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Thursday, September 22, 2022

2022-09-22

*** denotes well-worth reading in full at source (even if excerpted extensively here)

Economic and Market Fare:

Keen: Back to the history of economic thought: “Keynesian Economics” failed in 1935

... The labels that macroeconomists use to describe themselves are a recipe for confusion, which in turn mirrors the confusion of the ideas behind them. ......


a Kelton 3-fer:
first: Deliberate. Coordinated. Global Recession.

.... Last week, a new paper from the World Bank made precisely the same observation, warning that the "most intentionally synchronous episodes of monetary and fiscal policy tightening of the past five decades" could push the global economy into recession.

Axios’ Neil Irwin quoted former IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld, who referred to the aggressive rate hikes being imposed by the Federal Reserve and other central banks as a “present danger” that could “collectively go too far and drive the world economy into an unnecessarily harsh contraction.” ... 



.............. For more on the history of policy-induced calamities, I suggest reading this Public Policy Brief by MMT economists Yeva Nersisyan and L. Randall Wray.  .......



... This is part of the reason “Trussonomics” is being interpreted as breaking from the fiscal orthodoxy. But is it really any different from what conservative governments always do—i.e. push through some deregulation and tax cuts and downplay or ignore the resulting budgetary impacts? Or am I missing something? These are the two articles that have my wheels turning.

I’d certainly like to believe that we’re witnessing a radical break from the fiscal orthodoxy. And from the Reagan-Thatcher mantra about governments being unable to solve problems because governments are the problem. After all, overturning the failed orthodox was pretty much the whole point of my book. But what I’ve seen so far doesn’t convince me that such a transformation is underway. Truss but verify, I guess.


Grannis: More predictors of lower inflation

The whole point of tightening monetary policy is to increase the demand for money and/or decrease the supply of money at the expense of other things. Tighter monetary policy today serves to balance the supply of money with the demand for money, and that is what will deliver low and stable inflation. Higher interest rates increase the appeal of holding cash and cash equivalents, and at the same time they discourage the borrowing and spending of money (and thus tend to depress prices). Unfortunately, nobody knows (not even the Fed) how high interest rates have to rise in order to slow and ultimately reverse the recent rise in inflation.

So we (and the Fed) must instead rely on old-fashioned methods such as watching prices. Continuously rising prices are a clear sign that interest rates are too low and/or monetary policy is too easy. Falling prices, on the other hand—if sufficiently widespread—are a pretty good indicator that monetary policy is gaining traction and thus helping to bring inflation down.

Such is the case today. So far this year we have seen significant declines in a number of prices and markets, and here are just a few that are down significantly: stocks, commodities, foreign currencies (see Chart #1 in my last post), TIPS, bonds in general, and used cars, the latter of which have declined by 18% in real terms (see Chart #1). Though not down year to date, gasoline prices are down 27% since their peak last June. ....



..... Why is the Fed wrong again? Because besides sliding commodity prices (which will very likely soar in the very near future, especially once winter arrives in Europe and once Biden's drain of the SPR is over), the bulk of core CPI components - and certainly some of the biggest drivers such as shelter, cars and airfares are rolling over fast.

That's according to a new report by JPM's Phoebe White (full note available to pro subs here), who writes that she forecasts a material softening in inflation across all of the components that have been the largest contributors of core inflation over the past year—not only vehicle prices, but rents, medical care services, and airfares as well—and last week’s hot CPI report does not change this view.


.............. To be sure, the longer it takes for these dynamics to play out, the greater the risks that high inflation could become more ingrained. However, what is even more relevant is that the latest hawkish rate hike by the Fed - which guarantees that the Fed overshoots, driving a more material weakening in demand and triggering a recession — will certainly lead to even softer inflation. In other words, if the Fed halts its tightening campaign here, not only will core prices drop to where the Fed wants them, but a recession may even be averted. However, if Powell continues blindingly to hike, a crushing recession is virtually guaranteed. And since the Fed is always wrong about everything, the worst case scenario is now in play.


Inflation Targeting Farce: High Costs, Moot Benefits




Recession or continued growth?

....... From a macro perspective, a strong dollar has normally meant deflationary trades work better, and would argue to being long TLT and short GLD, which may be driving the investors positioning shown above.

However classic cross rate indicators such as GBP/JPY, which have a better track record of catching deflationary turns still indicate an upcycle in place. GBP/JPY has been much more sensitive to deflationary trends than DXY, picking up the Japanese recession in early 1990s, Asian Financial Crisis, GFC and China devaluation fears in 2015. 

So why are markets so keen on deflationary assets? For the last 40 years, the inflationary 1970s made politicians and institutions choose recession over inflation. I think we are now in a world where politicians choose inflation over recession, and politicians that make that choice are benefiting politically. Bonds still look like a short, commodities a buy to me.



Quotes of the Week:

Mitchell: The global press is full of stories lately about how central banks are taking big losses and risking solvency and then analysing the dire consequences of government bailouts of the said banks. All preposterous nonsense of course. It would be like daily news stories about the threat of ships falling off the edge of the earth. But then we know better than that. But in the economic commentariat there are plenty of flat earthers for sure. Some day, humanity (if it survives) will look back on this period and wonder how their predecessors could have been so ignorant of basic logic and facts. What a stupid bunch those 2022 humans really were.

Clark: Finance is a funny business. Generally speaking people will praise innovative and original thinking, but the real trick is to be about 6 months earlier than everyone else. Any earlier, and you are wrong for too long, and if you are too late, then you are just part of the crowd.

Patel: Don't read too much into the Riksbank's 100bps hike. They've maybe got one more big hike left & then DONE according to their forward rate path. Don't think there's much cross-read for other central banks (like Fed)... European central banks were/are playing catch-up

Klein: Like the rest of us, Fed officials are trying to make decisions based on what they think will happen, but they only have information about what has already happened. Imagination and flexibility are required to fill in the gaps and compensate for the inevitable errors of interpretation.

deLong: And let me stress this: given that we have downward-sticky nominal wages in the economy, requiring that the Federal Reserve hit its 2% inflation target year-by-year gravely damages the market economy's ability to do its proper job in a time of substantial sectoral activity reallocation.

Mac: Economic failure has been obvious since Springsteen first started writing about it 40 years ago. 

Druckenmiller: There's a high probability in my mind that the market, at best, is going to be kind of flat for 10 years, sort of like this '66 to '82 time period.


Malpass Alert!!:


Charts: 
1:
2:



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Bubble Fare:

Sleepwalking Into Explosion

... This week features a central bank gauntlet coming at a time when the largest central banks are the least coordinated in history. I am of course referring to the U.S. and Europe both on the tightening warpath vs. China and Japan easing. 

........... Which sets up this week to be an Emerging Markets currency event on steroids. Orders of magnitude worse than what happened in 2015 when China Yuan devaluation forced global risk off. There are many EM currencies waiting to implode right now.



...




(not just) for the ESG crowd:

Hansen: August Temperature Update, a “Thank You” & Biden’s Report Card

The past three months were remarkably warm on global average – remarkable because this is a La Nina year, when the cool phase of the El Nino Southern Oscillation keeps the low latitude Pacific Ocean relatively cool. These three months – Northern Hemisphere summer – were each at or near records for the month (Fig. 1), despite the La Nina. Every month this year has been warmer than the same month last year (Fig. 1), even though the present La Nina is as deep as last year (Fig. 2).

Our interpretation is that the current warmth is spurred by the record Earth energy imbalance, which in turn is spurred by rapid growth of greenhouse gases,[1] reduction of human-caused aerosols,[2] and the rising phase of the solar irradiance cycle. ...



QOTW:

Zakaria: Thinkers and scientists like Gregg and Demuth are presenting readers with the urgent and pressing necessity for a new ethics. The unthinking, extractive, and dominant human treats animals as a lower form of existence, rather than a different form; we assess the environment based on what can be extracted from it. Like our means of communication, our means of travel, of treating disease, and so much else, our ethics need an urgent and pressing update that takes into consideration the understanding of animals. Factory farms, the constant consumption of animal products, and the greedy use of fossil fuels are the seeds of destruction.



Sci Fare:

No other animal is known to use the tardigrade strategy to survive desiccation.



Other Fare:



(Most Valuable Pills) of All Time

........... What is somewhat sobering is the fact the top 20 medications we would want in 2022 were released onto the market on average in the mid 1950’s. Only 5 of the twenty medications were marketed after 1970, and the 1960s was the decade with the largest number (7/20) of medications. It shows while new medications come on the market all the time, very few are both unique and impactful.



Pics of the Week:

Field research suggests a new explanation for the synchronized flashing in fireflies and confirms that a novel form of “chimeric” synchrony occurs naturally.

hat tip: naked cap





Contrarian Perspectives

Extra [i.e. Controversial] Fare:

*** denotes well-worth reading in full at source (even if excerpted extensively here)


Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”


Regular Fare:



Snowden: America’s Open Wound
The CIA is not your friend

.... Democracy and the rule of law have been so frequently invoked as a part of the American political brand that we simply take it for granted that we enjoy both.

Are we right to think that?

....... How can we judge the ultimate effectiveness of oversight and reforms? Well, the CIA plotted to assassinate my friend, American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, in 1972, yet nearly fifty years of “reforms” did little to inhibit them from recently sketching out another political murder targeting Julian Assange. Putting that in perspective, you probably own shoes older than the CIA’s most recent plot to murder a dissident... or rather the most recent plot that we know of.

If you believe the Assange case to be a historical anomaly, some aberration unique to Trump White House, recall that the CIA’s killings have continued in series across administrations. Obama ordered the killing of an American far from any battlefield, and killed his 16 year-old American son a few weeks later, but the man’s American daughter was still alive by the time Obama left.

Within a month of entering the White House, Trump killed her.

She was 8 years old. ........

........... For 75 years, the American people have been unable to bend the CIA to fit the law, and so the law has been bent to fit the CIA. As Biden stood on the crimson stage, at the site where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were debated and adopted, his words rang out like the cry of a cracked-to-hell Liberty Bell: "What's happening in our country is not normal."

If only that were true. 


One reason this hushed-up history matters is that even today economic “rationality” and plunder often remain partners in crime.





Unsustainability / Climate Fare:

********** Murphy: A Climate Love Story

The year is 2050. Things are unimaginably better than anyone in 2022 might have predicted. Such turnarounds are not without precedent. After all, the boom time in the 1950s came on the heels of the Great Depression and a crippling world war against ominously dark forces.  From the depths of those hard years, it would have been hard to foresee the glory days around the bend.

In our imagined 2050, climate change has been tamed by a spectacular suite of technological feats: fossil fuels are all but obsolete except in a few backwater places, replaced by an impressive profusion of solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric dams, thorium reactors, deep geothermal installations, and a nascent fusion industry on the verge of commercialization. Electric transport handles most domestic needs, while a bounty of biofuels powers air travel and long-haul shipping.

Breakthroughs in battery technology have resulted in large banks of lithium storage everywhere you look to smooth out the irregularities in renewable production. Seasonal-scale storage is around the corner, so that even places like Alaska will be able to satisfy demand year-round based on a massive energy haul from long summer days.

Freed from the constraints of obtaining energy from petro-states, countries are able to source all of their energy needs within their borders and in fact have more available energy than they did when dependent on primitive fossil fuels. Economies are thriving: global trade is more vigorous than it has ever been because energy is cheap and abundant.

Continued revolutions in computing power and device technology has us swimming in cool gadgets—putting something akin to Star Trek tri-corders in our hands, in contrast to the smart phones we fawn over today (mere walkie-talkies by comparison).

Abundant energy has transformed energy-intensive practices of food production and mining, so that everyone’s dietary and material needs are met, finally ameliorating hunger and gross inequity globally. Based on rising standards of living, birth rates are predicted to stabilize by century’s end so that we are on track to cruise toward a stable, peaceful, sated global regime.

In short, we’re total rock stars for having achieved a whole new phase of prosperity and amazingness. Martian colonies? Why not? While we’re fantasizing, let’s throw those in too! So yes, we are on our way to exporting our conquest to the stars and all is as it should be.

Part of me feels really crummy doing this to you. My motivation is not to be mean, really. Rather, I think it is incredibly important that we approach our future prospects realistically and understand fundamental planetary limits. So I’m afraid this is where I pull the rug out from under you. But see, I’m warning you and apologizing in advance rather than gleefully anticipating your bruising fall. Feel free to step off the fantasy on your own, if you have not already done so. Three. Two. One.

The first thing I will say is that I have never before tried to depict details of the dream scenario, as I did above. I found it shockingly easy to do—probably because we’re immersed in narratives of this sort. I did not have to stretch to conjure credible-sounding nuances. The words on the page were not required to check out against physical reality: I could say anything I wanted, which was liberating in an empty sort of way. I suspect many in our culture find similar joy in spinning hope of this sort, which might explain its prevelance. It’s a romance novel that practically writes itself.

But maybe I’m still being insensitive to the bruises. I get it. I went through the same thing, once implicitly imagining the future in these idyllic terms. Such visions are not limited to wild-eyed techno-optimists. Even many of the folks presently suffering existential dread about climate change would likely embrace this story as the best-case outcome that we hope can come to pass if we put our shoulders into it and advocate the right policies.  Write your Senators!

Facile Fascination
Before getting into the substance of why the dream scenario is likely a prescription for “failure by fantasy,” I’ll point out that our imaginations and ambitions are disconnected from reality by the mere fact that the actual physical world is finite and limited in ways that our thoughts are not.  .........



.... Coal had two world-changing effects. The first, the one everyone thinks of, is that it could be used to power steam engines, replacing wind, water, and muscle power first in dozens, then in hundreds, and finally in thousands of uses. The second, less widely known but just as dramatic, is that it could be used via the Bessemer process to produce steel in previously unimaginable amounts. Steel plus steam power drove the industrial revolution, sent railroads scything across continents and steamships driving through oceans, and transformed human life in a galaxy of ways.

Then, about the time coal reserves started to run short, petroleum (and its gaseous form, natural gas) came into general use. More chemically complex than coal, petroleum had even more net energy, and shifted the industrial revolution into overdrive. Airplanes, automobiles, plastics, industrial lubricants, the entire modern chemical industry—the list just keeps on going. Lewis Mumford, one of the twentieth century’s most insightful students of energy and civilization, argued that the distinction between coal-fired technologies and petroleum-fueled technologies was significant enough to define a change of eras: he called the coal period the Paleotechnic Era, and the petroleum period the Neotechnic Era.

The assumption all along was that petroleum would eventually run short and have to be replaced by something else, leading to a third technic era. By 1950 nearly everyone assumed that what would replace it was nuclear power. You have to read books from that time to get a sense of just how inevitable the coming nuclear era was thought to be. Even avant-garde ecological thinkers treated nuclear power as the next inevitable thing. Pick up any of the works of Paolo Soleri, Frank Lloyd Wright’s most innovative student, who imagined humanity settling in gigantic city-sized buildings called arcologies so that the natural world could be allowed to thrive elsewhere. Each of his arcologies was supposed to be powered by its own nuclear power plant.

That, in turn, was where the dream ran off the rails, because it turned out that nuclear power doesn’t pay for itself. It’s not economically viable, because its net energy is so low. Thus it wasn’t Chernobyl or Fukushima Daiichi that brought the nuclear dream to a grinding halt, it was a long series of financial disasters suffered by utilities that got suckered into the nuclear hoopla, above all the bankruptcy of the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS, unfondly remembered as “Whoops!” by the many thousands who lost money on it). .....





Endemic Fare:

I've continued to come across too much excellent COVID-related content (with contrarian evidence-based points-of-view!!) to link to it all
Read everything by eugyppius; el gato malo; Mathew Crawford; Steve Kirsch; Jessica Rose!
Paul Alexander, Berenson, Chudov, Lyons-Weiler, Toby Rogers are also go-to mainstays; a list to which I have added Andreas Oehler, Joey Smalley (aka Metatron) and, Julius Ruechel; Denninger worth staying on top of too for his insights, and especially his colorful language; and Norman Fenton; Marc Girardot; plus Walter Chesnut (on twitter); new additions: Sheldon Yakiwchuk and Aaron Kheriarty; I will of course continue to post links to key Peter McCullough material, and Geert Vanden Bossche, and Robert Malone, and Martin Kulldorff, and Jay Bhattacharya, and Sucharit Bhakdi, and Pierre Kory, and Harvey Risch, and Michael Yeadon, and John Ioannidis, and Paul Marik, and Tess Lawrie, and Zelenko, and Dolores Cahill, and [local prof] Byram Bridle, and Ryan Cole, and…
but going forward, my linking to material by those mainstays mentioned above will be reduced to key excerpts and/or essential posts


Are People Going to Accuse the Manufacturer of Spreading Misinformation?


The study also finds evidence of ADE by the REGEN-COV/Ronapreve monoclonal antibodies






A short collection of key pieces of evidence showing the COVID vaccines are not "safe and effective." Not even close. They are the most deadly vaccines we've ever produced.


Welcome to the club, Paul.



Actual science begins with proper methods, e.g.:
• appropriate study design,
• registered clinical trials,
• large sample sizes,
• long observation periods,
• randomized,
• double-blinded,
• rigorous statistics,
conducted by people following Mertonian norms of:
• communalism,
• universalism,
• disinterestedness, and
• organized skepticism.

Then there is Pharma junk science that is characterized by:
• financial conflicts of interest,
• manipulated study design,
• captured regulators,
• deviations from protocol,
• small sample sizes,
• short observation periods,
• bad record keeping,
• data manipulation,
• inappropriate statistical analysis,
• drawing sweeping conclusion from weak data, etc.

Knowing the difference between actual science and Pharma junk science is a matter of life and death these days.

The FDA and CDC do NOT engage in actual science. Everything they do is Pharma junk science. Those who fail to understand this fundamental truth are not going to make it.


Unauthorized use of dangerous covid drug dropped infant's heart rate to below 40 bpm

....
Medical insanity
The boy came in with inflamed adenoids and palette — he merely tested positive for covid. There is no mention of him exhibiting any covid symptoms.

The medical team then put the child on a 5-day IV course of remdesivir! The same remdesivir that was terminated from a 2019 ebola trial after more than half the test subjects died…

As for the parent/guardian that sanctioned this off-label outrage by hospital staff, true consent cannot be made on behalf of a child by a caregiver who has been misled with propaganda for years on end. Deception nullifies the possibility of making legally informed consent. (Please look up the medical consent laws in your jurisdiction)


Collecting more negative data on the vaccine isn't going to change anything. The problem is getting people to consider the possibility that they have been fooled.

There’s an old saying, “It’s Easier to Fool People Than to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled.”

That’s what we’re up against.

We have the data. But nobody we want to convince wants to look at it.



Tweets & Quotes of the Week:

Webb: It's amazing how many people who claim to follow the science (still) refuse to follow the money that funds that science.

Lyons-Weiler: The proof I have that the pandemic is over? Our local convenience store has removed the hanging plastic shields at the check-out.



Dr. Loupis: acct suspended on twitter, but available on Gettr




CO-VIDs of the Week:



Anecdotal Fare:

Competing in a bike race, a cardiologist "died suddenly" of cardiac arrest; a summary of 32 other Canadian doctors (all "vaxxed") who have “died suddenly” since early 2021; and 178 others in Canada


"Medical Episode" suspected factor in Fatal Bus Shelter Crash:

Let’s be honest, whenever you see the passing of a famous person or athlete over the last year, you are probably thinking the same thing as the rest of us…

It wasn’t natural causes.

And when 30+ Canadian Doctors, who were actively practicing medicine in Canada, none of which had pre-existing conditions up and died…you though the same thing…

It wasn’t natural causes.

And now that we see commercials normalizing myocarditis in children…

We all know what is going on…but if you have the following on your Vaccine Side Effect Bingo Card, you may already be a winner: ...



Pushback Fare:

Covid Injections Are Dangerous, What You Can Do If You’ve Had One or Two

On Tuesday, two Canadian doctors, Dr. Chris Shoemaker and Dr. Mark Trozzi, had a candid discussion about the dangers of Covid injections, the war on Canada’s doctors, the World Health Organisation’s (“WHO’s”) role in the Covid plandemic, reasons Canada is experiencing a doctor shortage, the right of informed refusal and what “vaccine” recipients can do to mitigate the billions of toxic spike proteins that have been injected into them. ....

...................

Dr. Trozzi: For the treatment protocols, if like [Dr. Shoemaker], if you’ve had a couple of those injections or one of those injections and you got these spike proteins being produced by yourselves, go to the World Council for Health, go to the Spike Protein Detox Guide. Dr. Shoemaker is aware of that. The FLCCC do a great job [and] Canada Covid Care Alliance. These are very similar protocols. There’s a variety of things you can do, both natural and medicinal, including one of the safest, most effective medications in the history of mankind – ivermectin. ......



COVID Corporatocracy Fare:

Nass: Jeff Sachs and giving the W.H.O. mo' money
The Lancet COVID Commission and One Health are important parts of the globalists' narrative


Diffuse remarks by a day job-avoidant eugyppius on why it is that the World Economic Forum is so unreadable

Friend-of-the blog Igor Chudov disagrees with my suggestion that Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset amounts to “a lot of jargon and vacuity, signifying nothing.” Instead ...................... 

Chudov rejoins:
Is the most powerful supranational organization, whose Young Leaders lead governments of many important countries, states, or territories, or collectively own and manage trillions of dollars, simply a nonsense production factory? Are their messages “signifying nothing”? Why does the WEF exist, then? To blather nonsense? Do people gather in Davos for nothing but vacuous press releases?
As I am fond of typing, the WEF is a conference circuit, where elite attendees and young leaders and scientists and thinkers and journalists and who knows who else can network with each other and coordinate policy and messaging. For providing these services, the WEF collects dues. I think we should regard Schwab’s books as the equivalent of advertising or promotional material, of the kind that many organisations put out. If you look at his footnotes, you’ll find support for this view: He cites a lot of WEF-affiliated thinkers and scientists and he likes to quote WEF-affiliated politicians and WEF-affiliated journalists. Schwab’s customers read Schwab’s book and are happy to see their own ideas repeated and to imagine themselves as constructive participants in the intellectual world that they pay Schwab to curate for them. ..............


********** Eisenstein: There's No One Driving the Bus

The habits of authoritarianism run deep. Obedience is only the most superficial. Deeper is to look to authority as a source of truth. Deeper still is to look first for “who is in charge” when seeking to understand and change a given situation.

I am speaking of the reflex to ask, “Who is doing this to me?” This question is useful in power-over situations. It forms naturally in those conditioned to victim-perpetrator relationships, as well as those in authoritarian institutions like schools and prisons. However, when that outlook becomes a habit, one looks for someone-in-charge as the explanation for every injustice and the key to righting every wrong.

Sometimes the explanation works. Sometimes, identifying and removing the bully, abuser, or psychopath solves the problem at hand. Such is the familiar, almost comforting plot line of the typical Hollywood action movie: good guys versus bad guys, hero versus villain. When reality conforms to that plot line, life is simple and moral choices are clear. But when reality is more complicated, then the fixation on the villain conjures one phantom after another that distracts attention from a broader matrix of causes.

In the course of the pandemic I often considered whether the whole thing was orchestrated by a malicious, power-hungry elite. It seemed a reasonable hypothesis, given the way Covid was used to justify authoritarian policies of all sorts: censorship, medical mandates, curfews, business shutdowns, quarantines, lockdowns, suspension of civil liberties, and so forth. If it seemed custom-designed to usher in totalitarianism, then maybe that’s because it WAS designed to usher in totalitarianism. 

I rejected that theory as the primary explanation for what happened. That put me at odds with much of the Covid-dissident community ....

I do not doubt that ruthless, corrupt, and even psychopathic individuals rise to power in our system and exploit every opportunity available. It would be wonderful if we could solve the world’s problems by simply rooting those people out. But if we don’t understand their enabling conditions, and the unconscious social and psychic forces they exploit, then victory will endure only until a new crop of psychopaths rises to replace the old. ........




Back to Non-Pandemic Fare:

War Fare:


......... In the IAEA’s 65-year history, Resolution Number 58, the war vote of September 15, 2022,  is the first time the agency has taken one side in a war between member countries when nuclear reactors have either been attacked or threatened with attack. It is also the first time the IAEA has attacked one of its member states, Russia, when its military were attempting to protect and secure a nuclear reactor from attack by another member state, the Ukraine, and its war allies, the US, NATO and the European Union states. The vote followed the first-ever IAEA inspection of a nuclear reactor while it was under active artillery fire and troop assault.

There is a first time for everything but this is the end of the IAEA. On to the scrap heap of good intentions and international treaties, the IAEA is following the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and the UN Secretary-General himself.  ...



.... Some two weeks ago a successful Ukrainian offensive led to the retreat of Russian troops in the Kharkov region. That at least is the 'western' version of that story. A different narrative is that the Russian troops intentionally withdrew from the region to raise Russian calls for an escalation of the war.  The Izium withdrawal was thus probably a mere catalyst for 'starting in earnest'...


Every war must end, but at present this one’s ending seems to be far out of sight

“War,” said the great Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz, “is an act of force, and there is no logical limit to the application of that force. Each side, therefore, compels its opponent to follow suit; a reciprocal action is started which must lead, in theory, to extremes.”

With this, Clausewitz introduced the concept of escalation into the theory of war. .....

.... Until now, Russia has had a material advantage over Ukraine in terms of equipment, especially air power and artillery. But the Russians have been at a serious disadvantage in terms of manpower. This is a result of the unwillingness so far to use anything other than contract soldiers and volunteers. Simply put, the Russian army has not committed enough troops to effectively cover the entire 1,000 kilometre front. The partial mobilization of reservists is designed to resolve this problem. It will take several months, however, for the effects to be felt. ...



.... The very idea of referendums in the Donbas has been ridiculed by mainstream media in the United States and Europe. They are denounced as ‘sham’ and we are told that the results will not be recognized.  In fact, the Kremlin does not at all care whether the results are recognized as valid in the West.  Their logic lies elsewhere. As for the Russian public, the only critical remark about the referendums has been about the timing, with even some patriotic folks saying openly that it is too early to hold the vote given that the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Zaporozhie and Kherson oblasts have not yet been fully ‘liberated.’ Here too, the logic of these votes lies elsewhere.

It is a foregone conclusion that the Donbas republics and other territories of Ukraine now under Russian occupation will vote to join the Russian Federation. In the case of Donetsk and Lugansk, it was only under pressure from Moscow that their 2014 referendums were about declaring sovereignty and not about becoming part of Russia. Such annexation or merger was not welcomed by the Kremlin back then because Russia was not ready to face the expected massive economic, political and military attack from the West which would have followed.  Today, Moscow is more than ready: indeed it has survived very well all the economic sanctions imposed by the West from even before 24 February as well as the ever growing supply to Ukraine of military materiel and ‘advisers’ from the NATO countries.

The vote over joining Russia will likely hit 90% or more in favor.  What will immediately follow on the Russian side is also perfectly clear:  within hours of the declaration of referendum results, the Russian State Duma will pass a bill on ‘reunification’ of these territories with Russia and within a day or so, it will be approved by the upper chamber of parliament and immediately thereafter the bill will be signed into law by President Putin.

Looking past his service as a KGB intelligence operative, which is all that Western “Russia specialists” go on about endlessly in their articles and books, let us also remember Vladimir Putin’s law degree. As President, he has systematically stayed within domestic and international law. He will do so now.  Unlike his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin has not ruled by presidential decree; he has ruled by laws promulgated by a bicameral parliament constituted from several parties.  He has ruled in keeping with international law promulgated by the United Nations. UN law speaks for the sanctity of territorial integrity of Member States; but UN law also speaks of the sanctity of self-determination of peoples.

What follows from the formal merger of these territories with Russia?  That is also perfectly clear. As integral parts of Russia, any attack on them, and there certainly will be such attacks coming from the Ukrainian armed forces, is a casus belli. But even before that, the referendums have been preceded by the announcement of mobilization, which points directly to what Russia will do further if developments on the field of battle so requires. Progressive phases of mobilization will be justified to the Russian public as necessary to defend the borders of the Russian Federation from attack by NATO.

The merger of the Russia-occupied Ukrainian territories with the Russian Federation will mark the end of the ‘special military operation.’ An SMO is not something you conduct on your own territory, as panelists on the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk show remarked a couple of days ago.  It marks the beginning of open war on Ukraine with the objective of the enemy’s unconditional capitulation. This will likely entail the removal of the civil and military leadership and, very likely, the dismemberment of Ukraine. ........................

Looking beyond Ukraine’s possible loss of statehood, a Russian victory will mean more than an Afghanistan-like bloody nose for Washington. It will expose the low value of the U.S. military umbrella for EU member states and will necessarily lead to re-evaluation of Europe’s security architecture, which is what the Russians were demanding before their incursion into Ukraine was launched in February.


Schryver: Checkmate

It is a foregone conclusion that Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions of the former Novorossiya will be re-assimilated into the Russian motherland. 

Odessa will follow at some point in the not-so-distant future. 

And the empire’s refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of these developments will prove utterly irrelevant. 

Western media and puppet politicians can scream “Russian aggression” and “sham election” all they want, but the unadorned fact is that these regions are overwhelmingly ethnic Russians whose collective desire is to be reunited with what they view as a powerful and ascendant Russia.

In conjunction with this shrewd political act, Vladimir Putin will almost certainly announce later today a major escalation of Russian military action in Ukraine – very likely at least a partial mobilization of Russia’s as yet untapped military might. 

This will result in a rapid acceleration in the ongoing process of annihilation of the Ukrainian military, its mountains of NATO weaponry, and its numerous “foreign volunteers”. 

This, of course, presents the empire with an existential dilemma. The defeat of NATO’s proxy army, weapons, and leadership in Ukraine at the hands of the Russians will be viewed all around the world as an unprecedented defeat of American hegemony; a watershed moment that will carry with it profound geopolitical consequences.


Russell Bentley on this very dangerous moment in Ukraine, with further evidence that those ARE Nazis slaughtering civilians in the East—and a video revealing WHY so many in the West SUPPORT them
What's happening there is far more horrible than you've been told; and that millions of staunch "anti-fascists" in the West have been APPLAUDING it has more to do with COVID than you think



Earlier this morning, Vladimir Putin gave the order to call up army reservists. According to him, the nature and the goals of the Special Military Operation in the Ukraine remain the same. The reservists will be given contracts (they will in essence become salaried employees). Only those with relevant military experience and training will be called up. Shoigu went into further specifics: just 300.000 reservists will be called up in the first phase (roughly 1% of Russia’s total reservists), which will coincide with the normal, regularly scheduled annual training of reserves. They will be equipped, trained and sent in with the task of shoring up and straightening up the battle front. To be sure, they will also be called upon to provide security and to suppress enemy activity on both sides of the border.

Given the current configuration of the battle front, which includes a toehold on the Kharkov region, all of Lugansk, most of Donetsk, most of Zaporozhye and most of Kherson, their mission could conceivably come to include driving the Ukrainian forces out of the remainder of Donetsk and Kherson regions and perhaps setting up and maintaining a buffer zone to make it impossible for Ukrainian artillery to reach within what will soon become territory of the Russian Federation.
To this end, referenda will be held starting this Friday in all of the above formerly Ukrainian regions except for Kharkov, which is excluded. According to most recent opinion polling, the idea of joining the Russian Federation is very popular in all of the above: 94% in favor in Donetsk, 93% in Lugansk, 87% in Zaporozhye and 80% in Kherson.

And why wouldn’t these people want to be part of a peaceful, stable and prosperous state where their native language is the official language rather than stay within a failed state that has been fighting a civil war against them going on nine years? The celebrations that will follow these regions joining Russia are likely to be massive: Crimea 2014 times ten. ...



***** CaitOz Fare ***** :

US Lawmakers Say Student Loan Forgiveness Will Hurt Military Recruiting

.... So they’re just coming right out and admitting it. One of the reasons the US government doesn’t offer the same kinds of social support systems that people have in all other wealthy nations is because otherwise there’d be no economic pressure on young Americans to sign up for service in the US war machine.

... But such is the nature of the capitalist empire. You’re either a useful gear-turner of the machine or you are liquidated and turned into fuel for its engine. 

... The globe-spanning power structure that is centralized around the United States is the most evil, soulless and destructive force on this planet. The young people who are duped, manipulated and financially coerced into joining its war machine come back horrifically traumatized by the experiences they have in the situations they are placed in. Something better is needed. This cannot continue.



........... This Taiwan situation is getting uglier and uglier, much faster than many expected, and the president of the world’s mightiest war machine is either two stupid, too bloodthirsty, too careless or too demented to navigate this situation with the sensitivity it deserves. Things never should have been allowed to get this far, and the US empire is showing us every indication that it intends to take things much, much further.



.... Putin also issued a stern nuclear warning that’s being hysterically spun by empire managers as a shocking and unprecedentedly bellicose threat, but if you read what he actually said it’s clear that he’s really reminding the west of the same principles of Mutually Assured Destruction that have been in place for generations, and isn’t expressing any position that western nuclear powers don’t also hold ...

... So while this war is indeed insanely dangerous, it’s not because of any of the words coming out of Vladimir Putin’s mouth. ...

..... And that’s just Russia; tensions are rapidly escalating between the US-centralized empire and China as well. In an article for Antiwar.com titled “There’s Little More Washington Can Do To Convince China To Invade Taiwan,” Andrew Corbley describes the frighteningly extensive provocations the US has been pouring into another massive geopolitical powderkeg just in the past few weeks. ....



............ Look closer and you see through the stories about your nation, your government and your world. Look closer still and you see through your believed stories about life which lead you to think the way you think and act the way you act. Look even closer and you see through the stories about your actual fundamental nature.



Rigger-ous Reads (on Culture Wars, Identity Politics, etc.):


.... I have tried to read some postmodern stuff in the past - mostly some of the original ramblings - and found it to be largely impenetrable nonsensical waffle that says nothing much more profound than “narratives can control our perception” - although they try to big this up by arguing that words shape ‘reality’ and dress it all up with the typical academic philosopher’s penchant for pretension.

Cynical Theories shows how much, if not most, of the current rancid and illogical quagmire of ‘woke’ ideology has its roots in postmodernism. The deranged droolings of the original postmodernists have been re-purposed and turbocharged with activism which has flowered into the various strands of ideology that plague us today, they argue (although with a lot more neutral language), to become a kind of applied postmodernism.

The book has been a real eye-opener for me. I was aware of the influence of postmodernism before reading it, but I hadn’t realized quite how pernicious and infectious the postmodern virus had really become

.... The applied postmodernists are right, though. Perception is critical. It’s a truism that governments and tyrants have known since time immemorial. You control people by controlling their perceptions.

..... It’s not all just about postmodern prattery - although they have been very successful in getting their deranged and demented discourses metastasizing in every institution. Manipulation is everywhere - we need to be both aware of it and savvy enough to use it ourselves to fight back. Merely being rational and objective, as important though that is, is not enough. We need to be perceived as being the rational and objective ones (which, of course, we are).


In the face of an angry mob hurling vicious calumnies, backed up by all society's ruling institutions

You are witnessing a portrait in courage. This is a mother telling a very familiar story, one that I’ve heard more than a dozen times from parents who share her predicament. Their daughters have been caught up in a social contagion. Their daughters have been told that because they are gender nonconforming or uncomfortable with their female bodies as they undergo sexual maturation and all the difficulties that entails — the sexualization by a porn saturated society, the bloody monthly cycles and risks of pregnancy, and all the specifically gendered social pressures of adolescence — that they are in fact boys whose wrong bodies can be medically transformed to match the boy they really are on the inside. Their daughters have joined online communities that encourage them in this belief, and encourage them to regard anyone who stands in the way of this promised transformation as an enemy.

These parents are trying to protect their children from the enormous risks that accompany the puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender surgeries that online influencers and peers, gender clinicians, federal government, and the educational establishment now cheerlead as the panacea for struggling gender-conforming, mentally-ill, and neurodivergent children. This regimen of medical experimentation on children has been rebranded “life-saving gender affirmative care.”



Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) has deleted the website of their Transgender Clinic after journalist Matt Walsh detailed a doctor's promotion of transgender surgeries as a "big money maker" for the institution.



Long Reads / Big Thoughts:


The older I get, the more frustrated I am by my own ignorance. When I was younger, my ignorance wasn’t much of a problem, because I was ignorant of how ignorant I was. Now I’m smart enough to realize how stupid I am, and I am constantly trying to fill the very serious gaps in my understanding of the world.

I don’t, for instance, know what any of the different trees are called. I don’t know how the city sewer system works. I don’t know how to build a birdhouse, or knit a cardigan, or take apart a clock and put it back together. Don’t ask me to diagnose car trouble, bake a croissant, or draw a realistic sketch of an architectural landmark. I wish I could do all of these things, and someday I’ll learn. But for now, while I can read and write pretty well, and I remember some algebra and history, I am useless across a staggering number of domains.

I only partly blame myself for this. I also blame the school system, which devalues practical knowledge. ........

................. You can see from this list of subjects that I think school ought to be both more practical and more intellectual. More practical because I don’t think learning to work with your hands should be considered mere “vocational training,” and it will help make everyone’s adulthood easier if they can fix things and make things. But more intellectual because I think focusing on English, basic history, and STEM leaves out the cultural and philosophical education that nourishes both soul and mind. I am not convinced that my personal list of new subjects is the right one, but I am certain that what is offered at the moment is, in too many schools, far too limited and is depriving children of both the intellectual and practical skills that will make them thoughtful, well-rounded, cultured adults who don’t swallow bullshit and can think both creatively and carefully. 


In “The Myth of Normal,” physician Gabor Matรฉ argues that we’ve created a world that’s fundamentally unhealthy.

...Now, Matรฉ is once again attempting to shift the conversation, this time about health at large, through a new book, “The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture,” which he co-wrote with his son, Daniel Matรฉ. Across nearly 500 pages, Matรฉ (who assumes the narrator’s voice) draws from extensive research of scientific literature and decades of firsthand experience to build a bold, wide-ranging case about the origins of much of what ails us. He posits that everything from trauma and depression to hypertension and even some forms of cancer are symptoms of living in a society that runs counter to our biological needs and fails to recognize how connected our well-being is to everything and everyone around us.



“When I succeed, it’s due to my hard work and intelligence; when I fail, the system is rigged against me, and I had bad luck.” It’s easy to see the flaw here when stated so clearly, but most adults today are motivated by some version of it in their day-to-day lives. The fact that we tend to believe in bad luck, but not in good luck, makes it more difficult to learn from our mistakes.

When our sons experience  setbacks—anything from dropping a glass  to slipping on the stairs to breaking an  arm— we ask them, “What did you learn?” We also, to their enduring irritation, will often ask them this when they almost drop a glass, don’t quite slip on the stairs, or narrowly avoid breaking a bone. They expect it from us now, but in general, both children and adults are incredulous when you ask this question after something has gone wrong. It can be taken as accusatory, rather than sympathetic, and sympathy is what we think we want in the aftermath of an accident or injury. As much as your currently ruffled feathers would enjoy being smoothed, wouldn’t you be a more productive and engaged human being if you could learn from what just happened, and thus decrease the chances that you’ll experience such a thing again? It is, as we say to our children, about the future. Trying to explain away the past, rather than learning from it and moving on, is a poor use of time and intellectual resources.

Having close calls is part of the set of experiences that are necessary in order to grow up. If your child has been made totally safe, living a life with no risk, then you have done a terrible job of parenting. That child has no ability to extrapolate from the universe. If you, as an adult, are totally safe, you are probably not reaching your potential. ....



Fun (?!) Fare:


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