused on the big picture.
I am the big picture.......sorry it's the incessant chat over US decline which is boring, it's over already
The results are in from the 3rd Plenum, I'll be posting soon
Oh, Gerrard, it is always worth taking off the adversarial cap now and then to look with cooler detachment at the world as a whole. Have India, Iran and Russia got it all more right than us? Overall?
We have got the wrong foreign policy, and that needs to change. As for what is wrong at home, try a big sweep change for anything that works better for the public as a whole and you fall into the very real danger of left wing lunacy. It is as if we always teeter on a very narrow ledge of stable relative prosperity with all around it the prospect of total collapse. Within these terms there are various ways of addressing the real domestic problem which is FREE LOADERS, rich and poor. And we might get a chance to look at this if we were not so rigidly fixated on the deficiencies of the rest of the world, determined to make them all our subjects IN THEIR OWN BEST INTERESTS of course, like some demented parent.
That, I assume, is what Vance is saying.
Pointing out the failures in US gvmt and society is adversarial?
That's another of the many problems I did not mention, I'd be up all night otherwise - the we know it all shining hill light nonsense imported with the brit 'first' settlers
I'll be brief - this is the very last in a very very long line of 'we are going to reform' which never got nowhere (unless you cut in FDR perhaps, how long did that last)
As for RF China etc - read the documents - just the recent ones May 16 Joint Declaration, the May 7 Executive order - the results of the Third plenum just coming in
These countries try hard
- that's the difference - degrees of success you can argue about all night - and you have to know what you are talking about, unlike...
To start an education--Another problem I did not mention
Homlessness – what happens in China
https://substack.com/home/post/p-146334721
One man's quest on why so hard to find homeless in Beijing, despite the propaganda from the Economist (that's another problem I did not mention, the belief in propaganda you peoples like)
– mind you – for balance – this report is from Portlander who knows what he’s talking about, but does not know China – so it’s very incomplete, but a is therefore a gentle introduction into the structural differences and priorities
The "vagrant & beggars" solution in China is reminiscent of a time in the U.S. when most municipalities had space set aside for the Poor House: dwellings in which the destitute sheltered
Yes and as common in Europe too
There are plans I read in I think in California - to open concentration camps in the far off countryside (apparently Rwanda declined, but Patagonia said yes) for the homeless, to concentrate them and to allow the honest burghers to breath easy - the SValley software implant solution was postponed
Peculiarly, the U.S. went whole-hog into the carceral state but Europe did not, oddly enough
Rigid drug laws in the U.S. *harvested* beaucoup people for those prison cells
During the early decades of the 20th Century there were more Californians in mental institutions than in prison. By the early 1970s this began to flip as mental institutions got repurposed as drug treatment centers. So 100 years ago there was a way to deal w/ mentally ill people & soon enough drug addicted people too--and neither solution involved "rough housing": sleeping on the street
Back to early 20th Century California, it was exceedingly easy to have a family member committed. Sometimes relatives got together, decided they had to do something about Aunt Martha, who had always been kind of high maintenance, & they drew up a list of her *symptoms*, presented the list to the authorities--and soon enough Aunt Martha was flying over the cuckoo's nest. This ease of solving one's familial problems continued into the 1960s in California.
After that, prisons became the go-to option
Thx for the link about Portland
Thank you for this - I had forgotten that bit of history, if ever I knew much about it, but I remember Saint Jack busting out
The fake use of fake medicine and fake social science to justify more prisons is discussed by the Foucault - and although his name sends shivers he was very right about this ruling class lock them up mentality
It was easy to see the Chinese housing bubble coming from miles away. I've worked in both housing supply and retail banking, and back in 2004 I started warning people about a real estate bubble in the UK- DTI ratios carry huge risks of upending entire economies, given that Hayek's observations apply across debt sectors. There was me having kittens in 2004 over x6.0 DTI ratios.
In the run-up to China's current woes, DTI ratios were x35! Housing equity had become a marriage leveraging tool, with families clubbing together so that a favoured son could get married... And it goes without saying that a large part of China's economic miracle was based upon real estate value creation.
If you want a good model for public housing acting as a vehicle for home ownership, Singapore is probably the best. Although Thomas Sowell wasn't a fan of public housing, he did at least acknowledge it was at its best when it was an aspirational move for upstanding working poor couples looking to start a family, rather than as a welfare provision.
Disconnected from reality is closer to the mark Gerrard or cognitive dissonance might be more accurate. Also did you note how anything that helps the people is left wing lunacy and your correct analysis is defined as adversarial. The deepstate sic. would be pleased with the result of their efforts.
One addition to your list could be the super wealthy tech trilionares perverting of the system completely which shows in your list.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks again much appreciated
I had to cut short the list, else people would have thought I had a bone to pick
I'll try and concentrate on real news - like what's going on in the ME or West Asia, China, Africa Sahel, and Russia - in all these places progress is being made
Do Iran and Russia have it "more right" than the USA?
Yes.
A couple of years back, some rich Iranian decided to corner the market in imported vehicles, and once he had good control, started hiking the prices of his somewhat monopoly. He became stinkingly rich quite quickly.
Right up until they beheaded him this probably seemed like a good idea.
Be a while before someone else thinks this might be a good get-rich-quick scheme in Iran, I'd guess.
Similar things have been happening in China and Russia, although a lot more quietly.
The health of an economy is measured by how many times currency circulates before it is withdrawn. Every time money passes hands it creates economic activity.
When the money ends up in the bank account of a rich person, that's where it ends its travel.
And that, in a nutshell, is the main problem with the US economy.
Your rich grab every cent and hoard it.
And they are REWARDED for so behaving. The more you have, the less % tax you pay.
No society will survive for long with such an economic/financial system.
In case it's not obvious, by hiking up the prices of imported vehicles for his own pocket, he caused severe inflationary pressures within that market. A van that should have cost $15k, could cost 25%+ more. PURELY for his profit-seeking due to market-control.
Now you'll say "But that's just normal behaviour!".
And that is why America will end up in a dustbin. You have been brainwashed until you cannot even see Reality anymore.
Good story - I like that story - meanwhile US makes cars (and everything else) more and more expensive with some feeble excuses
In China and RF a lot of competition, even if sanctioned economies tend to overcompensate, and produce bottle necks and other inefficiencies
Rich people's wealth, their great wealth, is not readily liquid--so it sits, *hoarded*
But the money does not really *sit*--because banks are making bank on it. Great wealth, which is not liquid & readily spendable, is how banks make money.
No matter how rich you are, you can only wear one necktie @ a time. You can only eat one breakfast
Well this wealth could be put to production use rather than into the bank
But - hardly no one has figured out how this can be made to happen
Used to be magnates re-invested in the tangibles & deliverables of their lucrative companies: a new printing press for a bricks & mortar media operation, for instance. Coal mining companies built housing for their employees & created micro-villages: the coal miners had their housing & also a company store--and the mining company itself reaped the benefits, tangibly, of these amenities in worker-satisfaction.
The culture of work & wealth had more of a marriage under this concept
Bottom line is wealth is a zero sum gain. There is at any point, a fixed amount of wealth, and in order for the filthy rich to have a grossly disproportional share of it, you and fellow deplorables must have less. You cannot spread the wealth, and steal it at the same time.
This, though I've no doubt you believe it, simply isn't true. You're talking, I think about money. Of course it's not true about money either. Wealth and money are not synonymous. Money is an abstraction, economies are lagging descriptors of implied wealth measured in money exchanges. Wealth is an immeasurable, fluctuating conflation of everything contained within a border that provides future resources to it's population. Borders, resources and populations fluctuate.
What makes your view appear plausible is essentially a group decision to act as if it were so.
And the circulation of the currency is also important. If $10 goes through 5 hands, then those 5 people have all spent the same $10.
You can have plenty of blood, but if all your blood is pooled into your feet, you'll die of bloodloss to the vitals.
Circulation is just as important as amount.
And of course, currency and debt can be invented freely.
Resources would be a better word. Cash and debt can be created in almost unlimited ways.
But there's only so much land, water, and natural resources to be divided out.
It would take several years to type a list of all the things wrong with the empire of lies.
Huge natural resources? That's a common misconception, most of the easily accessible stuff has been gone for decades. Natural resources lose much of their value when you no longer have the ability to manufacture anything with them.
I know it won't happen, but I wish Trump would ditch the ridiculous 1787 Constitution and bring back the original United States.
As for what I think WILL happen - spooks are gonna spook. They'll either gum up everything he tries to do or straight up assassinate him for realzies this time.
Your idea of the US is worser than your idea of the Ukraine