There have been some new production updates, so I wanted to do a little breakdown to see how plausible the West’s claims of significant production ramp-ups really are.
When I started work at Western Electric in Winston-Salem in NC in 1980, a high school grad capable of showing up sober five days a week had a good shot at a job that would pay the mortgage on a split-level, keep two cars running, and put the kids through college. Add a year of voc-tech to the CV, and the family gets a boat. This was nationwide.
A man is a damn fool to take a factory job if he can even find one these days, because factory jobs are notoriously unreliable now, and most don’t pay the wages of a decent living anymore anyway.
Pulling chicken guts for Tyson is now considered “factory work,” and they don’t hire at wages you can live on in the visible economy.
It all goes back to the inherent weakness of a federation. And the US is the prime extreme example, where states' rights are relatively paramount over the central government in all but foreign affairs. You can have total dingbats as state governors, going their own way, and to hell with everyone else.
That has meant that the US has never had a coherent national industrial development policy. It would step on too many states' toes, and disputes arising would have to be adjudicated by courts.
Then there were and are the owners/operators of industry, who are even more independent of the national government than the individual states.
The offshore outsourcing of manufacturing beginning in the '90s and continuing therefrom, was thus only at the whim of the factory owners/manufacturers/financiers. Make a quick buck by getting Chinese to produce stuff when their workers were satisfied with $2 and three bowls of rice a day. Then you could dump your "overpaid" US workers on the slagheap of history. Profit! The Number One thing on corporate minds.
Any realistically united and self-respecting country would have seen the shortcomings of this capitalist approach as a threat to its overall national long term viability. Many observers pointed this out at the time as the "race to the bottom". That was all forgotten as piles of money, lovely money, were shared out among the higher classes. Screw the old workers, we're rich! Even as the poor got poorer, the hollowing out of the US industrial base continued apace. Leading to the loss of skills in the trades, managers with the experience to run an industrial enterprise, and so on.
There was and is no mechanism in the US to prevent such hollowing out of society as a whole. No national means of knocking heads together to prevent the hollowing out, no national industrial policy to rein in greedy doofuses interested only in their quarterly balance sheets, not the national interest.
The financiers and banksters then started selling pieces of corrupted paper to each other, which led to the financial crisis of 2008. Free money from unviable mortgage loans sold in en masse tranches to the next sucker. All counted as GNP, but is actually pure foam on the top of beer, because no wealth was created. Wealth is defined as changing raw materials from the Earth to finished product, including agriculture. That is the basis of economics as a "science". Selling bits of paper to one another no more creates wealth than having everyone sitting at home all day watching TV, playing videogames, and interacting on social media. It doesn't even create food to eat, but absolutely nothing, zero.
But the accumulation of mere money by the already well-off is addictive to them. Money is NOT wealth. However, the temporary possession of money means that those possessing lots of it can buy whatever physical product is actually being produced, somewhere, somehow. And those with no money are SOL: Tent city time, begging, taking drugs as an escape from reality.
This is the USA of today. The rich see China in ascendance, and like the twerps they undoubtedly are, blame them for the US's travails. When it was them that offshored their wealth generation capabilities in the first place. It's why Yellen and Blinken recently went over to China to insist they turn down their manufacturing production, because the US cannot compete. The US leadership is nothing more than a cabal of con artists who want their cake and to eat it too. And threaten China and Russia with war if they don't obey orders. Increasingly the US is becoming a paper tigerr, with only its nuclear arsenal left to bully other countries into sending their produced wealth in the form of products to the US for cheap amounts of naught but paper money worth nothing. $35 trillion debt. Other countries cannot see the logic in increasingly keeping the US around getting a free lunch from them. Literally.
Thus, anyone with minimal ability in basic logic can see why US foreign policy is what it is. Overseas military bases to ensure the steady supply of free wealth, or else, we'll screw up your society with a color revolution or bomb you back to the stone age.. The co-opting of fellow travellers wanting money as leaders of countries faithful to the US paper rich con game has gone well. But now the chips are down and actual wealth and production of it in the US is diminishing, Europe is being hollowed out to maintain the lifestyles of the US rich to the bitter end. Which is inevitable.
The real path to ruin was letting the corporations offshore wealth production. All due to the lack of a national security industrial policy, itself prevented because in America, nobody tells corporations how to run themselves or to act in the national interest in addition to making money. Plain as day.
The desperation of fighting Russia through Ukrainian proxies drawn by money; the desperation in keeping Israel afloat to keep the Arabs and Iran in line and pumping oil for US-owned oil companies, it all is a consequence of greed by the few for mere money, and in their non-understanding that money is not wealth. Dumbasses.
LOL.The closer a country is to a unitary national government, well obviously the easier it is to implement a national policy. So by definition, a federation which always has states, oblasts, whatever, as secondary government above municipal level or even two levels, is not going to be always be in full agreemen wih a proposed national policy on something they believe is their bailiwick. It's called division of powers. What is the Russian Federation's national industrial policy? Do you know? Sure, oblasts and republics cpold be steamrollered from Moscow one supposes. How much prodding does Moscow do? It goes along to get along. It's not some magic place where when Moscow says jump on any topic, everyone hops to it. If you think so, I think you're naive. No point in having the federation otherwise, lump it all into one national government and ditch the secondary governments. Would go down like a lead balloon. So, no I cannot accept your unthought out argument, sorry.
The federal structure of Russia is somewhat different from the United States. In Russia there are several types of federal subjects - oblast, krai, autonomous republic, federal city, and they all have varying degrees of independence and subordination to the central government. But in matters of national security, the army and the military-industrial complex, they have absolutely no independence and are completely subordinate to the central government. I just wanted to say that all these problems in the United States do not come from the peculiarities of the federation as such, but from the peculiarities of the structure of the economy and industry in the country and how they are managed. The entire Russian military-industrial complex, as well as all strategic sectors of industry and the economy, almost entirely belongs to the state and, accordingly, is subject to the interests of the state, unlike the United States, where everything belongs to private individuals and is subject to their interests.
Sure, and US military power is exercised nationally as well, with all sorts of lobbying from its MiC and the Israel lobby.. But a state has no say as Texas was trying to do recently over illegal immigration -- that got nowhere.
Not all aspects of Russian governance are nationally controlled., that is my point. Which you singularly fail to understand, apparently. That is the result of being a federation. I repeat, and for goodness sake, get it through your thick head, truly national policy covering all citizens on all aspects of governance requires a unitary state. Not a federation.. You seem to agree but argue anyway -- with your prevarication now about your diminished "point" you "are trying to make" Irrelevant. And I say so what? I'm talking about the WEAKNESSES exposed by not having a single unitary government. Do you not agree, or are you going to go rambling off on this and that? Read my original post and be gone with you. Federations cannot compete on singularn ational policy on all matters with a unitary state. It's nowt but logic. That's what I said originally, and all you're doing is pissing about for reasons that must be clear only to yourself.
"Millennials & Gen Zs, drawn to the FIRE class of finance, insurance & real estate, are never going to opt for a tool & die shop. "
The high schools have abandoned shop class. Even boys (and yes it is almost always boys) drawn to manual skills have few options.
Inevitable when education became dominated by women. Liberal women the vast majority of them. And feminized men. So the thing became to funnel EVERYONE into college. Nice, liberal-progressive colleges. Leading to, for the most part, bull shit jobs.
S does not mention the 'famous' Rheinmetall 'assembly line' in Lithuania - or rather the letter of intent
One may suppose this is connected to the more famous German brigade intended to land in that country in 2027 - but for which the requisite infrastructure is lacking - the Germans were said to be fionding it difficult to find uniforms for the planned 4,000 men, and 'volunteers' were lacking
All Rheinmetall announcements and plans and proposals should be considered devices to pump up stock market valuations, nada mas
The Czechs are getting in on the act - they too are breaking ground soon on another arms factory, having mislaid as S remarks the 800,000 155mm shells they claimed to have found
a few years ago, a fellow wrote a book called "Bullshit Jobs." While it was mostly focused on America, there's a brief deep dive into the Bundeswehr that shows just how fucked Germany was long before Feb 2022 due to its lunatic logistics.
David Graeber. The book is an absolute classic, if only because he, as an anthropologist, did not presume to identify jobs that are meaningless bullshit, but because the jobholders themselves declared them, in spite of high salaries, to be meaningless. And the numbers are staggering. The book is a joy.
That describes a job with the Feds. I had one in another life. I still don’t understand how a person can get any satisfaction from doing nothing for 30years.
Any so-called "executive" that gets their gravy from the Corporate Borg is a useless piece of shit. Without Ethics, Morals and Values "businerss" is in the market of grift, parasitism and Theft.
ANYBODY that cannot define Ethics, Morals and Values WITHIN the frame of business acumen deserves an ATACAMS WITH NO KY up their butt.
« Therefore it is utterly wrong to think that no economic construction should be undertaken in the midst of the revolutionary war. Those who think this way often say that everything should be subordinated to the war effort, but they fail to understand that to dispense with economic construction would weaken the war effort rather than subordinate everything to it.
Only by extending the work on the economic front and building the economy of the Red areas can we provide an adequate material basis for the revolutionary war, proceed smoothly with our military offensives and strike effective blows at the enemy's "encirclement and suppression" campaigns; only thus can we acquire the resources to enlarge the Red Army and push our front outwards to points thousands of li away, so that when the circumstances prove favourable, the Red Army will be able to attack Nanchang and Kiukiang free from all anxiety and, thus relieved of much of the task of provisioning itself, give its undivided attention to fighting; and only thus can we to a certain extent satisfy the material needs of the people so that they will join the Red Army or undertake other revolutionary tasks with even greater enthusiasm. Subordinating everything to the war effort means just this. Through the discussions at this conference and through the reports you will make when you return to your posts, we must create mass enthusiasm for economic construction among all government personnel and among all workers and peasants.
The importance of economic construction for the revolutionary war should be made clear to everyone, so that they will do their best to promote the sale of economic construction bonds, develop the co-operative movement, and set up public granaries and storehouses for famine relief everywhere.
Judged by volume, grain ranks first among the principal outgoing commodities in our trade with the outside areas.
"" Now the outcome of the war will be decided not by such a fortuitous element as surprise, but by permanently operating factors: stability of the rear, morale of the army, quantity and quality of divisions, equipment of the army and organizing ability of the commanding personnel of the army.”
Stalin’s thesis regarding the significance of the permanently operating factors of war, as the decisive factors, was a constructive development of the Marxist-Leninist science of warfare, which stresses the direct and organic connection between the course and outcome of war and the degree and character of the economic and political development of the states concerned, their ideologies, and the training and maturity of their human forces. "
I was struck by your comment, and how it was similar in some ways to Stalin's permanent operating principles outlined in 1942. In fact when I was searching for this quote I came across a lot of articles etc that were not directly related, but noticed how closely [it seems] that current Russian policy as regards the war/SMO is similar to Soviet era thought. Not surprising perhaps.
Thanks for this - I can only suppose that Mao's remarks are common sense, as are Stalin's
Although some research might well reveal how one influenced the other and vice versa
The only people who do not understand such precautions or planning are the usual suspects, although now even they are catching on, whether they'll be able to actually re plan re industrialise re priorites and recognise how actually to do it, is very far from likely - which is why all the yakkity about re arming in the West is nonsense masquerading as hope
Certainly wise stuff, though not successful for a variety of reasons. In Aug of 1933 when this speech was delivered Mao was no longer head of the Red Army or in a strong leadership position. He had been removed in Oct 1932 even after defeating three consecutive encirclement campaigns. The Red Army was subsequently overrun in the Jiangxi Soviet in SW China in 1934 and began its 5600 mile trek (The Long March) to Yan'an. Mao was fully reinstated in Jan 1935 during The Long March. Some folks just can't seem to recognize genius.
What is remarkable is that his remarks are read now as only common sense, even if at the time all aspects of his genius were not immediately recognised, it is hard now to not
In any case VVP's plans and projects seem to follow Mao's prescriptions quite closely - and he has taken precautions, in his recent executive order, to continue these through to 2036
Advocating autarky in a wartime economy - which is mostly what Mao is on about - is nothing new - it's pretty much de rigueur for major powers at war in the modern day. Globalist concepts of supply chain rely mostly on maritime transit which is denied by the USN, and expecting foreign powers to cooperate in your warmaking is always a risk.
Russia is the best placed nation on earth to put autarky in practice. Always has been.
Mao's common sense was at odds with the ideologues - as is VVP's
Neither the EU nor the US have any idea of autarky let alone economic re construction let alone a war economy - because....of ideology, incompetence, sense of superiority or who in fact knows why, does not chime with their particular brand of capitalism
Still less the Ukraine, the definition of a captive state and made up country
Despite all of this the EUUS continue to define RF as a failed régime and state
I like that Putin cares enough about society to shield them from the effects of the SMO. All this patience in dealing with the West's proxy war is also paying off.
Russia's economy and standing in the world are improving, while the West is sinking. The West keeps provoking, but Russia won't react the way they want and let them control how this goes along.
It seems that Russia knows the best revenge is living well.
Corporate customer service is a big industry in the US. I've been in those jobs for long time. A large chunk of the first half your most recent (and excellent as usual) article is something of a run-down of standard corporate customer service, also known as "managing expectations," i.e. we'll have the product (weapons) manufactured by such-and-such a date in such-and-such a quantity, the product has started the shipping process and so we estimate it to leave the warehouse by such-and-such a date, and so-on-and-so-forth.....but applied to a major war (and minus the typical Indian scammers).
From a certain perspective.....the Russo-Ukrainian War is a Customer Service War, at least from the Western side. Yes that's a cynical take, and I pray for the Blessed Virgin to look over the souls of soldiers on both sides, but it's difficult not to notice such bizarre aspects of this conflagration.
Anyways, all the best and may Christ save the souls of all involved.
I recently moved on from the Operations side of a distribution/supply chain company that has now liquidated (America is in dire shape economically, regardless of what the powers-that-be claim). In the twilight months, we no longer had the inventory or logistical capability to fulfill orders. That did not stop us from sales intake. Everything came down to these intake numbers, that we might be able to swindle some gullible investor into putting a few more dollars into our pockets before the inevitable collapse. We fudged sales numbers, asset valuation, back-order numbers, the whole shebang.
It was eye-opening to see a company die in real time, and it truly did happen "gradually, then suddenly". Make no mistake, I see the same thing happening to America as I saw happen at my former employer, down to the same phony lies we fed our investors (or voters, in the geopolitical case).
Yeah, not just the US, but the all of the Western nations. I think the Western nations had a really long good run, from the 1960s to the first half of the 2000s, now its over. Morally, financially, militarily bankrupt and a shocking absence of common sense. If Elites and wannabe Elites think it's smart to lie in congress about what a woman is, to say something conformist to apply to the other Elites, then those Elites are doomed. Nothing good will come out of that closed feedback loop of moronic sentiments.
So...It seems extremely likely that the SMO will be more or less concluded before any of these "pie in the sky" munitions reach the Ukraine...and the Ukrainians know it...I just read that 65% of the troops in the latest detachment sent for NATO training deserted after reaching the West...The whole army should be deserting..Why throw away lives, when their families need them?! End the killing, now..
If the Poles want to be ground down, they will have to cross the border. Russia is not going to Poland. But Washington and London will, naturally, try to find a way to move the Poles.
I have a feeling the Polish govt may go for a war, but not the people of Poland.
There was "already" a fire at the Scranton Plant a few weeks ago that was how would you say; suspicious. Remember the pressitutes of the US hegemon noted that "President Brandon" grew up in this town, which currently is a run down hobo encampment, rather than what is called a city. A simply "Start Page" search will reveal this fact.
This war is already over and the zionist neocons simply want "the cattle" culled by all means possible. A shame the culling blade can't have other uses.
While imagining that Russia behind all these accidents is fancy, even maybe wishful thinking by someone, I think Occam razor applies here. It's simply accidents due to revving up production.
Handling explosives carries risk. The special storage facilities at certain installations I have been to need to be seen to be believed. Buildings with no walls, etc. Occam's Razor indeed - far easier to imagine accidents as a result of becoming careless, which is a direct result of revving up production without all the infrastructure and labor required to do so safely.
Putin's stance does bring the question of why SMO was started in first place, though (perhaps for same money he could just have built entire cities for couple of million of Donbass rezidents in Russia). I believe West can keep Ukraine zombie in life for many years. And demilitarization and denacification thing will not exactly amount to much- in the end. NATO, as we know, is now not far from St. Petersburg....
You do understand that this war is concerned with more issues than consumer confidence or comfort - the essentials of which find their origins in security, which the SMO seeks to re inforce
This is a war by the West against Russia. It started in 1945. Churchill tried to get it hot right from the start. But he lost the election and the UK's soldiers were sick and tired of his warmongering.
FWIW, the Donbas is rich in agricultural and mineral resources - including natural gas, coal and much else. It is Russia that is making a wise investment.
"This is a war by the West against Russia. It started in 1945".
Nope, it started even earlier. President Wilson sent 3000 American troops into Vladivostok in Aug, 1918 in an attempt to overthrow the Bolshevik Government. As much as Wilson hated Blacks, he hated the commies even more. This Western fascist regime change business has a long and disgusting history. And...eff Genocide Joe and the de facto US Pres, Bibi Nutty-Yahoo.
The historical records from the time say that the US, British, and French troops were in Russia at the end of WW1 to secure all the supplies they had sent to Russia during the war. Due to a limited internal transit capability Russia was unable to move huge amounts of war material that was delivered to its northern ports between 1914-18. The troops were there to secure the supplies from an unfriendly political movement.
If those foreign troops were there for "conquest" why did they not advance from the ports in which they landed? And besides, you can't seriously believe that anyone expected to conquer a nation of 150 million with a single brigade of troops. The Bolsheviks needed an army of over 5 million to win the Civil War. I don't mean to be impolite but if you think a mere 3000 troops were there to somehow overthrow the Bolsheviks you are stupid.
"I don't mean to be impolite but if you think a mere 3000 troops were there to somehow overthrow the Bolsheviks you are stupid."
Ad hominem aside I suppose the American troops there could've been on holiday? Feel free to comment but maybe put some sugar on it. I've been accused of many things but I can't remember the last time anyone accused me of being "stupid".
Re-read my entire comment before you lend further credence to my accusations of limited intelligence on your part; the reasons for the American troops' holiday is contained therein. Hope you can remember a few hours ago.
You do not know what you are talking about. The intervention was supposed to end the Bolshevik state by assisting the White forces fighting against it. It failed. A couple hundred thousand Allied soldiers entered the Soviet state with that goal in mind. The last withdrawals didn't happen until 1925.
If going to Wikipedia gainsays what you are stating as fact, you shouldn't be accusing anyone of being stupid.
House was Wilson's chief European advisor but Wilson didn't become incapacitated from a stroke until Oct 1919 so at least when the US troops went into Russia, Wilson was NOMINALLY in charge. My maternal grandpa (dob 1893) fought in WW1, fighting the Germans in France. Lucky him!
Nah, you can't remove money from MIC and put it into cities or other civilian things. You have to spend on military if you want to be sovereign. We all know history of last pacifist tribe which was wiped by Maoris. It's evolutionary dead end.
One important notion - you must do it diligently, not like US does.
The west really loves using a lot of vague language and euphemisms too say "we are fucked outsourcing our industrial capacity was an insanely short sighted and stupid".
Well, it's simply about extracting as many tax dollars as possible, not making production.
When I started work at Western Electric in Winston-Salem in NC in 1980, a high school grad capable of showing up sober five days a week had a good shot at a job that would pay the mortgage on a split-level, keep two cars running, and put the kids through college. Add a year of voc-tech to the CV, and the family gets a boat. This was nationwide.
A man is a damn fool to take a factory job if he can even find one these days, because factory jobs are notoriously unreliable now, and most don’t pay the wages of a decent living anymore anyway.
Pulling chicken guts for Tyson is now considered “factory work,” and they don’t hire at wages you can live on in the visible economy.
It all goes back to the inherent weakness of a federation. And the US is the prime extreme example, where states' rights are relatively paramount over the central government in all but foreign affairs. You can have total dingbats as state governors, going their own way, and to hell with everyone else.
That has meant that the US has never had a coherent national industrial development policy. It would step on too many states' toes, and disputes arising would have to be adjudicated by courts.
Then there were and are the owners/operators of industry, who are even more independent of the national government than the individual states.
The offshore outsourcing of manufacturing beginning in the '90s and continuing therefrom, was thus only at the whim of the factory owners/manufacturers/financiers. Make a quick buck by getting Chinese to produce stuff when their workers were satisfied with $2 and three bowls of rice a day. Then you could dump your "overpaid" US workers on the slagheap of history. Profit! The Number One thing on corporate minds.
Any realistically united and self-respecting country would have seen the shortcomings of this capitalist approach as a threat to its overall national long term viability. Many observers pointed this out at the time as the "race to the bottom". That was all forgotten as piles of money, lovely money, were shared out among the higher classes. Screw the old workers, we're rich! Even as the poor got poorer, the hollowing out of the US industrial base continued apace. Leading to the loss of skills in the trades, managers with the experience to run an industrial enterprise, and so on.
There was and is no mechanism in the US to prevent such hollowing out of society as a whole. No national means of knocking heads together to prevent the hollowing out, no national industrial policy to rein in greedy doofuses interested only in their quarterly balance sheets, not the national interest.
The financiers and banksters then started selling pieces of corrupted paper to each other, which led to the financial crisis of 2008. Free money from unviable mortgage loans sold in en masse tranches to the next sucker. All counted as GNP, but is actually pure foam on the top of beer, because no wealth was created. Wealth is defined as changing raw materials from the Earth to finished product, including agriculture. That is the basis of economics as a "science". Selling bits of paper to one another no more creates wealth than having everyone sitting at home all day watching TV, playing videogames, and interacting on social media. It doesn't even create food to eat, but absolutely nothing, zero.
But the accumulation of mere money by the already well-off is addictive to them. Money is NOT wealth. However, the temporary possession of money means that those possessing lots of it can buy whatever physical product is actually being produced, somewhere, somehow. And those with no money are SOL: Tent city time, begging, taking drugs as an escape from reality.
This is the USA of today. The rich see China in ascendance, and like the twerps they undoubtedly are, blame them for the US's travails. When it was them that offshored their wealth generation capabilities in the first place. It's why Yellen and Blinken recently went over to China to insist they turn down their manufacturing production, because the US cannot compete. The US leadership is nothing more than a cabal of con artists who want their cake and to eat it too. And threaten China and Russia with war if they don't obey orders. Increasingly the US is becoming a paper tigerr, with only its nuclear arsenal left to bully other countries into sending their produced wealth in the form of products to the US for cheap amounts of naught but paper money worth nothing. $35 trillion debt. Other countries cannot see the logic in increasingly keeping the US around getting a free lunch from them. Literally.
Thus, anyone with minimal ability in basic logic can see why US foreign policy is what it is. Overseas military bases to ensure the steady supply of free wealth, or else, we'll screw up your society with a color revolution or bomb you back to the stone age.. The co-opting of fellow travellers wanting money as leaders of countries faithful to the US paper rich con game has gone well. But now the chips are down and actual wealth and production of it in the US is diminishing, Europe is being hollowed out to maintain the lifestyles of the US rich to the bitter end. Which is inevitable.
The real path to ruin was letting the corporations offshore wealth production. All due to the lack of a national security industrial policy, itself prevented because in America, nobody tells corporations how to run themselves or to act in the national interest in addition to making money. Plain as day.
The desperation of fighting Russia through Ukrainian proxies drawn by money; the desperation in keeping Israel afloat to keep the Arabs and Iran in line and pumping oil for US-owned oil companies, it all is a consequence of greed by the few for mere money, and in their non-understanding that money is not wealth. Dumbasses.
This is too comprehensive and well-written to have no likes!
This is not weakness of a federation in general. Russia is also a federation, but it does not have such problems.
LOL.The closer a country is to a unitary national government, well obviously the easier it is to implement a national policy. So by definition, a federation which always has states, oblasts, whatever, as secondary government above municipal level or even two levels, is not going to be always be in full agreemen wih a proposed national policy on something they believe is their bailiwick. It's called division of powers. What is the Russian Federation's national industrial policy? Do you know? Sure, oblasts and republics cpold be steamrollered from Moscow one supposes. How much prodding does Moscow do? It goes along to get along. It's not some magic place where when Moscow says jump on any topic, everyone hops to it. If you think so, I think you're naive. No point in having the federation otherwise, lump it all into one national government and ditch the secondary governments. Would go down like a lead balloon. So, no I cannot accept your unthought out argument, sorry.
The federal structure of Russia is somewhat different from the United States. In Russia there are several types of federal subjects - oblast, krai, autonomous republic, federal city, and they all have varying degrees of independence and subordination to the central government. But in matters of national security, the army and the military-industrial complex, they have absolutely no independence and are completely subordinate to the central government. I just wanted to say that all these problems in the United States do not come from the peculiarities of the federation as such, but from the peculiarities of the structure of the economy and industry in the country and how they are managed. The entire Russian military-industrial complex, as well as all strategic sectors of industry and the economy, almost entirely belongs to the state and, accordingly, is subject to the interests of the state, unlike the United States, where everything belongs to private individuals and is subject to their interests.
Sure, and US military power is exercised nationally as well, with all sorts of lobbying from its MiC and the Israel lobby.. But a state has no say as Texas was trying to do recently over illegal immigration -- that got nowhere.
Not all aspects of Russian governance are nationally controlled., that is my point. Which you singularly fail to understand, apparently. That is the result of being a federation. I repeat, and for goodness sake, get it through your thick head, truly national policy covering all citizens on all aspects of governance requires a unitary state. Not a federation.. You seem to agree but argue anyway -- with your prevarication now about your diminished "point" you "are trying to make" Irrelevant. And I say so what? I'm talking about the WEAKNESSES exposed by not having a single unitary government. Do you not agree, or are you going to go rambling off on this and that? Read my original post and be gone with you. Federations cannot compete on singularn ational policy on all matters with a unitary state. It's nowt but logic. That's what I said originally, and all you're doing is pissing about for reasons that must be clear only to yourself.
"Millennials & Gen Zs, drawn to the FIRE class of finance, insurance & real estate, are never going to opt for a tool & die shop. "
The high schools have abandoned shop class. Even boys (and yes it is almost always boys) drawn to manual skills have few options.
Inevitable when education became dominated by women. Liberal women the vast majority of them. And feminized men. So the thing became to funnel EVERYONE into college. Nice, liberal-progressive colleges. Leading to, for the most part, bull shit jobs.
And here we are.
;)
New Frontiers, Old mannerisms.
S does not mention the 'famous' Rheinmetall 'assembly line' in Lithuania - or rather the letter of intent
One may suppose this is connected to the more famous German brigade intended to land in that country in 2027 - but for which the requisite infrastructure is lacking - the Germans were said to be fionding it difficult to find uniforms for the planned 4,000 men, and 'volunteers' were lacking
All Rheinmetall announcements and plans and proposals should be considered devices to pump up stock market valuations, nada mas
The Czechs are getting in on the act - they too are breaking ground soon on another arms factory, having mislaid as S remarks the 800,000 155mm shells they claimed to have found
a few years ago, a fellow wrote a book called "Bullshit Jobs." While it was mostly focused on America, there's a brief deep dive into the Bundeswehr that shows just how fucked Germany was long before Feb 2022 due to its lunatic logistics.
David Graeber. The book is an absolute classic, if only because he, as an anthropologist, did not presume to identify jobs that are meaningless bullshit, but because the jobholders themselves declared them, in spite of high salaries, to be meaningless. And the numbers are staggering. The book is a joy.
That describes a job with the Feds. I had one in another life. I still don’t understand how a person can get any satisfaction from doing nothing for 30years.
Any so-called "executive" that gets their gravy from the Corporate Borg is a useless piece of shit. Without Ethics, Morals and Values "businerss" is in the market of grift, parasitism and Theft.
ANYBODY that cannot define Ethics, Morals and Values WITHIN the frame of business acumen deserves an ATACAMS WITH NO KY up their butt.
Those factories will be mysteriously destroyed just as they come online.
As for President Putin's insistence on the importance of economic construction in time of war, VVP is following the recommendations of Mao Tse- tung
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_7.htm
Even the ynkas are catching on to this idea
Annexe
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_7.htm
« Therefore it is utterly wrong to think that no economic construction should be undertaken in the midst of the revolutionary war. Those who think this way often say that everything should be subordinated to the war effort, but they fail to understand that to dispense with economic construction would weaken the war effort rather than subordinate everything to it.
Only by extending the work on the economic front and building the economy of the Red areas can we provide an adequate material basis for the revolutionary war, proceed smoothly with our military offensives and strike effective blows at the enemy's "encirclement and suppression" campaigns; only thus can we acquire the resources to enlarge the Red Army and push our front outwards to points thousands of li away, so that when the circumstances prove favourable, the Red Army will be able to attack Nanchang and Kiukiang free from all anxiety and, thus relieved of much of the task of provisioning itself, give its undivided attention to fighting; and only thus can we to a certain extent satisfy the material needs of the people so that they will join the Red Army or undertake other revolutionary tasks with even greater enthusiasm. Subordinating everything to the war effort means just this. Through the discussions at this conference and through the reports you will make when you return to your posts, we must create mass enthusiasm for economic construction among all government personnel and among all workers and peasants.
The importance of economic construction for the revolutionary war should be made clear to everyone, so that they will do their best to promote the sale of economic construction bonds, develop the co-operative movement, and set up public granaries and storehouses for famine relief everywhere.
Judged by volume, grain ranks first among the principal outgoing commodities in our trade with the outside areas.
"" Now the outcome of the war will be decided not by such a fortuitous element as surprise, but by permanently operating factors: stability of the rear, morale of the army, quantity and quality of divisions, equipment of the army and organizing ability of the commanding personnel of the army.”
Stalin’s thesis regarding the significance of the permanently operating factors of war, as the decisive factors, was a constructive development of the Marxist-Leninist science of warfare, which stresses the direct and organic connection between the course and outcome of war and the degree and character of the economic and political development of the states concerned, their ideologies, and the training and maturity of their human forces. "
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/biographies/1947/stalin/11.htm
I was struck by your comment, and how it was similar in some ways to Stalin's permanent operating principles outlined in 1942. In fact when I was searching for this quote I came across a lot of articles etc that were not directly related, but noticed how closely [it seems] that current Russian policy as regards the war/SMO is similar to Soviet era thought. Not surprising perhaps.
Thanks for this - I can only suppose that Mao's remarks are common sense, as are Stalin's
Although some research might well reveal how one influenced the other and vice versa
The only people who do not understand such precautions or planning are the usual suspects, although now even they are catching on, whether they'll be able to actually re plan re industrialise re priorites and recognise how actually to do it, is very far from likely - which is why all the yakkity about re arming in the West is nonsense masquerading as hope
See recent FT article
https://www.ft.com/content/6482a6b9-56ea-4d79-ab18-ec5c6fa8f3e0
PS It would indeed to best to sum up their (Stalin and Mao) policies in parallel, then compare to VVP's
Certainly wise stuff, though not successful for a variety of reasons. In Aug of 1933 when this speech was delivered Mao was no longer head of the Red Army or in a strong leadership position. He had been removed in Oct 1932 even after defeating three consecutive encirclement campaigns. The Red Army was subsequently overrun in the Jiangxi Soviet in SW China in 1934 and began its 5600 mile trek (The Long March) to Yan'an. Mao was fully reinstated in Jan 1935 during The Long March. Some folks just can't seem to recognize genius.
Or out of jealousy, they try to marginalise it.
Thanks for putting Mao's speech into context
What is remarkable is that his remarks are read now as only common sense, even if at the time all aspects of his genius were not immediately recognised, it is hard now to not
In any case VVP's plans and projects seem to follow Mao's prescriptions quite closely - and he has taken precautions, in his recent executive order, to continue these through to 2036
Advocating autarky in a wartime economy - which is mostly what Mao is on about - is nothing new - it's pretty much de rigueur for major powers at war in the modern day. Globalist concepts of supply chain rely mostly on maritime transit which is denied by the USN, and expecting foreign powers to cooperate in your warmaking is always a risk.
Russia is the best placed nation on earth to put autarky in practice. Always has been.
Mao's common sense was at odds with the ideologues - as is VVP's
Neither the EU nor the US have any idea of autarky let alone economic re construction let alone a war economy - because....of ideology, incompetence, sense of superiority or who in fact knows why, does not chime with their particular brand of capitalism
Still less the Ukraine, the definition of a captive state and made up country
Despite all of this the EUUS continue to define RF as a failed régime and state
It's always worthwhile pointing out the basics
I like that Putin cares enough about society to shield them from the effects of the SMO. All this patience in dealing with the West's proxy war is also paying off.
Russia's economy and standing in the world are improving, while the West is sinking. The West keeps provoking, but Russia won't react the way they want and let them control how this goes along.
It seems that Russia knows the best revenge is living well.
The cracks are getting wider: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/07/europe/zelensky-assassination-plot-ukraine-russia-intl/index.html
"So we do know there are major problems with IFF and possibly C3, as the above thread professes. "
Compared to what? Have you done an analysis of friendly fire ratios for other wars? I'm no expert but pretty sure it's more common than is let on.
"the ATACMS will likely get increasingly effective"
"the ATACMS will likely get increasingly ineffective"
Thank you 😊
Thx 😉
Your analysis of Putin's speech points out the heart of the matter. Means must adapt to the end and not the other way around.
btw. “That being said,” 3 appearances…
Yours
Hello S,
Corporate customer service is a big industry in the US. I've been in those jobs for long time. A large chunk of the first half your most recent (and excellent as usual) article is something of a run-down of standard corporate customer service, also known as "managing expectations," i.e. we'll have the product (weapons) manufactured by such-and-such a date in such-and-such a quantity, the product has started the shipping process and so we estimate it to leave the warehouse by such-and-such a date, and so-on-and-so-forth.....but applied to a major war (and minus the typical Indian scammers).
From a certain perspective.....the Russo-Ukrainian War is a Customer Service War, at least from the Western side. Yes that's a cynical take, and I pray for the Blessed Virgin to look over the souls of soldiers on both sides, but it's difficult not to notice such bizarre aspects of this conflagration.
Anyways, all the best and may Christ save the souls of all involved.
at this point, America can't even ship video games that work :) Talking AAA titles here.
I recently moved on from the Operations side of a distribution/supply chain company that has now liquidated (America is in dire shape economically, regardless of what the powers-that-be claim). In the twilight months, we no longer had the inventory or logistical capability to fulfill orders. That did not stop us from sales intake. Everything came down to these intake numbers, that we might be able to swindle some gullible investor into putting a few more dollars into our pockets before the inevitable collapse. We fudged sales numbers, asset valuation, back-order numbers, the whole shebang.
It was eye-opening to see a company die in real time, and it truly did happen "gradually, then suddenly". Make no mistake, I see the same thing happening to America as I saw happen at my former employer, down to the same phony lies we fed our investors (or voters, in the geopolitical case).
Yeah, not just the US, but the all of the Western nations. I think the Western nations had a really long good run, from the 1960s to the first half of the 2000s, now its over. Morally, financially, militarily bankrupt and a shocking absence of common sense. If Elites and wannabe Elites think it's smart to lie in congress about what a woman is, to say something conformist to apply to the other Elites, then those Elites are doomed. Nothing good will come out of that closed feedback loop of moronic sentiments.
So...It seems extremely likely that the SMO will be more or less concluded before any of these "pie in the sky" munitions reach the Ukraine...and the Ukrainians know it...I just read that 65% of the troops in the latest detachment sent for NATO training deserted after reaching the West...The whole army should be deserting..Why throw away lives, when their families need them?! End the killing, now..
Those munitions are for when its Poland's turn to become a meat grinder. Or so the neocons in the west dream (and to make vast profits).
If the Poles want to be ground down, they will have to cross the border. Russia is not going to Poland. But Washington and London will, naturally, try to find a way to move the Poles.
I have a feeling the Polish govt may go for a war, but not the people of Poland.
Sounds like the Scranton plant is going to "mysteriously" explode and burn down.
There was "already" a fire at the Scranton Plant a few weeks ago that was how would you say; suspicious. Remember the pressitutes of the US hegemon noted that "President Brandon" grew up in this town, which currently is a run down hobo encampment, rather than what is called a city. A simply "Start Page" search will reveal this fact.
This war is already over and the zionist neocons simply want "the cattle" culled by all means possible. A shame the culling blade can't have other uses.
While imagining that Russia behind all these accidents is fancy, even maybe wishful thinking by someone, I think Occam razor applies here. It's simply accidents due to revving up production.
Handling explosives carries risk. The special storage facilities at certain installations I have been to need to be seen to be believed. Buildings with no walls, etc. Occam's Razor indeed - far easier to imagine accidents as a result of becoming careless, which is a direct result of revving up production without all the infrastructure and labor required to do so safely.
Yeh, but this is a LOT of plants randomly exploding for no apparent reason... But then again the US is not known for safe handling of explosives.
Boris and Natasha are en route ....
Putin's stance does bring the question of why SMO was started in first place, though (perhaps for same money he could just have built entire cities for couple of million of Donbass rezidents in Russia). I believe West can keep Ukraine zombie in life for many years. And demilitarization and denacification thing will not exactly amount to much- in the end. NATO, as we know, is now not far from St. Petersburg....
You do understand that this war is concerned with more issues than consumer confidence or comfort - the essentials of which find their origins in security, which the SMO seeks to re inforce
This is a war by the West against Russia. It started in 1945. Churchill tried to get it hot right from the start. But he lost the election and the UK's soldiers were sick and tired of his warmongering.
FWIW, the Donbas is rich in agricultural and mineral resources - including natural gas, coal and much else. It is Russia that is making a wise investment.
𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐤𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐫, 𝐚 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧’𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/10/ukraine-russia-energy-mineral-wealth/
"This is a war by the West against Russia. It started in 1945".
Nope, it started even earlier. President Wilson sent 3000 American troops into Vladivostok in Aug, 1918 in an attempt to overthrow the Bolshevik Government. As much as Wilson hated Blacks, he hated the commies even more. This Western fascist regime change business has a long and disgusting history. And...eff Genocide Joe and the de facto US Pres, Bibi Nutty-Yahoo.
The historical records from the time say that the US, British, and French troops were in Russia at the end of WW1 to secure all the supplies they had sent to Russia during the war. Due to a limited internal transit capability Russia was unable to move huge amounts of war material that was delivered to its northern ports between 1914-18. The troops were there to secure the supplies from an unfriendly political movement.
If those foreign troops were there for "conquest" why did they not advance from the ports in which they landed? And besides, you can't seriously believe that anyone expected to conquer a nation of 150 million with a single brigade of troops. The Bolsheviks needed an army of over 5 million to win the Civil War. I don't mean to be impolite but if you think a mere 3000 troops were there to somehow overthrow the Bolsheviks you are stupid.
"I don't mean to be impolite but if you think a mere 3000 troops were there to somehow overthrow the Bolsheviks you are stupid."
Ad hominem aside I suppose the American troops there could've been on holiday? Feel free to comment but maybe put some sugar on it. I've been accused of many things but I can't remember the last time anyone accused me of being "stupid".
Re-read my entire comment before you lend further credence to my accusations of limited intelligence on your part; the reasons for the American troops' holiday is contained therein. Hope you can remember a few hours ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War
You do not know what you are talking about. The intervention was supposed to end the Bolshevik state by assisting the White forces fighting against it. It failed. A couple hundred thousand Allied soldiers entered the Soviet state with that goal in mind. The last withdrawals didn't happen until 1925.
If going to Wikipedia gainsays what you are stating as fact, you shouldn't be accusing anyone of being stupid.
From what I have heard, Wilson was about as much in charge then as FJB is today.
Apparently a gentleman named Col. House was always by his side.
House was Wilson's chief European advisor but Wilson didn't become incapacitated from a stroke until Oct 1919 so at least when the US troops went into Russia, Wilson was NOMINALLY in charge. My maternal grandpa (dob 1893) fought in WW1, fighting the Germans in France. Lucky him!
Nah, you can't remove money from MIC and put it into cities or other civilian things. You have to spend on military if you want to be sovereign. We all know history of last pacifist tribe which was wiped by Maoris. It's evolutionary dead end.
One important notion - you must do it diligently, not like US does.
The west really loves using a lot of vague language and euphemisms too say "we are fucked outsourcing our industrial capacity was an insanely short sighted and stupid".
But the short-term profits!!1 — for 57 varieties of corrupt people in power, never in the interest of the people they allegedly serve.
Pelosi got a 65% ROI on her husband’s brilliant investments last year.
Insider trading is amazing
Test
How childish. Shame on me for laughing.
It worked!