Hi thank you so much for taking the time to answer my question.
There is one point I forgot to mention in my question.
Europe and the USA’s economies are stagnating, debt levels too high and politically a complete mess.
But there is an incentive for the USA to push Europe into war with Russia.
It gets rid of an economic competitor but most importantly, with another world war on European ground, capital flows from Europe to the USA will accelerate. USA economy then expands.
One could argue that without world war 1 and 2 (where the same happened) the USA would not be a superpower.
The US (or even Europe) don't have to pay shit to anyone if they don't want to.
Or they can just devalue USD/Euros and get rid of it that way.
The issue is maintaining an economy that produces most of the things you need if the whole financial system that ensures your ability to import stuff for free is gone.
The US can in theory achieve that. Europe not so much.
The problem is not Europe. They are divided and getting screwed. The problem is Great Britain, the propaganda king, and the USA treasury, and the Geek Financial rulers of the world. I expect there have been real military planners who have been looking for a weak spot, and a low cost way to attack. This is how military careers are made. But the money comes from GB and USA to pay for any Polish adventures, or Transnistria incursions, or attacks on Kaliningrad. There have been diplomatic loses however. Everyone is in debt, and needs more money. And I guess Iran isn't getting the promised S-35s probably so they could keep Israel from turning, and boy things are heating up in Syria. Looks like a multi-round boxing match, but not with Ukraine. With the Neo-British Empire: London and New York.
Very much agree with your assessment of Great Britain, which has an extensive history of using deceit, trickery, false flags, etc. to compel other countries (both friend & foe) to unwittingly engage in proxy wars that benefit Great Britain. The anglo-americans are dangerous allies indeed, but in the case of Great Britain its many betrayals of putative allies gave rise to its reputational name "perfideous Albion". The machinations of Great Britain in the context of Ukraine clearly have numerous goals other than simply weakening Russia.
Churchills comment.... "Great Britain has no friends only interests" says it all. He should have added those whom we made believe that we are their friends we will soon betray.
If he didn't have a price on his head that the Boers could collect they would have shot him when he was captured in that war. This bastard cost a lot of people their lives in large part of his own nations citizens. Churchills follies... Italy the soft underbelly of Europe, the Germans/US where still fighting in Italy when the war ended. Norway.. another Churchill pipe dream & waste of lives. Dieppe a doomed campaign with thousands of loyal to the crown Canadians slaughtered for nothing. Then the Germans discovered German prisoners in leg irons and handcuffs some of whom had received a bullet to the head during the hasty retreat of the Brits/ Canadian forces. Needless to say the Allied prisoners had it rough in the special POW camps set up for them. Dresden a no war zone declared city and a complete remnant of medievaI architecture bombed to smithereens by Winnie and bomber Harris in early 1945 just a couple of months or so before the end of the war. Swelled to bursting with helpless refugees the death toll was unbelievably high. Just to show that this act was one of revenge the bombers returned en masse and fire bombed the parks the river and the world famous Dresden Zoo because Churchill and Harris knew that the previous bombing would have driven the survivors into those areas. People burst into flames like firecrackers everywhere even in the rivers and lakes. I often wonder how they managed to get air crews for this particular mission. Churchill of course put it all on Bomber Harris's feet.
This monster almost ensured a complete and utter disaster for the Allies after Russia and Germany signed a non aggression pact and split Poland among themselves. Churchill then ever so disappointed at not having his glorious war to vanquish Germany as well as Europe set in motion a French hatched plan to bomb Russian oil fields including those in Romania. He regarded the Russo/Geman pact as some historical disaster. The Russians were just buying time to build up their forces for an all out attack against Germany and the rest of Europe. The bombing raid was set for around the first week of July 1941. Germany attacked Russia on
June 19th 1941.
Had they attacked the oil fields a little over a week earlier or had the Germans delayed the attack once more then the entire history of WW2 would have been totally different.
All over the planet the British Empire would fold like a house of cards. German/Russian forces would drive the British out of the middle east and central Asia. The US would not interfere and at the very least assume a neutral posture, while sharpening the knives to carve off its share of the now collapsing Empire. The instability of the worlds equilibrium this collapse of the British Empire would cause was a recurring nightmare for Hitler who had offered to assist Britain militarily to avoid such an event. Europe was extremely dependent on products derived from colonial export.
Well.. today Churchills great Britain still Perfidious Albion of course, witness her doings at the Bears feet, is a creature of
much roar but no bite. It has become a colony of its own former colonies. A nation so full of false pride while totally ignorant of its own history. Uncaring about the fact that native Brittons are now a minority when the migrants from other lands are counted in aggregate.
England dear England once the land of great Kings and lively Bards. Courageous defenders of the shores of your realm are you now destined to be trampled by time out of history and into the bin of the unknown. That is the ultimate insult, to be lost to memory and consigned to oblivion.
In my blog series I note the British penchant for Alexander the Great and his conquest of the world. This has served as the model for British imperialism ever Colonial times. Others on the other side of the war and peace dialectic note he was not "great," but a tyrant. London and New York are of course natural allies through their banks and businesses.
yep, thanks. That's supposed to be less than last year not more. At some point last year they were getting 200-300 tanks at a time, 40-50 jets from Poland and elsewhere (mig29s and su25s), with hundreds of light vehicles etc. As well as billions of $$ at a time. Now there's a tiny trickle in armor, a few hundred million at a time in ammo here and there, etc. Basically a fraction of its peak
Combat radius includes the return trip and some safety factor . Anyway i don't see how f16 would be more suvivable than the rest of the previous UA airforce
Regarding American support for this costly war, which is claimed to be still a majority based on recent "polls.".... Based on the many people I know here in the Southwest, I would say that support is quite weak, and deteriorating rapidly...My wife is a former advertising executive and quite expert in this area, and she doesn't believe any polls these days...Between the difficulty of getting a representative sample, given cell phones, peoples' reluctance to answer politically charged questions, and the fact that phrasing of the questions can shift responses dramatically, even honest pollsters like Rasmussen have been way off on things like the 2016 race between Trump and Hillary...
Yes sir. It has been my theory for a while as well that it is literally impossible to get a randomized sample for any sort of poll in the "age of communication." I cannot think of any way that prevents at least a few biases that cannot be adjusted for from creeping in.
Also, I have never met a person in real life that actually gives a shit about Ukraine and I travel a fair amount for work and have been in big liberal cities out into the conservative boondocks.
Ukraine is just the latest cause. It’s easy and costless virtue signaling. Put a Ukrainian flag 🇺🇦 icon on your Twitter and you prove that you are one of the enlightened. It’s a fun cause, because (so far) nobody you know ever has to sacrifice anything except a few tens of billions in taxes in order to support it. No having to pick up a rifle and actually defend anything. Commitment is superficial and most still can’t locate Ukraine on a map.
"From what I can see it’s in fact the opposite. They’re getting far more weapons now than at the peak last year. So that risk is now growing at all, in fact you can characterize that as a lessening risk, in Russia’s favor."
I think you meant fewer rather than more and not rather than now. Picky, picky, I know.
But thanks so much for answering my question and providing so much information in all your answers.
"The stock market is fairly meaningless when it comes to the real economy of the plebs as it’s removed from any connection to the average citizen. Only a small percentage of American citizens, for instance, hold stocks, and that’s by way of things like IRA and retirement portfolios at their jobs—i.e. things which are not actively paying out dividends that they can use on a daily basis, but rather are more akin to investments for their retirement."
I'd have to disagree with this statement. While true, it doesn't capture the totality of the situation which is far more complex than most people realize. For starters, many pension and insurance funds are directly invested in stocks, or are holding bonds purchased during a low interest rate environment which is no longer the case. Those bonds, on the books at face value, are in no way worth their stated value, and are worth even less in a liquidation panic scenario. Same goes for stock holdings. In my time as an investor I've seen three such events and yet another could be in the offing. Given the leverage in the system, which is off the charts, any such dislocation would have a direct impact on the banking system and indirectly on publicly traded companies inasmuch as their bond holdings would be under threat as well as their stock prices, due to inability to refinance at favourable rates, or in the extreme, at all. I could go on, but you'll get a better sense of the situation by reading Doug Noland's credit bubble bulletin than anything I could come up with:
"A tiny almost negligible percentage of people actually actively make some kind of money from ‘stocks’. As such, it remains a sort of self-enclosed system whose ups and downs are disconnected from real society."
I'm one of those people, being a stock and options trader from 1989 to 2008 when (ironically) I took Jim Cramer's advice to traders: "if you're up big, take some off." Well, it ALL came off and I haven't looked back. I wouldn't go near the markets today as they are far more volatile and subject to far more severe dislocations than in previous years. The point is, I'm not alone. Many of us bailed and never returned. This has had a major impact on that sector of the market which few understand and even fewer are willing to take risks in. I'm referring to mining and oil exploration. Without significant investment in that high risk environment the cost and availability of primary inputs produces a significant drag on downstream activity where most people are directly or indirectly employed. Under those circumstances you can only keep the financial game going as long as cheap credit is available and we can push the day of reckoning into the future. Well that future has arrived and shortages of primary inputs are now appearing, and at the worst possible time, when financing is expensive and "investors" much like Elvis, have left the building.
I agree, the day to day movement of the S&P500 or DJIA is relatively meaningless to the average person, but inflation, unemployment and the attendant social disarray are very meaningful to people who live from pay check to pay check, which is pretty much everyone these days.
I'm a child of the 60's and entered the workforce in the 70's during the 'stagflation period" that Paul Volcker allegedly ended by driving interest rates to 16% resulting in mortgage rates approaching 21%. Can you even imagine the impact something like that would have today? Jobs were very hard to find back then. I went to sea working on oil tankers because it was the only way to make any real money. Likewise a close friend went to work in the Arctic, and another moved to Germany to find work as absolutely nothing was locally available.
Sorry to be so long-winded but my major point is that all these things - stocks, bonds, and the economic activity they represent are directly or indirectly connected, and it's just impossible to separate them. It's the Butterfly Effect write large, and I suspect we'll see that play out in the not to distant future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
What would happen to Russia if something happened to Putin? Who’s second in charge? Does the politic change in anyway? Would Russia be more aggressive to its neighbours? Will Russia take another stance in the Ukraine war?
I think that to some extent Putin knows there's no one that can do the job as well as him and so he's forced to 'stay on' until a suitable replacement comes along. I'm pretty sure he's expressed in the past that he doesn't actually want to continue being president for this long, implying that he feels it a sort of duty cus there's no one better.
With that said, I'm not too worried because the war has helped to reconfigure society where a lot of the political elite are now on the same page in Russia and have been 'aligned'.
One guy who seems pretty decent to me, appears to have his head in the right place, is a patriot and not a 'liberal' politician, is Mikhail Mishustin. He was nominated by Putin to replace Medvedev as Prime Minister I believe around 2020 and has been serving as Russia's PM since that time. Some believe he can be a successor to Putin. Russia's next presidential election is only a few months away in early 2024. If you want to see all the 'official candidates' there's a wiki page on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Russian_presidential_election
Americans have completely bought into the demonization of Putin. This is “Putins War”. If you don’t support it, you are “Putin’s Puppet”. Say anything against the war and the response will be “ok, Vladimir”. Bring up how much of our money we are spending, and how deeply we are digging into our own arsenal to support the war, and you are clearly a Russian bot. Headlines don’t refer to “Russian forces”, they talk about “Putin’s Armies”. I don’t know what people would do without this easy crutch to prevent their brains from engaging.
After a week of headlines all over my new feed about the counteroffensive entering a new stage, and the hopes of cutting tue Russian defenses in half, and articles about how this or that village was on the verge of being outflanked, this weekend we transitioned back to zero updates mentioning a “counteroffensive” and more articles about “bringing the war to Putin” via drones or other remote attacks on Moscow.
Western media is today claiming that the actual main counteroffensive is finally underway and entering the second stage where they will throw Russian armies back with large scale assaults backed by fresh reserves held back for this purpose. Before, it’s always been the claim that it is still in the initial probing stage. Is there any real evidence that this is taking place?
Kind of - a new wave of mechanized attacks reported in the south. Nothing you would call an "overwhelming" numbers, more akin to the first days of the offensive - 20-25 tanks, etc. Still no strikers, no challengers - those either don't exist or guard Kiev so as not to be destroyed.
Yes, it does appear so because they've made large assaults with huge losses but also some gains. But the rate at which they're suffering losses I can't see them carrying on for too long
We are constantly told by our leaders that Ukraine is inflicting a 10:1 casualty ratio on the Russian forces. At the same time, we are told that the Russians have a 10:1 advantage in artillery. And are on the defensive in heavily fortified positions. I don’t think most Americans are capable of doubting what they are told anymore.
Just monitor both Ukrainian and Russian channels for battle damage assessment related stuff. In the past 2 days I've seen one or two videos from the Ukrainian side showing a knocked out Russian tank or two. From the Russian side there's an avalanche I can't even count, probably 50-100 verified armor losses on video alone, including dozens of captured and killed AFU. Judging by the releases from both sides the ratio is definitely enormously in Russia's favor right now.
That's not always the case, there's been a few times like during Bakhmut fights where I've seen a ton of Russian losses appearing and the ratio looked roughly 1:1 for certain stretches because the AFU definitely does not miss a single opportunity to post even the smallest Russian loss to buoy their morale so we can be certain that if there's a Russian loss they'll post it.
A simple question for those with military knowledge: Are rockets launched from truck-mounted launchers (MLRS) considered artillery, or missiles, or something else?
Russians consider their mlrs to be rocket artillery. Perhaps massive missiles like atacms, launched from american mlrs, would be better called medium-ranged missiles.
But I’m not sure your “combat range” definition is accurate. I’m pretty sure “combat range” is the range out. An F 16 fully loaded can does go out 500 km, and then back 500 km.
And not out and back. Ferry range and simply the distance the aircraft can fly nonstop obviously in one direction.The
I believe you are correct here. That being said, that is 500 km max under ideal conditions with no need to fly NOE, dogfight, climb quickly to altitude, etc. etc. etc. In the end, the range is really not an issue either way, any airfield capable of supporting the F-16 within Ukr will be degraded in short order, particularly given NATO opened up the cluster Bomb box which allows the Russians to use Anti-Runway bomblets with impunity. The only feasible way to use the F-16 in this theatre would be to base them out of Poland or Rumania which would invite reprisals NATO has no stomach for.
Woops, thanks for pointing that out, you're actually right I flubbed on that. With that said, in Ukraine's particular case it may not add an exponential amount of range for the following reasons:
1. they have to fly very low to avoid radar. Flying lower burns much more fuel than flying an aircraft at its ideal altitude where air resistance is much thinner
2. the missions may not be straight forward fly to point A, release munition, and fly back. As such, if some type of loitering is expected, this burns fuel to just 'hang out' and circle while waiting for certain things to clear. For instance, given the fact that we have evidence that they're heavily coordinating missile strikes with various drone swarms in order to create a simultaneous saturation effect on AD, we can assume this requires some type of loitering in order to wait for the right moment to fire so that the timing is correct
3. the above discussion only effects simple missile launches anyway, which as I outlined does not add too much to their capability as an F-16 cannot launch the same exact missile as an Su-24 any 'better' than the Su-24 since it's the same missile.
Thus, the only real 'advantage' an F-16 adds to Ukraine over the airframes they currently have, is if they utilize the F-16s for air to air combat, i.e. trying to hunt Russian jets which are terrorizing them, which they currently can't do with their completely outgunned older airframes.
And in *that* case, the combat range is still very poor from a western Ukrainian base because 500km doesn't even get you to anywhere near the Dnieper River, which means you have no fuel left to loiter around and seek contacts in the airspace, you'd have to already turn around and get back home lest your fuel runs out.
So without some kind of major drop tanking rigging, I don't see the a2a mission being plausible either. They can take tanks but then carry far less missiles, so everything is a trade off. And especially in BVR you want as many missiles as possible as BVR missiles do not have a good first hit rate percentage.
I did see some Ukrainian official say "When the F16s arrive in Ivano-Frankovsk..."
I dunno if he was just speaking hypothetically or if he was confirming they will be based there, but that's pretty much as far west as you can get, on the Polish border.
Jul 27, 2023·edited Jul 27, 2023Liked by Simplicius
Again, thanks for the bonanza of great analysis. Relative to item 23: Just a word of warning relative to BRICS and de-dollarization. Much geopolitical discussion, rightfully, has been about the long-term impact of de-dollarization. It's optimistically taken as a given. It will most likely be, however, a brutal, long-term, slog with lots of collateral damage. Lots of weak, global south, countries are heavily wrapped up with US economic interests and dollar denominated loans. The US will likely pick a couple of countries and wreak them economically as an example. Who will rescue the world from the IMF, the World Bank and the Big Bankers? Is China willing to step in with huge loans and investments as these little guys start to go under? A target in the cross-hairs: South Africa, which is the weakest link in the current BRICS five-some. And of course China holds 2 trillion in Treasury Bonds. Wanna wreak the dollar? Start dumping...but, as the dollar crashes much of that 2 trillion evaporates. Plus if the Chinese began a massive sell-off, the US would doubtless put the brakes on by freezing their dollar accounts a la Russia. Even the ever exuberant Pepe Escobar has recently sounded more cautious as the complexities of international finance come more into focus. Beyond de-dollarization, the major issue is international balance of payment settlements. How do trading partners with huge disparities in trade settle up? That was historically the function of gold, and now the dollar and its ancillary adjustments--national asset stripping, austerity, and devaluation. That's the issue that must be fixed with a new system of international payments with Special Drawing Rights or the like. Not an easy nut to crack by a long shot. “But everything is moving so fast.” Sorry friends, but it's a long and winding road.
China and the U.S. have each others balls in their fist. Both can inflict great pain on the other, but immediately suffer a very similar fate.
As for de-dollarization, currency doesn't matter. Everybody uses London-based insurance, London/NY based stock exchanges, etc. anyway. For example Russian oil still costs as much as the international oil exchange charges for it and they can't do anything about it.
India is correct in putting stop to any BRICS currency rumors. First you need to create all the support structure around that currency - BRICS exchange, BRICS swift, etc., then you can create your own cbdc, back it by russian oil/chinese economy. The only problem - no one is willing to be the first to do it.
India job is to throw a spanner into the works because of P envy against China. The terror attacks in Pakistan on Chinese engineers is the result of India using Baluchistan rebels.
Generally, such matters are fixed by wars, aka "I have more dupes willing to die for me, than you have for you".
The details are settled later, once it's obvious who is on the ground, and who still standing.
People can be surprised how quickly all these high-level affairs can be decided, once the sociopathic money-folk get serious.
Barring another 4 years of the Demonrat fools, it is most likely that the Dollah and even Sterling, (Euro is another matter), will still be around, just no longer so massively pre-dominant, which the growng BRICS currency will slowly absorb as it grows.
A 'replacement' for all the financial services especially for the BRICS currenc MAY not needed to be built - once the Reality of the situation dawns on said sociopathic money-folk.
Neither China nor Russia is intent on invading and subjucating any Western lands - the domestic exploitation is not in their sights.
The 'haircut' will only be on those GLOBAL dreamers.
This is a trade-off the money-folk will take when the opposite is living in a nuclear and biochemically-isolated deep bunker. IMO.
IF they get the chance. The Neocons are Troo BeLeavers.
Yep. A very relevant link. This policy is no surprise to people who know how sanctions work and know how the dollarized financial system works. When the US declares sanctions on certain items for certain countries it establishes penalties. If a company, any company in the world, sells that commodity to the sanctioned country it is generally locked out of the US market and the US financial system--which means it can no longer trade in dollars anywhere in the world. Likewise any bank that facilitates such a transaction is locked out. NOTE: ALL US dollars (except paper money) are in accounts at the Fed--Eurodollars, petrodollars, foreign central bank reserve dollars, the works. All dollar transactions go through the Fed and can be blocked or the dollars can be frozen. The vast majority of the world's trade is transacted in dollars. It is suicide for any large bank or company to violate sanctions.
Agreed, but it's a necessary long shot to be risked. Iraq / Libya were destroyed for 1. dropping the $ for oil sales / 2. gold to back a new pan African currency based on actual physical assets, both were basically suicide attempts without strong support. Any & all other "reasons" for invasion were 🐂💩. Barter, as will happen with PRK/ RF, is a bandaid that won't cover trade imbalances such as India buying /reselling Russian oil & paying in rubles. Though it does increase Rus govt revenue with tankers returning full of rubles to circulate internally, while causing inflation. India has little Russia needs except scientific human resources, with little to export in reciprocation. Though Russia has huge gold reserves bought heavily over the last decade that can't last forever without either a new bric gold based currency or their own closed loop economy where nearly all major needs are self produced or accessed from PRC.
Other countries, like Canada, have zero gold reserves, with our phony fiat loonie dollar based soley on it's overtaxed, debt burdened corporate citizen's future tax payments, (due to out of control spending by WEF's toadyTurdeau) & little Ukranada West's vast resources, to be confiscated when we default on national debt.
Countries not completely unstable can settle up debts like Hungary did, 60% or nothing.. .Take it or leave it. They can buck the EU primarily because Orban refuses to commit national suicide like the rest of the EU by sanctioning Rus oil. No one size fit all solution for world commerce other than US masonic $ will eventually ensure globalWW3 as US/GB/NUTO abandons Ukraine & lights the fire with PRC. Militarily US has only 2 options left since major land battles are futile, project naval power globally, blocking trade, and attack PRC or going nuclear & take out Rus & China simultaneously. -My 2 cents worth of opinion...
I think we're reaching the point in this conflict where things can spiral out of hand in an unpredictable fashion.
I think you're predicted that quite clearly too in this post and previous ones, that we're approaching an inflection point. And as usual, you've given excellent details about possible outcomes.
The Wagner "coup" was one example. But that was brought back under control fairly fast.
To all those who still don't understand how Prigozhin is walking around a free man in St. Petersburg today, shaking hands with African diplomats, I'm not sure you really understand how Russia works. Did you not notice that operating a PMC as a Russian was technically illegal this whole time? Even Putin reaffirmed that a couple of weeks ago.
I agree. And personally, I don't even understand the Prigozhin saga and it's very hard to believe even for me that he's walking free without any obvious consequences. Sure, his empire in some ways was dismantled as the Russian MOD took down all his contracts as he was supplying various other accoutrements like food to the army. But he was still let off fairly light compared to guys like Strelkov who were arrested just for posting some drivel.
But war and times of desperation makes strange bedfellows, and sometimes there are reprehensible people who are unfortunately essential to the task.
I could say a lot more about that saga, but it would be construed as criticizing Russia and I don't think this is the time or the place for that.
Plenty of people are unloading unwarranted criticism on Russians and I don't need to join in, whether or not it's warranted.
By the way, don't hesitate to rattle the old begging bowl from time to time, if necessary. One way to do that is to tell us you have a goal every month and let us know near the end of the month if it's not reached.
There IS always the chance that you called it 'wrong' for once, and that the entire (With a lot of ancillary loose ends) episode was a masterclass in 70D chess/Maskirovka.
That the real reason Prigo is free and happy as a bird is that *at every step* the "coup" was integrated within the GRU.
It's doubtful that any MI6 contacts to Prigo in Russian-controlled territory also still have this freedom, if you take my meaning.
And one cannot do a live 'stress test' if everyone knows it is a test, and if some people do not know it is a 'test' they will react creatively in ways the 'testers' would not appreciate.
It becomes very hard to punish people for doing what you would WANT them to do if the situation was real.
Counter-productive, even.
I felt very sorry for Strelkov, it's a rare week I don't post considerably more incendiary material against the British state than what I saw him doing in Russia. :( Much will depend upon who and where his funding comes from.
IF it's all above board - which will depend upon how greedy he got - with a bit of luck its wristslap time. If he got TOO dirty, :palmsup:
Re Q20: << Considering pros v cons, would it not be best to finish this campaign as quickly as possible? Stop the risk on the bridge, the nuclear power plant, on Russia itself and the risk of world war 3. >>
John Mearsheimer has been making the point lately that China, whatever it says publicly, has a deep interest in keeping the SMO going as long as possible ... in order to keep USA/NATO/West tied up and unable to focus full-bore on China/Taiwan. (This is just the reverse of why many neocons now want to disengage with Ukraine so they can fully “pivot” to China/Taiwan, the “real” target.) I would think this would give a shrewd Russia considerable leverage with a shrewd China, and therefore that the tables are today reversed from what they were at the beginning: Russia/China want a prolonged war to bleed Ukraine/NATO/US as white as possible for as long as possible whereas US/NATO will increasingly want to cut and run, leaving Ukraine “holding the bag”. It just has to stay sub-nuclear.
Jackson scores another easy victory for MAGA Communism!
Once rural Americans learn the truth of Communism, that, rather than trying to turn your kids gay, make you stop driving cars, and make you eat bugs, it is the OPPOSITE of that, it is all over for these Atlanticist bums.
The first thing the Commies generally do is build clinics and schools and redistribute land to peasants--pure Evil. Jackson was introduced as a conservative. He's actually a Lefty--an old-school anti-imperialist, economic Lefty. His gesture to "social conservatism" is his fierce anti-wokeness, wokeness/identity-politics being an anti-Marxist divide and rule trope pushed by corporate America. The Repubs and the Dems are both Right-Wing parties, that is both are dedicated to Corporate/Wall-Street rule.
There is no left wing party in America any more. Democrats are in 100% agreement that the US National Security State should be supported at all costs in its endeavor to censor “mal, mis, or disinformation”. They have been caught urging censorship of “malinformation” - information that is true but does not support the goals of the national security state. This was how they rigged the 2020 election - direct evidence implicating Biden in taking bribes and using his son Hunter as the bag man was censored at the behest of the Biden campaign and the FBI released its infamous statement that the offending information “bears all the signs of a typical Russian disinformation campaign”. This despite it bearing none of the signs of such a campaign (data not neatly organized for people to find it, the person exposing the existence of the laptop being someone considered “in disgrace” (Rudi Giuliani) and not some trusted interlocutor)...
Jul 27, 2023·edited Jul 27, 2023Liked by Simplicius
IMO you may have missed a connection between your answers to questions 1 and 2. To wit, you correctly pointed out that Biden has a major scandal brewing at the moment. The ZNPP remains an option, but IMHO that option will only be exercised not in relation to the ongoing war and Ukraine's successes or failures, but in response to just how problematic the FBI files being reported on by the New York Post become for not just Biden, but the prevailing political machine in D.C. IOW, the tail will more likely wag the dog to distract and cover up political problems domestically. I expect a major false flag of some sort if in fact the corporate MSM is forced to deal with the story rather than just try to brush Mount Everest under the rug as they are currently attempting.
It's bigger than Watergate. If a Special Counsel gets appointed, get ready, because something huge will happen in the Ukraine proxy war so that Americans are distracted from it.
From a comment at Patrick Lawrence's latest ScheerPost article:
Everyone reading here should already know that there’s a directly proportional relationship between the size of the scandal in D.C. and the severity of the alleged (false flag, anyone?) TERRIBLE WAR CRIME that the Official Enemy™ is about to commit abroad! I hope y’all are ready for THE BIG ONE in the Ukraine-Russia proxy war.
Any bets on what it involves? My money’s on the ZNPP. The second that this scandal can no longer be ignored, Evil Pooty Poot will do something so dastardly as to render all of this reporting irrelevant, dontcha see?
On the other hand, the Biden administration has a firm grip across the MSM, not to mention the DOJ, and the GOP barely has a majority in the House, nothing in the Senate.
That said, there are likely many Dems who see an excellent opportunity to dump grandpa before the primaries to improve chances in the Fall. Anyway, I'm certainly not holding my breath in anticipation that something will actually happen to Biden nor his despicable offspring.
Well, my point really centered on a possible false flag in Ukraine, and how it would almost certainly be more likely to be triggered by a domestic event or revelation rather than some boring battlefield situation. This information war has been waged against the western public in addition to Russia, more than any war in history. And yeah, the Corporate Dems have a seemingly symbiotic/integrated relationship with the corporate media, Silicon Valley (e.g., social media) and the surveillance/security state. So it's an uphill battle for something like the bribery (I'm not even touching on taxes/guns) accusations against The Biden Crime Family to gain any traction outside of alternative/independent/right-wing media/social media. Which is why I think they're saving up the "BIG ONE" (ZNPP, or equivalent) just in case something does end up becoming too big to sweep under the rug (censor, ignore, lie about) here at home, domestically rather than in Ukraine.
Even the left-leaning sites I read are amping the New York Post revelations, so who knows. But then again, the Democrats hate those sites more than they hate Fox News or OAN, so you're probably right with your last prediction...
I would say that it is not Biden that has a monkey grip on the MSM but Team D. If Biden becomes too much of a liability, he can be thrown under the bus and replaced with a different muppet.
This is complicated by the fact that the Vice President, Kamala Harris, has shown herself even less qualified for the job than her boss. She’s a national laughingstock for her hilariously empty public pronouncements (“there is a significance to the passage of time, because, if you think about it, the passage of time is a significant thing.”). She polls horribly, but is a black woman picked specifically because she is a black woman, and to push her aside would lose a core democrat constituency. She’s widely considered to be Joe’s insurance policy because nobody can push him aside when she is standing next in line.
It’s important to realize that Biden’s current scandal directly implicates him in taking bribes from Zelinski and the other Ukrainian oligarchs in return for favorable treatment of their interests. Joe has based his re-electability on his winning the war in Ukraine by November 2024. The allegations of direct cash payment in return for firing a Ukrainian prosecutor are now backed up by bank transactions showing the money changing hands. Over 170 “suspicious activity reports” filed by the FBI in relationship to these direct cash payments. Biden can’t abandon Ukraine now without a huge political cost, but the evidence is mounting that he has been on their payroll since 2014.
Yep. But anyone - including "The Big Guy" himself - that thinks Biden is getting re-elected in 2024 is on some serious psychedelics. Him, McConnell and Feinstein will be dead or on life support by then. I suppose it's possible that all of them are just deep fake holograms anyway.
As long as his nostrils can still fog up a mirror placed under his nose, the American press will prop him up. Recall that in 2020 they locked him in his own basement for the entire campaign in order to prevent people from seeing how far gone he is. He would give speeches from a green room to socially distanced audiences of less than two dozen people. This, as reaction to his telling an interviewer that “if you aren’t sure whether to vote for me or for Trump - then you ain’t black!”
LOL. Yeah that too. NO fuckin' way he can make it through a real campaign. It's going to be amusing to watch how they try to do it. I guess it's time for all of us to revisit "Weekend at Bernie's." LMFAO
Thank you for the flattering gesture !
Hi thank you so much for taking the time to answer my question.
There is one point I forgot to mention in my question.
Europe and the USA’s economies are stagnating, debt levels too high and politically a complete mess.
But there is an incentive for the USA to push Europe into war with Russia.
It gets rid of an economic competitor but most importantly, with another world war on European ground, capital flows from Europe to the USA will accelerate. USA economy then expands.
One could argue that without world war 1 and 2 (where the same happened) the USA would not be a superpower.
Before world war 1, the USA was almost bankrupt.
You've got the core and the periphery of the empire.
In a time of crisis, resources and wealth will flow from the periphery (Europe) to the core (USA) of the empire. That's the way it goes.
Just like if you're seriously injured, your body may conserve all its energy and resources for your vital organs.
If something has to be sacrificed, it's not the vital organs.
Without Exorbitant Privilege, the U.S. is bankrupt.
That is why they hate Russia so.
Debts are irrelevant.
The US (or even Europe) don't have to pay shit to anyone if they don't want to.
Or they can just devalue USD/Euros and get rid of it that way.
The issue is maintaining an economy that produces most of the things you need if the whole financial system that ensures your ability to import stuff for free is gone.
The US can in theory achieve that. Europe not so much.
The problem is not Europe. They are divided and getting screwed. The problem is Great Britain, the propaganda king, and the USA treasury, and the Geek Financial rulers of the world. I expect there have been real military planners who have been looking for a weak spot, and a low cost way to attack. This is how military careers are made. But the money comes from GB and USA to pay for any Polish adventures, or Transnistria incursions, or attacks on Kaliningrad. There have been diplomatic loses however. Everyone is in debt, and needs more money. And I guess Iran isn't getting the promised S-35s probably so they could keep Israel from turning, and boy things are heating up in Syria. Looks like a multi-round boxing match, but not with Ukraine. With the Neo-British Empire: London and New York.
Very much agree with your assessment of Great Britain, which has an extensive history of using deceit, trickery, false flags, etc. to compel other countries (both friend & foe) to unwittingly engage in proxy wars that benefit Great Britain. The anglo-americans are dangerous allies indeed, but in the case of Great Britain its many betrayals of putative allies gave rise to its reputational name "perfideous Albion". The machinations of Great Britain in the context of Ukraine clearly have numerous goals other than simply weakening Russia.
old cynic
Churchills comment.... "Great Britain has no friends only interests" says it all. He should have added those whom we made believe that we are their friends we will soon betray.
If he didn't have a price on his head that the Boers could collect they would have shot him when he was captured in that war. This bastard cost a lot of people their lives in large part of his own nations citizens. Churchills follies... Italy the soft underbelly of Europe, the Germans/US where still fighting in Italy when the war ended. Norway.. another Churchill pipe dream & waste of lives. Dieppe a doomed campaign with thousands of loyal to the crown Canadians slaughtered for nothing. Then the Germans discovered German prisoners in leg irons and handcuffs some of whom had received a bullet to the head during the hasty retreat of the Brits/ Canadian forces. Needless to say the Allied prisoners had it rough in the special POW camps set up for them. Dresden a no war zone declared city and a complete remnant of medievaI architecture bombed to smithereens by Winnie and bomber Harris in early 1945 just a couple of months or so before the end of the war. Swelled to bursting with helpless refugees the death toll was unbelievably high. Just to show that this act was one of revenge the bombers returned en masse and fire bombed the parks the river and the world famous Dresden Zoo because Churchill and Harris knew that the previous bombing would have driven the survivors into those areas. People burst into flames like firecrackers everywhere even in the rivers and lakes. I often wonder how they managed to get air crews for this particular mission. Churchill of course put it all on Bomber Harris's feet.
This monster almost ensured a complete and utter disaster for the Allies after Russia and Germany signed a non aggression pact and split Poland among themselves. Churchill then ever so disappointed at not having his glorious war to vanquish Germany as well as Europe set in motion a French hatched plan to bomb Russian oil fields including those in Romania. He regarded the Russo/Geman pact as some historical disaster. The Russians were just buying time to build up their forces for an all out attack against Germany and the rest of Europe. The bombing raid was set for around the first week of July 1941. Germany attacked Russia on
June 19th 1941.
Had they attacked the oil fields a little over a week earlier or had the Germans delayed the attack once more then the entire history of WW2 would have been totally different.
All over the planet the British Empire would fold like a house of cards. German/Russian forces would drive the British out of the middle east and central Asia. The US would not interfere and at the very least assume a neutral posture, while sharpening the knives to carve off its share of the now collapsing Empire. The instability of the worlds equilibrium this collapse of the British Empire would cause was a recurring nightmare for Hitler who had offered to assist Britain militarily to avoid such an event. Europe was extremely dependent on products derived from colonial export.
Well.. today Churchills great Britain still Perfidious Albion of course, witness her doings at the Bears feet, is a creature of
much roar but no bite. It has become a colony of its own former colonies. A nation so full of false pride while totally ignorant of its own history. Uncaring about the fact that native Brittons are now a minority when the migrants from other lands are counted in aggregate.
England dear England once the land of great Kings and lively Bards. Courageous defenders of the shores of your realm are you now destined to be trampled by time out of history and into the bin of the unknown. That is the ultimate insult, to be lost to memory and consigned to oblivion.
I too am repelled by that thought.
WBj
In my blog series I note the British penchant for Alexander the Great and his conquest of the world. This has served as the model for British imperialism ever Colonial times. Others on the other side of the war and peace dialectic note he was not "great," but a tyrant. London and New York are of course natural allies through their banks and businesses.
Typo? "They’re getting far more weapons now than at the peak last year."
yep, thanks. That's supposed to be less than last year not more. At some point last year they were getting 200-300 tanks at a time, 40-50 jets from Poland and elsewhere (mig29s and su25s), with hundreds of light vehicles etc. As well as billions of $$ at a time. Now there's a tiny trickle in armor, a few hundred million at a time in ammo here and there, etc. Basically a fraction of its peak
Combat radius includes the return trip and some safety factor . Anyway i don't see how f16 would be more suvivable than the rest of the previous UA airforce
Regarding American support for this costly war, which is claimed to be still a majority based on recent "polls.".... Based on the many people I know here in the Southwest, I would say that support is quite weak, and deteriorating rapidly...My wife is a former advertising executive and quite expert in this area, and she doesn't believe any polls these days...Between the difficulty of getting a representative sample, given cell phones, peoples' reluctance to answer politically charged questions, and the fact that phrasing of the questions can shift responses dramatically, even honest pollsters like Rasmussen have been way off on things like the 2016 race between Trump and Hillary...
It's like the Soviet Union. You cannot talk about politics in public anymore safely. Too much risk.
Yes sir. It has been my theory for a while as well that it is literally impossible to get a randomized sample for any sort of poll in the "age of communication." I cannot think of any way that prevents at least a few biases that cannot be adjusted for from creeping in.
Also, I have never met a person in real life that actually gives a shit about Ukraine and I travel a fair amount for work and have been in big liberal cities out into the conservative boondocks.
Ukraine is just the latest cause. It’s easy and costless virtue signaling. Put a Ukrainian flag 🇺🇦 icon on your Twitter and you prove that you are one of the enlightened. It’s a fun cause, because (so far) nobody you know ever has to sacrifice anything except a few tens of billions in taxes in order to support it. No having to pick up a rifle and actually defend anything. Commitment is superficial and most still can’t locate Ukraine on a map.
You write:
"From what I can see it’s in fact the opposite. They’re getting far more weapons now than at the peak last year. So that risk is now growing at all, in fact you can characterize that as a lessening risk, in Russia’s favor."
I think you meant fewer rather than more and not rather than now. Picky, picky, I know.
But thanks so much for answering my question and providing so much information in all your answers.
Yep, thanks that was a typo on my part
Good to see you make human mistakes, better to see you not afraid to admit it!
Perfectionism is destroying us. AI could finish the job.
"The stock market is fairly meaningless when it comes to the real economy of the plebs as it’s removed from any connection to the average citizen. Only a small percentage of American citizens, for instance, hold stocks, and that’s by way of things like IRA and retirement portfolios at their jobs—i.e. things which are not actively paying out dividends that they can use on a daily basis, but rather are more akin to investments for their retirement."
I'd have to disagree with this statement. While true, it doesn't capture the totality of the situation which is far more complex than most people realize. For starters, many pension and insurance funds are directly invested in stocks, or are holding bonds purchased during a low interest rate environment which is no longer the case. Those bonds, on the books at face value, are in no way worth their stated value, and are worth even less in a liquidation panic scenario. Same goes for stock holdings. In my time as an investor I've seen three such events and yet another could be in the offing. Given the leverage in the system, which is off the charts, any such dislocation would have a direct impact on the banking system and indirectly on publicly traded companies inasmuch as their bond holdings would be under threat as well as their stock prices, due to inability to refinance at favourable rates, or in the extreme, at all. I could go on, but you'll get a better sense of the situation by reading Doug Noland's credit bubble bulletin than anything I could come up with:
https://creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.com/
"A tiny almost negligible percentage of people actually actively make some kind of money from ‘stocks’. As such, it remains a sort of self-enclosed system whose ups and downs are disconnected from real society."
I'm one of those people, being a stock and options trader from 1989 to 2008 when (ironically) I took Jim Cramer's advice to traders: "if you're up big, take some off." Well, it ALL came off and I haven't looked back. I wouldn't go near the markets today as they are far more volatile and subject to far more severe dislocations than in previous years. The point is, I'm not alone. Many of us bailed and never returned. This has had a major impact on that sector of the market which few understand and even fewer are willing to take risks in. I'm referring to mining and oil exploration. Without significant investment in that high risk environment the cost and availability of primary inputs produces a significant drag on downstream activity where most people are directly or indirectly employed. Under those circumstances you can only keep the financial game going as long as cheap credit is available and we can push the day of reckoning into the future. Well that future has arrived and shortages of primary inputs are now appearing, and at the worst possible time, when financing is expensive and "investors" much like Elvis, have left the building.
I agree, the day to day movement of the S&P500 or DJIA is relatively meaningless to the average person, but inflation, unemployment and the attendant social disarray are very meaningful to people who live from pay check to pay check, which is pretty much everyone these days.
Just as one example:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/27/business/yellow-corp-bankruptcy/index.html
I'm a child of the 60's and entered the workforce in the 70's during the 'stagflation period" that Paul Volcker allegedly ended by driving interest rates to 16% resulting in mortgage rates approaching 21%. Can you even imagine the impact something like that would have today? Jobs were very hard to find back then. I went to sea working on oil tankers because it was the only way to make any real money. Likewise a close friend went to work in the Arctic, and another moved to Germany to find work as absolutely nothing was locally available.
Sorry to be so long-winded but my major point is that all these things - stocks, bonds, and the economic activity they represent are directly or indirectly connected, and it's just impossible to separate them. It's the Butterfly Effect write large, and I suspect we'll see that play out in the not to distant future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
Question:
What would happen to Russia if something happened to Putin? Who’s second in charge? Does the politic change in anyway? Would Russia be more aggressive to its neighbours? Will Russia take another stance in the Ukraine war?
Mattias, I don't think there's anyone in the world who can really answer that question.
Dmitry Medvedev, but I'm rooting for Maria Z. But "will?" I think he'll be around for longer than expected.
I think that to some extent Putin knows there's no one that can do the job as well as him and so he's forced to 'stay on' until a suitable replacement comes along. I'm pretty sure he's expressed in the past that he doesn't actually want to continue being president for this long, implying that he feels it a sort of duty cus there's no one better.
With that said, I'm not too worried because the war has helped to reconfigure society where a lot of the political elite are now on the same page in Russia and have been 'aligned'.
One guy who seems pretty decent to me, appears to have his head in the right place, is a patriot and not a 'liberal' politician, is Mikhail Mishustin. He was nominated by Putin to replace Medvedev as Prime Minister I believe around 2020 and has been serving as Russia's PM since that time. Some believe he can be a successor to Putin. Russia's next presidential election is only a few months away in early 2024. If you want to see all the 'official candidates' there's a wiki page on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Russian_presidential_election
Sergey Glazyev could be perfect president, great for Russian economy
Americans have completely bought into the demonization of Putin. This is “Putins War”. If you don’t support it, you are “Putin’s Puppet”. Say anything against the war and the response will be “ok, Vladimir”. Bring up how much of our money we are spending, and how deeply we are digging into our own arsenal to support the war, and you are clearly a Russian bot. Headlines don’t refer to “Russian forces”, they talk about “Putin’s Armies”. I don’t know what people would do without this easy crutch to prevent their brains from engaging.
After a week of headlines all over my new feed about the counteroffensive entering a new stage, and the hopes of cutting tue Russian defenses in half, and articles about how this or that village was on the verge of being outflanked, this weekend we transitioned back to zero updates mentioning a “counteroffensive” and more articles about “bringing the war to Putin” via drones or other remote attacks on Moscow.
Western media is today claiming that the actual main counteroffensive is finally underway and entering the second stage where they will throw Russian armies back with large scale assaults backed by fresh reserves held back for this purpose. Before, it’s always been the claim that it is still in the initial probing stage. Is there any real evidence that this is taking place?
Kind of - a new wave of mechanized attacks reported in the south. Nothing you would call an "overwhelming" numbers, more akin to the first days of the offensive - 20-25 tanks, etc. Still no strikers, no challengers - those either don't exist or guard Kiev so as not to be destroyed.
Yes, it does appear so because they've made large assaults with huge losses but also some gains. But the rate at which they're suffering losses I can't see them carrying on for too long
We are constantly told by our leaders that Ukraine is inflicting a 10:1 casualty ratio on the Russian forces. At the same time, we are told that the Russians have a 10:1 advantage in artillery. And are on the defensive in heavily fortified positions. I don’t think most Americans are capable of doubting what they are told anymore.
Just monitor both Ukrainian and Russian channels for battle damage assessment related stuff. In the past 2 days I've seen one or two videos from the Ukrainian side showing a knocked out Russian tank or two. From the Russian side there's an avalanche I can't even count, probably 50-100 verified armor losses on video alone, including dozens of captured and killed AFU. Judging by the releases from both sides the ratio is definitely enormously in Russia's favor right now.
That's not always the case, there's been a few times like during Bakhmut fights where I've seen a ton of Russian losses appearing and the ratio looked roughly 1:1 for certain stretches because the AFU definitely does not miss a single opportunity to post even the smallest Russian loss to buoy their morale so we can be certain that if there's a Russian loss they'll post it.
A simple question for those with military knowledge: Are rockets launched from truck-mounted launchers (MLRS) considered artillery, or missiles, or something else?
Russians consider their mlrs to be rocket artillery. Perhaps massive missiles like atacms, launched from american mlrs, would be better called medium-ranged missiles.
Thanks.
Stalin’s Organs!
Your stuff is very good.
But I’m not sure your “combat range” definition is accurate. I’m pretty sure “combat range” is the range out. An F 16 fully loaded can does go out 500 km, and then back 500 km.
And not out and back. Ferry range and simply the distance the aircraft can fly nonstop obviously in one direction.The
If I’ve read your article correctly.
I believe you are correct here. That being said, that is 500 km max under ideal conditions with no need to fly NOE, dogfight, climb quickly to altitude, etc. etc. etc. In the end, the range is really not an issue either way, any airfield capable of supporting the F-16 within Ukr will be degraded in short order, particularly given NATO opened up the cluster Bomb box which allows the Russians to use Anti-Runway bomblets with impunity. The only feasible way to use the F-16 in this theatre would be to base them out of Poland or Rumania which would invite reprisals NATO has no stomach for.
Woops, thanks for pointing that out, you're actually right I flubbed on that. With that said, in Ukraine's particular case it may not add an exponential amount of range for the following reasons:
1. they have to fly very low to avoid radar. Flying lower burns much more fuel than flying an aircraft at its ideal altitude where air resistance is much thinner
2. the missions may not be straight forward fly to point A, release munition, and fly back. As such, if some type of loitering is expected, this burns fuel to just 'hang out' and circle while waiting for certain things to clear. For instance, given the fact that we have evidence that they're heavily coordinating missile strikes with various drone swarms in order to create a simultaneous saturation effect on AD, we can assume this requires some type of loitering in order to wait for the right moment to fire so that the timing is correct
3. the above discussion only effects simple missile launches anyway, which as I outlined does not add too much to their capability as an F-16 cannot launch the same exact missile as an Su-24 any 'better' than the Su-24 since it's the same missile.
Thus, the only real 'advantage' an F-16 adds to Ukraine over the airframes they currently have, is if they utilize the F-16s for air to air combat, i.e. trying to hunt Russian jets which are terrorizing them, which they currently can't do with their completely outgunned older airframes.
And in *that* case, the combat range is still very poor from a western Ukrainian base because 500km doesn't even get you to anywhere near the Dnieper River, which means you have no fuel left to loiter around and seek contacts in the airspace, you'd have to already turn around and get back home lest your fuel runs out.
So without some kind of major drop tanking rigging, I don't see the a2a mission being plausible either. They can take tanks but then carry far less missiles, so everything is a trade off. And especially in BVR you want as many missiles as possible as BVR missiles do not have a good first hit rate percentage.
I did see some Ukrainian official say "When the F16s arrive in Ivano-Frankovsk..."
I dunno if he was just speaking hypothetically or if he was confirming they will be based there, but that's pretty much as far west as you can get, on the Polish border.
Again, thanks for the bonanza of great analysis. Relative to item 23: Just a word of warning relative to BRICS and de-dollarization. Much geopolitical discussion, rightfully, has been about the long-term impact of de-dollarization. It's optimistically taken as a given. It will most likely be, however, a brutal, long-term, slog with lots of collateral damage. Lots of weak, global south, countries are heavily wrapped up with US economic interests and dollar denominated loans. The US will likely pick a couple of countries and wreak them economically as an example. Who will rescue the world from the IMF, the World Bank and the Big Bankers? Is China willing to step in with huge loans and investments as these little guys start to go under? A target in the cross-hairs: South Africa, which is the weakest link in the current BRICS five-some. And of course China holds 2 trillion in Treasury Bonds. Wanna wreak the dollar? Start dumping...but, as the dollar crashes much of that 2 trillion evaporates. Plus if the Chinese began a massive sell-off, the US would doubtless put the brakes on by freezing their dollar accounts a la Russia. Even the ever exuberant Pepe Escobar has recently sounded more cautious as the complexities of international finance come more into focus. Beyond de-dollarization, the major issue is international balance of payment settlements. How do trading partners with huge disparities in trade settle up? That was historically the function of gold, and now the dollar and its ancillary adjustments--national asset stripping, austerity, and devaluation. That's the issue that must be fixed with a new system of international payments with Special Drawing Rights or the like. Not an easy nut to crack by a long shot. “But everything is moving so fast.” Sorry friends, but it's a long and winding road.
China and the U.S. have each others balls in their fist. Both can inflict great pain on the other, but immediately suffer a very similar fate.
As for de-dollarization, currency doesn't matter. Everybody uses London-based insurance, London/NY based stock exchanges, etc. anyway. For example Russian oil still costs as much as the international oil exchange charges for it and they can't do anything about it.
India is correct in putting stop to any BRICS currency rumors. First you need to create all the support structure around that currency - BRICS exchange, BRICS swift, etc., then you can create your own cbdc, back it by russian oil/chinese economy. The only problem - no one is willing to be the first to do it.
India job is to throw a spanner into the works because of P envy against China. The terror attacks in Pakistan on Chinese engineers is the result of India using Baluchistan rebels.
China has been dumping US T Bills over the years. At present China has around US$850 billion from a high of 1.2 trillion, and buying gold.
Thanks for the accurate numbers and the trend. I should have checked. Posting from "memory" on Simplicius is an invitation to enlightenment.
Generally, such matters are fixed by wars, aka "I have more dupes willing to die for me, than you have for you".
The details are settled later, once it's obvious who is on the ground, and who still standing.
People can be surprised how quickly all these high-level affairs can be decided, once the sociopathic money-folk get serious.
Barring another 4 years of the Demonrat fools, it is most likely that the Dollah and even Sterling, (Euro is another matter), will still be around, just no longer so massively pre-dominant, which the growng BRICS currency will slowly absorb as it grows.
A 'replacement' for all the financial services especially for the BRICS currenc MAY not needed to be built - once the Reality of the situation dawns on said sociopathic money-folk.
Neither China nor Russia is intent on invading and subjucating any Western lands - the domestic exploitation is not in their sights.
The 'haircut' will only be on those GLOBAL dreamers.
This is a trade-off the money-folk will take when the opposite is living in a nuclear and biochemically-isolated deep bunker. IMO.
IF they get the chance. The Neocons are Troo BeLeavers.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/07/alt-media-is-in-shock-after-the-brics-bank-confirmed-that-it-complies-with-western-sanctions.html
Yep. A very relevant link. This policy is no surprise to people who know how sanctions work and know how the dollarized financial system works. When the US declares sanctions on certain items for certain countries it establishes penalties. If a company, any company in the world, sells that commodity to the sanctioned country it is generally locked out of the US market and the US financial system--which means it can no longer trade in dollars anywhere in the world. Likewise any bank that facilitates such a transaction is locked out. NOTE: ALL US dollars (except paper money) are in accounts at the Fed--Eurodollars, petrodollars, foreign central bank reserve dollars, the works. All dollar transactions go through the Fed and can be blocked or the dollars can be frozen. The vast majority of the world's trade is transacted in dollars. It is suicide for any large bank or company to violate sanctions.
Agreed, but it's a necessary long shot to be risked. Iraq / Libya were destroyed for 1. dropping the $ for oil sales / 2. gold to back a new pan African currency based on actual physical assets, both were basically suicide attempts without strong support. Any & all other "reasons" for invasion were 🐂💩. Barter, as will happen with PRK/ RF, is a bandaid that won't cover trade imbalances such as India buying /reselling Russian oil & paying in rubles. Though it does increase Rus govt revenue with tankers returning full of rubles to circulate internally, while causing inflation. India has little Russia needs except scientific human resources, with little to export in reciprocation. Though Russia has huge gold reserves bought heavily over the last decade that can't last forever without either a new bric gold based currency or their own closed loop economy where nearly all major needs are self produced or accessed from PRC.
Other countries, like Canada, have zero gold reserves, with our phony fiat loonie dollar based soley on it's overtaxed, debt burdened corporate citizen's future tax payments, (due to out of control spending by WEF's toadyTurdeau) & little Ukranada West's vast resources, to be confiscated when we default on national debt.
Countries not completely unstable can settle up debts like Hungary did, 60% or nothing.. .Take it or leave it. They can buck the EU primarily because Orban refuses to commit national suicide like the rest of the EU by sanctioning Rus oil. No one size fit all solution for world commerce other than US masonic $ will eventually ensure globalWW3 as US/GB/NUTO abandons Ukraine & lights the fire with PRC. Militarily US has only 2 options left since major land battles are futile, project naval power globally, blocking trade, and attack PRC or going nuclear & take out Rus & China simultaneously. -My 2 cents worth of opinion...
I think we're reaching the point in this conflict where things can spiral out of hand in an unpredictable fashion.
I think you're predicted that quite clearly too in this post and previous ones, that we're approaching an inflection point. And as usual, you've given excellent details about possible outcomes.
The Wagner "coup" was one example. But that was brought back under control fairly fast.
To all those who still don't understand how Prigozhin is walking around a free man in St. Petersburg today, shaking hands with African diplomats, I'm not sure you really understand how Russia works. Did you not notice that operating a PMC as a Russian was technically illegal this whole time? Even Putin reaffirmed that a couple of weeks ago.
I agree. And personally, I don't even understand the Prigozhin saga and it's very hard to believe even for me that he's walking free without any obvious consequences. Sure, his empire in some ways was dismantled as the Russian MOD took down all his contracts as he was supplying various other accoutrements like food to the army. But he was still let off fairly light compared to guys like Strelkov who were arrested just for posting some drivel.
But war and times of desperation makes strange bedfellows, and sometimes there are reprehensible people who are unfortunately essential to the task.
I don't think the saga is over yet.
I could say a lot more about that saga, but it would be construed as criticizing Russia and I don't think this is the time or the place for that.
Plenty of people are unloading unwarranted criticism on Russians and I don't need to join in, whether or not it's warranted.
By the way, don't hesitate to rattle the old begging bowl from time to time, if necessary. One way to do that is to tell us you have a goal every month and let us know near the end of the month if it's not reached.
There IS always the chance that you called it 'wrong' for once, and that the entire (With a lot of ancillary loose ends) episode was a masterclass in 70D chess/Maskirovka.
That the real reason Prigo is free and happy as a bird is that *at every step* the "coup" was integrated within the GRU.
It's doubtful that any MI6 contacts to Prigo in Russian-controlled territory also still have this freedom, if you take my meaning.
And one cannot do a live 'stress test' if everyone knows it is a test, and if some people do not know it is a 'test' they will react creatively in ways the 'testers' would not appreciate.
It becomes very hard to punish people for doing what you would WANT them to do if the situation was real.
Counter-productive, even.
I felt very sorry for Strelkov, it's a rare week I don't post considerably more incendiary material against the British state than what I saw him doing in Russia. :( Much will depend upon who and where his funding comes from.
IF it's all above board - which will depend upon how greedy he got - with a bit of luck its wristslap time. If he got TOO dirty, :palmsup:
Agree, but zero sympathy for the Girkin's pickles. Big money talks, 🐂💩 walks, cuffed.
War is always waged by strange bedfellows.
Many thanks Simplicius. Words are wind and coins do spend, so I'm upgrading to Founding.
Wow, very big thanks!
Re Q20: << Considering pros v cons, would it not be best to finish this campaign as quickly as possible? Stop the risk on the bridge, the nuclear power plant, on Russia itself and the risk of world war 3. >>
John Mearsheimer has been making the point lately that China, whatever it says publicly, has a deep interest in keeping the SMO going as long as possible ... in order to keep USA/NATO/West tied up and unable to focus full-bore on China/Taiwan. (This is just the reverse of why many neocons now want to disengage with Ukraine so they can fully “pivot” to China/Taiwan, the “real” target.) I would think this would give a shrewd Russia considerable leverage with a shrewd China, and therefore that the tables are today reversed from what they were at the beginning: Russia/China want a prolonged war to bleed Ukraine/NATO/US as white as possible for as long as possible whereas US/NATO will increasingly want to cut and run, leaving Ukraine “holding the bag”. It just has to stay sub-nuclear.
Jackson scores another easy victory for MAGA Communism!
Once rural Americans learn the truth of Communism, that, rather than trying to turn your kids gay, make you stop driving cars, and make you eat bugs, it is the OPPOSITE of that, it is all over for these Atlanticist bums.
The first thing the Commies generally do is build clinics and schools and redistribute land to peasants--pure Evil. Jackson was introduced as a conservative. He's actually a Lefty--an old-school anti-imperialist, economic Lefty. His gesture to "social conservatism" is his fierce anti-wokeness, wokeness/identity-politics being an anti-Marxist divide and rule trope pushed by corporate America. The Repubs and the Dems are both Right-Wing parties, that is both are dedicated to Corporate/Wall-Street rule.
There is no left wing party in America any more. Democrats are in 100% agreement that the US National Security State should be supported at all costs in its endeavor to censor “mal, mis, or disinformation”. They have been caught urging censorship of “malinformation” - information that is true but does not support the goals of the national security state. This was how they rigged the 2020 election - direct evidence implicating Biden in taking bribes and using his son Hunter as the bag man was censored at the behest of the Biden campaign and the FBI released its infamous statement that the offending information “bears all the signs of a typical Russian disinformation campaign”. This despite it bearing none of the signs of such a campaign (data not neatly organized for people to find it, the person exposing the existence of the laptop being someone considered “in disgrace” (Rudi Giuliani) and not some trusted interlocutor)...
Agree 100 percent!
IMO you may have missed a connection between your answers to questions 1 and 2. To wit, you correctly pointed out that Biden has a major scandal brewing at the moment. The ZNPP remains an option, but IMHO that option will only be exercised not in relation to the ongoing war and Ukraine's successes or failures, but in response to just how problematic the FBI files being reported on by the New York Post become for not just Biden, but the prevailing political machine in D.C. IOW, the tail will more likely wag the dog to distract and cover up political problems domestically. I expect a major false flag of some sort if in fact the corporate MSM is forced to deal with the story rather than just try to brush Mount Everest under the rug as they are currently attempting.
https://nypost.com/2023/07/20/biden-bribe-file-released-burisma-chief-said-both-joe-and-hunter-involved/
https://nypost.com/2023/07/20/the-joe-biden-bribe-allegations-need-a-special-counsel-now/
It's bigger than Watergate. If a Special Counsel gets appointed, get ready, because something huge will happen in the Ukraine proxy war so that Americans are distracted from it.
From a comment at Patrick Lawrence's latest ScheerPost article:
Everyone reading here should already know that there’s a directly proportional relationship between the size of the scandal in D.C. and the severity of the alleged (false flag, anyone?) TERRIBLE WAR CRIME that the Official Enemy™ is about to commit abroad! I hope y’all are ready for THE BIG ONE in the Ukraine-Russia proxy war.
Any bets on what it involves? My money’s on the ZNPP. The second that this scandal can no longer be ignored, Evil Pooty Poot will do something so dastardly as to render all of this reporting irrelevant, dontcha see?
The tail shall wag the dog, as it ever does.
On the other hand, the Biden administration has a firm grip across the MSM, not to mention the DOJ, and the GOP barely has a majority in the House, nothing in the Senate.
That said, there are likely many Dems who see an excellent opportunity to dump grandpa before the primaries to improve chances in the Fall. Anyway, I'm certainly not holding my breath in anticipation that something will actually happen to Biden nor his despicable offspring.
Well, my point really centered on a possible false flag in Ukraine, and how it would almost certainly be more likely to be triggered by a domestic event or revelation rather than some boring battlefield situation. This information war has been waged against the western public in addition to Russia, more than any war in history. And yeah, the Corporate Dems have a seemingly symbiotic/integrated relationship with the corporate media, Silicon Valley (e.g., social media) and the surveillance/security state. So it's an uphill battle for something like the bribery (I'm not even touching on taxes/guns) accusations against The Biden Crime Family to gain any traction outside of alternative/independent/right-wing media/social media. Which is why I think they're saving up the "BIG ONE" (ZNPP, or equivalent) just in case something does end up becoming too big to sweep under the rug (censor, ignore, lie about) here at home, domestically rather than in Ukraine.
Even the left-leaning sites I read are amping the New York Post revelations, so who knows. But then again, the Democrats hate those sites more than they hate Fox News or OAN, so you're probably right with your last prediction...
I would say that it is not Biden that has a monkey grip on the MSM but Team D. If Biden becomes too much of a liability, he can be thrown under the bus and replaced with a different muppet.
This is complicated by the fact that the Vice President, Kamala Harris, has shown herself even less qualified for the job than her boss. She’s a national laughingstock for her hilariously empty public pronouncements (“there is a significance to the passage of time, because, if you think about it, the passage of time is a significant thing.”). She polls horribly, but is a black woman picked specifically because she is a black woman, and to push her aside would lose a core democrat constituency. She’s widely considered to be Joe’s insurance policy because nobody can push him aside when she is standing next in line.
Excellent point.
It’s important to realize that Biden’s current scandal directly implicates him in taking bribes from Zelinski and the other Ukrainian oligarchs in return for favorable treatment of their interests. Joe has based his re-electability on his winning the war in Ukraine by November 2024. The allegations of direct cash payment in return for firing a Ukrainian prosecutor are now backed up by bank transactions showing the money changing hands. Over 170 “suspicious activity reports” filed by the FBI in relationship to these direct cash payments. Biden can’t abandon Ukraine now without a huge political cost, but the evidence is mounting that he has been on their payroll since 2014.
Yep. But anyone - including "The Big Guy" himself - that thinks Biden is getting re-elected in 2024 is on some serious psychedelics. Him, McConnell and Feinstein will be dead or on life support by then. I suppose it's possible that all of them are just deep fake holograms anyway.
As long as his nostrils can still fog up a mirror placed under his nose, the American press will prop him up. Recall that in 2020 they locked him in his own basement for the entire campaign in order to prevent people from seeing how far gone he is. He would give speeches from a green room to socially distanced audiences of less than two dozen people. This, as reaction to his telling an interviewer that “if you aren’t sure whether to vote for me or for Trump - then you ain’t black!”
LOL. Yeah that too. NO fuckin' way he can make it through a real campaign. It's going to be amusing to watch how they try to do it. I guess it's time for all of us to revisit "Weekend at Bernie's." LMFAO