Apprehensive,
Samo Burja, Why Civilizations Collapse
Why do civilizations collapse? This question bears not only on safeguarding our society’s future but also makes sense of our present...
..Institutional failure comes as a surprise because organizations try to hide their shortcomings. They lean on other, more functional organizations in order to keep up appearances. During civilizational collapse, no organization can properly hide its own inadequacy, since the whole interdependent ecosystem of institutions is caving in on itself. States, religions, material technologies, and ways of life that once seemed self-sustaining turn out to have been dependent on the invisible subsidy of just a few key institutions...
..The environment of societal collapse reveals much of the otherwise obscured inner workings of crucial social technologies. ..In the West today, we operate under the influence of our own key philosophy, which we can call scientism: the tendency to rely on scientific claims to describe the functioning of society, even when there is no empirical reason to assume that they apply. We act as if we are already living in a scientifically-planned society, immune to collapse on a time scale that any of us have to worry about. This is very far from the truth. We are certainly living in socially-engineered societies, but they are not scientifically planned in any straightforward way. Our organs of economic management do not secretly know how the economy really works...
..In addition to this complexity, non-functional institutions are the rule. Our institutions today rarely function in accordance with their stated purpose. Individuals within a given society are often very bad at judging institutional functionality. Some people spend their entire lives ruthlessly profiting from the misery of others, or greatly contributing to the prosperity of others, without even knowing that they are doing so.....To ascertain whether or not we are headed for collapse, we must first analyze the functionality of our own society and pinpoint where things go wrong...
..Our society is dominated by large bureaucracies. These bureaucracies break down the processing of physical goods and information into discrete tasks, such as how a factory worker puts doors on a car, or a stock trader buys futures contracts. These tasks are shorn of their context and executed in a systematized environment whose constraints are quite narrow: put the car door in, increase the portfolio value. Our society is thoroughly compartmentalized. This compartmentalization isn’t driven by the division of labor, but rather by the need to make use of misaligned talent without empowering it. By radically limiting employees’ scope of action, you make office politics more predictable. By fragmenting available knowledge, you can leverage information asymmetries to the intellectual or material advantage of the center...
..It is very difficult, though, to apply this analysis to the construction of society. No matter how large or how small, institutions always coexist in a symbiotic relationship with other institutions. There is no Amazon without the United States government, no U.S. government without—at least—some parts of the U.S. economy.....Since society is so deeply compartmentalized, it rarely functions as a whole with a single purpose. Note that dysfunctionality is not a normative distinction; it often boils down to the simple reality of whether or not anyone ever follows up on key actions within the institution...
..Institutions often become non-functional due to the loss of key knowledge at critical junctures. Take, for example, the recent failure of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to reproduce a niche classified material known as FOGBANK that is necessary for manufacturing nuclear weapons. It took the NNSA ten years and millions of dollars to re-engineer a material that their staff in the 1980s knew how to make. That knowledge never should have been lost in the first place, but in a dysfunctional society, such loss of knowledge becomes the rule.....Civilizational collapse, then, looks like this dynamic at the scale of an entire civilization: a low-grade but constant loss of capabilities and knowledge throughout the most critical parts of our institutions, that eventually degrades our ability to perpetuate society...
..The key dynamic here is the loss of the subtle social technologies that allow us to solve the succession problem. Running a large and complex institution requires skills which are often difficult to fully pass on. How can a successful founder ensure a successor who leads as competently as they did? The succession problem is the central obstacle to transferring the ownership and knowledge of institutions from generation to generation.....The succession problem is especially important when transferring secrets. In ancient Egypt, accurate measurement of the Nile river was a state secret, in order to allow the state to monopolize agricultural production and resource flows. This was crucial to the functionality of Egyptian civilization—it was the legitimating story of the state. By design, it was not clear to the Egyptian public how they would go about running their society if it weren’t for the expert knowledge of the state.
The failure to maintain implicit traditions of knowledge speaks to the extreme difficulty of transferring secrets between generations. Often the problem is that the kids “don't get the joke”: if you create an institution with a false premise in order to mislead society as to your true goals, the people you hire into it might be fooled by the propaganda themselves...
..Avoiding collapse is so difficult because succession failure is often opaque... The intellectual apocalypse is invisible if there are no true intellectuals around .Again, institutional failure typically comes as a surprise... The failure to maintain implicit traditions of knowledge speaks to the extreme difficulty of transferring secrets between generations. Often the problem is that the kids “don't get the joke”: if you create an institution with a false premise in order to mislead society as to your true goals, the people you hire into it might be fooled by the propaganda themselves...
..We can define civilizational collapse as a process wherein most recognizable large-scale institutions of a society vanish, coupled with a drop in material wealth, a drop in the complexity of material artifacts and social forms, a reduction in travel distance and physical safety of the inhabitants, and a mass reduction in knowledge...
..Loss of knowledge is especially damaging, since it accelerates the other aspects of collapse and ensures that they will be long-lasting.... Such losses of knowledge are a constant throughout human history: as with FOGBANK, or as with the state of New Jersey recently scrambling to find a COBOL programmer with the ability to overhaul their legacy information systems.....Despite how difficult it can be to gather historical data, it’s still a far better way to understand societal collapse than purely theoretical models...
..That exploration is still itself theory-driven. Good historians and theoreticians explicitly acknowledge the theses they work with, so I will do the same. My theory of history is great founder theory: I propose that social technologies do not evolve out of mass action, but rather are devised by a tiny subset of institutional designers. Looking at history, we see that new organizations and social forms often arise within a single generation, showing jumps in social complexity far too rapid to be explained away by collective action or evolution..
..It often takes an exceptional individual with exceptional vision to create a new social or material technology. It’s hard to remember nowadays that the smartphone once had to be devised as a combination of the cell phone, the tablet, and the camera, and did not merely emerge out of mass market sentiments. It took a single individual, Steve Jobs, to see that while a combination of the car, the airplane, and the submarine would produce an inferior version of all three, the opposite case would be true in the creation of the smartphone. And then that individual had to implement the vision.....That exploration is still itself theory-driven. Good historians and theoreticians explicitly acknowledge the theses they work with, so I will do the same. My theory of history is great founder theory: I propose that social technologies do not evolve out of mass action, but rather are devised by a tiny subset of institutional designers. Looking at history, we see that new organizations and social forms often arise within a single generation, showing jumps in social complexity far too rapid to be explained away by collective action or evolution..
..A keen observer would examine the way that laws are made today and conclude that we have witnessed the emergence of a new legislative body all but in name, with Congress reduced to a vestigial organ of this governing structure. Law today is made mostly by the Supreme Court, or the civil service when it chooses what to implement and how, or occasionally via Presidential executive order. Yet very few people today come to such a conclusion, as the ideology of American government dictates that law is made in Congress, and does not make room for the development of new federal legislative bodies. If no one believes a hypothesis, the evidence for it remains unnoticed, even when such evidence is abundant...
..Establishing historical knowledge is difficult. Narrative fills the gaps; stories are told both by you and Obama and FDR, and by Julius Caesar. These are always a mix of accuracy and self-interest, which is, in fact, what history is...
..If we compare the roughly twelve identifiable Dark Ages following civilizational collapse on the Eurasian continent—the collapse of the Bronze Age civilizations, the end of Mohenjo Daro, the decline of the Roman Empire, Han China and so on—we always find that nearly all material technology is not self-perpetuating, but rather rests on foundations of social technology. The only material technologies that routinely survive collapse are small-scale agriculture and small-scale metallurgy, likely because the social technologies needed to sustain such smaller communities can arise organically...Establishing historical knowledge is difficult. Narrative fills the gaps; stories are told both by you and Obama and FDR, and by Julius Caesar. These are always a mix of accuracy and self-interest, which is, in fact, what history is...
..Since collapse in material technology is always preceded by collapse in the practice of social technology, Dark Ages are always preceded by Intellectual Dark Ages. Knowledge of these social technologies is highly compartmentalized and, as a result, they are not understood explicitly by all parts of society. This means that a society undergoing an Intellectual Dark Age doesn’t realize it is going through one at all—all the people who would notice are long-gone, and those who remain are miseducated, role-playing the forms left behind by their predecessors without realizing that they’ve lost the substance...
..Take the Industrial Revolution for example: surely the most interesting thing that has happened within the last 500 years, and a process that most currently assume is still ongoing. But if the Industrial Revolution was over, what would we expect to see? Much as we see a late Roman drop in lead pollution, today we see drops in pollution in the West. The standard explanation is gains in efficiency and greener technology. But if we take a more global perspective, it seems that we outsourced not just production, but also the pollution associated with production to China. The economists’ argument here is that we have intentionally outsourced our industries to China, obeying the industry-agnostic logic of gains from trade. It is worth considering the economists might be wrong if the promised gains from trade haven’t materialized.
..One could hypothesize the American worker and manager have, over time, lost the social technology that enabled them to run the assembly lines in the first place and that, now, our support for outsourcing isn’t so much due to greed as it is an adaptation to inability... We should seriously consider the possibility that we are a post-industrial society not in a positive sense, but in the sense that in our society the Industrial Revolution has stopped.
Such a hypothesis is strikingly hard to defeat. A civilizational collapse under conditions of advanced material technology might look very much like what we have now. Our society is the product of what were once advanced, rational, self-catalyzing systems of production, but we have now reverted to a more customary system, where things are simply done as they were 40 or 50 years ago. We have the same bureaucratic and economic institutions as we did then, with some marginal tweaks. Thanks to narrow progress in the CPU industry, most of which has left the United States, we are now able to have Zoom calls.....One could hypothesize the American worker and manager have, over time, lost the social technology that enabled them to run the assembly lines in the first place and that, now, our support for outsourcing isn’t so much due to greed as it is an adaptation to inability... We should seriously consider the possibility that we are a post-industrial society not in a positive sense, but in the sense that in our society the Industrial Revolution has stopped.
..Augustus Caesar truly did save the Roman Republic from tearing itself to shreds through unsustainable warfare. His imperial system was in turn torn to shreds through warfare after long-standing economic and intellectual decay 300 years later. The sheer difficulty of reform, coupled with the accumulation of social and cultural technical debt, provides a fairly solid explanation for why civilizations collapse.
The United States is well-positioned to attempt such civilizational reforms, since it has a remarkable ability to integrate exceptional talent from all over the world and has put that talent to work on some of the most successful institutional projects in history, including the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Program. America is, for now, in an unavoidable period of relative decline...
..A deep pragmatism runs through this country, and if reimagined, the 21st century could see another explosion in American economic, social, and cultural development. The United States is well-positioned to attempt such civilizational reforms, since it has a remarkable ability to integrate exceptional talent from all over the world and has put that talent to work on some of the most successful institutional projects in history, including the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Program. America is, for now, in an unavoidable period of relative decline...
The solution lies with a small number of people who can independently judge the generative minds behind the facts, rather than merely minding the integrity of the established body of theories and observations... Such people are extremely rare, but if we create a socioeconomic niche for them, our civilization can rewrite its own future for the better.
"There is a silent aspect of civilizational decline: a marked fall in population numbers. I write silent deliberately, as it happens in the background without too many of us taking notice, or realizing the gravity of the situation. When talking about the collapse of civilizations, most people envision mass casualty events (famine, war, natural disasters), wiping out half of the population in almost an instant. Sure enough, this looks both terrifying and extremely powerful in Hollywood movies, but nothing could be further from the truth. Especially not when it comes to our modern civilization, and its unfolding demise. A radically different world is unfolding in front of our eyes, and we are not the least prepared."
John Micheal Greer has steered my attention back to this topic. A couple of weeks ago I already touched on the theme of a slow but steady population decline, but now its time to take a deeper look into the matter, to see its implications and how it relates to the decline of modernity in general. Hedge Fund Icon: "We're Just Two Years Away From A US Debt Sustainability Crisis, Sparking A Major Global Market Event"
“The last time the debt as a share of GDP was this large was in 1945-1946, at the end of World War II,” wrote Daniel Wilson and Brigid Meisenbacherat from the Economic Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. I was grinding through my stack, piled high with white papers. “Over the following three decades, the debt-to-GDP ratio steadily fell, reaching roughly 25% by 1975,” ...
..“That 30-year decline contrasts sharply with the projected 30-year increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio, reaching 172%, over 2024 to 2054, according to the latest current Congressional Budget Office projections.” Wilson and Meisenbacherat point out that the Fed projects a longer-term real Fed Funds rate of 0.50%.
And their median projection for long-run real GDP growth is 1.8%. They highlight that the CBO, however, forecasts a lower 1.5% real GDP growth rate, and a longer-term real interest rate on US debt of 2.0%. “In this case, slow economic growth relative to interest rates would exert modest upward pressure on the debt ratio, primarily from higher interest payments,” they wrote.
“The main source of the long-run upward pressure on the primary deficit is spending on mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Current legislated formulas used to determine spending per recipient for Social Security benefits and government health-care programs, especially Medicare, combined with the projected aging of the population, point to large increases in spending for these programs as a share of GDP. This pressure was absent after WWII because the overall US population was younger and because Medicare was not enacted until 1965.”
..“That 30-year decline contrasts sharply with the projected 30-year increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio, reaching 172%, over 2024 to 2054, according to the latest current Congressional Budget Office projections.” Wilson and Meisenbacherat point out that the Fed projects a longer-term real Fed Funds rate of 0.50%.
And their median projection for long-run real GDP growth is 1.8%. They highlight that the CBO, however, forecasts a lower 1.5% real GDP growth rate, and a longer-term real interest rate on US debt of 2.0%. “In this case, slow economic growth relative to interest rates would exert modest upward pressure on the debt ratio, primarily from higher interest payments,” they wrote.
“The main source of the long-run upward pressure on the primary deficit is spending on mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Current legislated formulas used to determine spending per recipient for Social Security benefits and government health-care programs, especially Medicare, combined with the projected aging of the population, point to large increases in spending for these programs as a share of GDP. This pressure was absent after WWII because the overall US population was younger and because Medicare was not enacted until 1965.”
Analyst and financial writer John Rubino warned nearly four months ago of a “U.S. Financial Death Spiral.” This past week, Bank of America caught up to Rubino and issued a warning about a “US dollar death spiral” because the federal government was going deeper in the red by creating “$1 trillion in new debt every 100 days.”...
..Currencies are being inflated away with all these bailouts, deficits, wars and all these things that are going on that are bad for the currency. So, people start selling government bonds, which push up interest rates and blows up even more bad real estate and paper . . . until you get a debt spiral, a real live financial death spiral than cannot be fixed. . . . I was talking to a real estate guy the other day, and he said this is not just inevitable, it is imminent. It is happening now. It is happening quickly, and it is going to hit the headlines. . . . In this case, what is inevitable in commercial real estate is also looking imminent.”
https://usawatchdog.com/eventual-financial-death-spiral-now-imminent-john-rubino/
Can Americans Have Hope? Paul Craig Roberts [I suspect changes in the imperial court in Washington DC need to happen this summer, or there can't be an election.]
If he hasn’t struck a deal with the elites, why would they allow him, their enemy, be in the Oval Office? ...
Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run - Musk Says "I Would Support"
Tucker Carlson’s interview with Steve Kirsch reveals that it is impossible in the medical world to speak the truth. The top doctors and medical research scientists cannot state the truth about the Covid mRNA “vaccine” and childhood vaccination without losing their jobs and becoming a nonperson...
..Movies such as The Matrix and V for Vendetta are not fantasy movies. They are accurate reports on our time....
..2024 is likely to be a determining year for the Western world. Two wars are ongoing on which the West is on the wrong side. Equally important is this year’s presidential election.
It is completely obvious that Trump is the favorite. The corrupt Republican establishment was unable to find anyone voters would accept to challenge Trump for the nomination. Trump is hands down the people’s choice.
Despite this fact, and remember, allegedly America is a democracy subject to the will of the people, we witness Democrat state supreme court judges ruling that Trump is an “insurrectionist” and is banned from being on the ballot. We see Democrat state secretaries of state and state attorney generals and city and county Democrat prosecutors using law as a weapon to keep Trump off the ballot and to keep him tied up in criminal and civil trials. The Democrats are weaponizing law because they know Trump will win the election...
..There is no possibility whatever of Biden being reelected. The fool lined up with Israel in the genocide of the Palestinian people. The fool has lost the war in Ukraine that absorbed untold billions of American money. The fool has violated his oath of office and has not only allowed but has actively participated in bringing in during his 4 years 48 cities the size of Pittsburgh full of immigrant-invaders, actually flying in at the expense of US taxpayers 320,000 immigrant-invaders. The fool is signing over to an international bureaucracy, WHO, the determination of your health care, which as of May of this year will be out of your hands.....Movies such as The Matrix and V for Vendetta are not fantasy movies. They are accurate reports on our time....
..2024 is likely to be a determining year for the Western world. Two wars are ongoing on which the West is on the wrong side. Equally important is this year’s presidential election.
It is completely obvious that Trump is the favorite. The corrupt Republican establishment was unable to find anyone voters would accept to challenge Trump for the nomination. Trump is hands down the people’s choice.
Despite this fact, and remember, allegedly America is a democracy subject to the will of the people, we witness Democrat state supreme court judges ruling that Trump is an “insurrectionist” and is banned from being on the ballot. We see Democrat state secretaries of state and state attorney generals and city and county Democrat prosecutors using law as a weapon to keep Trump off the ballot and to keep him tied up in criminal and civil trials. The Democrats are weaponizing law because they know Trump will win the election...
..(Ouch, true-ish) For decades Democrats have been appointing legal and constitutional illiterates to the judiciary, knowing that the only way Democrats can achieve a one-party tyrannical state is by using stupid people to weaponize law...
..Earlier I suggested that the Democrats would have Biden resign for medical reasons. Kamala would become president. She would be instructed to choose Hillary as her VP and then resign herself. This would leave Hillary and her machine in power prior to the election. Then the border conflict between Washington and Texas would be heated up. There would be talk of civil war, and the prospect would be used by Hillary to declare martial law to put down rebellion and cancel the election...
..As Trump has declared war on the American ruling elites,they are determined to keep him away from power. Has Trump been re-educated so that he no longer wants normal relations with Russia? We know he is in Israel’s pocket, which is a great gift to the control that the establishment has over Trump. The question before us is: Does Trump want vindication by reelection more than he wants to overthrow the elite and return government to the people as democracy requires? If he hasn’t struck a deal with the elites, why would they allow him, their enemy, be in the Oval Office? ...
..My updated opinion is that the elites could permit Trump to assume the Presidency because they know that they can prevent him from achieving what those who elected him want, thereby demoralizing the American citizens who had hope that a leader would restore and revitalize their nation. They know that they can orchestrate an economic catastrophe that would destroy Trump’s presidency and keep Republicans out of office for many years.
If all else fails, the bullets that destroyed JFK and RFK are available. There is no doubt that the corrupt US media would attribute Trump’s assassination to “a lone gunman.”
If all else fails, the bullets that destroyed JFK and RFK are available. There is no doubt that the corrupt US media would attribute Trump’s assassination to “a lone gunman.”
Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Friday hinted that he may jump into the race to become the next Senate GOP leader, and Elon Musk was quick to support the idea. Republicans must find a successor for periodically malfunctioning Mitch McConnell, who recently announced he'll step down in November, though intending to keep his Senate seat until his term ends in January 2027, when he'd be within weeks of turning 86.
So far, the announced field consists of two quintessential establishment types: John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of South Dakota.
So far, the announced field consists of two quintessential establishment types: John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of South Dakota.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rand-paul-teases-senate-gop-leader-run-musk-says-i-would-support
NATO Can No Longer Hide Its Military Presence in Ukraine
The debate that French President Macron provoked over whether NATO should conventionally intervene in Ukraine exposed the existence of two distinct schools of thought on this issue inside of Europe. France, the Baltic States, and Poland appear to be in favor of “non-combat deployments” there for demining and training missions, which could be carried out through a “coalition of the willing”, while the rest of the bloc supports Germany’s stance that this shouldn’t happen under any circumstances.
..In any case, the top takeaway from this analysis is that there are indeed plans for a conventional Western intervention in Ukraine, but they’ve yet to fully form and their execution can’t be taken for granted.
Scott Ritter: Pentagon’s ‘Ukrainian Fantasy’ Is Falling Apart
Hungary’s Orban Says Trump Pledged Not to Provide Financial Aid to Ukraine
Defiant Netanyahu Vows To Cross Biden's Rafah 'Red Line': "We Are Not Getting Off The Gas"
Chasing 'tactical' wins, Israel now faces 'strategic' defeat
On Monday, more than 20 advocacy groups announced the launch of the “Reject AIPAC” coalition.
Spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova commented on the statement by Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski about the presence of soldiers NATO countries in Ukraine, telling Sputnik: “They couldn’t hide it any longer.”
Earlier in the day, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said during a panel discussion at an event dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the country's accession to the alliance that some NATO countries have already sent their military to Ukraine.
Earlier in the day, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said during a panel discussion at an event dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the country's accession to the alliance that some NATO countries have already sent their military to Ukraine.
Andrew Korybko wonders , Are France & The UK Plotting A Ukrainian Power Play Right Under Germany’s Nose?
“Scholz’s Slip Of The Tongue Spilled The Beans On Ukraine’s Worst-Kept Secret”, however, since he inadvertently revealed that there are already British and French troops there helping Ukraine with “target control”. The subsequently leaked Bundeswehr recording about bombing the Crimean Bridge confirmed that the Americans are there too. Nevertheless, what’s being proposed by Paris is a formalization of these deployments along with their gradual expansion in a “non-combat” capacity...
..Their intent seems to be to prepare these on-the-ground forces for surging eastward in the event that the worst-case scenario from Kiev’s perspective materializes whereby the frontline collapses and Russia starts steamrolling westward... [A very bad idea, unless the intent is to destroy these NATO countries.].....Germany’s (merely hopelessly deluded) approach is altogether different in that it prefers to formally stay out of the fray in order to focus on building “Fortress Europe”. This refers to Berlin’s policy of resuming its long-lost superpower trajectory through “defensive” military means with US support in order to lead Russia’s containment in Europe at Washington’s behest while America “Pivots (back) to Asia” to contain China. A major component of this plan is the “military Schengen” between Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland...
..Like France, the UK also doesn’t want to see Germany resuming its superpower trajectory, and both might wager that they can either get the US’ approval for their intervention or do it unilaterally to make it a fait accompli... [A multinational form of "suicide by cop"? "Suicide by Russia"?] .....Romania’s “Moldovan Highway” [aka, "Mafia rat-line"] that’s being built in “emergency” mode is creating a new military corridor in the Balkans from which France can counter Germany’s growing military influence across the continent.
This emerging Greek-Ukrainian corridor is already one of the West’s most important logistical routes for perpetuating the proxy war after the traditional Polish one became unreliable following the farmers’ protests. It therefore makes perfect sense not only to invest in it for that sake alone, but also for countries like France and the UK to entrench their influence along the route in order to create their own “sphere of influence” there for decelerating Germany’s superpower trajectory.
That’s precisely what France is doing via its new security deal with Moldova, which will lead to closer security ties of the “military Schengen” sort with Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece in order to facilitate the dispatch of “trainers” to that landlocked country. The UK can either follow suit in some way or redouble its influence in the Baltic States and especially Poland, possibly culminating in its troops conventionally intervening in Ukraine through the last-mentioned while France’s enter from Romania-Moldova...
..German involvement in this conflict could further reduce the already dismal chances of it entering into a rapprochement with Russia after everything ends like many hawks still fear is possible and desperately want to prevent... This emerging Greek-Ukrainian corridor is already one of the West’s most important logistical routes for perpetuating the proxy war after the traditional Polish one became unreliable following the farmers’ protests. It therefore makes perfect sense not only to invest in it for that sake alone, but also for countries like France and the UK to entrench their influence along the route in order to create their own “sphere of influence” there for decelerating Germany’s superpower trajectory.
That’s precisely what France is doing via its new security deal with Moldova, which will lead to closer security ties of the “military Schengen” sort with Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece in order to facilitate the dispatch of “trainers” to that landlocked country. The UK can either follow suit in some way or redouble its influence in the Baltic States and especially Poland, possibly culminating in its troops conventionally intervening in Ukraine through the last-mentioned while France’s enter from Romania-Moldova...
..If Germany formally stays out of the fray while France and the UK embroil themselves in it with disastrous or at least unimpressive results, including those that see their Baltic and Polish “junior partners” exploited as cannon fodder, then Germany might actually benefit a lot...
..It remains to be seen whether France and the UK will go through with this Ukrainian power play right under Germany’s nose, but there’s little doubt that this is what they’re planning. The US could possibly disapprove, however, and they might then lack the confidence to conventionally intervene through their own “coalition of the willing”. There’s also the chance that the US takes the lead in this respect if Russia achieves a breakthrough before NATO’s largest drills in three decades end in June.....In any case, the top takeaway from this analysis is that there are indeed plans for a conventional Western intervention in Ukraine, but they’ve yet to fully form and their execution can’t be taken for granted.
Ukraine reportedly did not listen to tactical advice offered by the Pentagon. Ritter said he believes the assertions are not based in reality but instead are designed to shift the blame away from the United States.
“The Pentagon is definitely trying to create political cover for itself because their huge Ukrainian fantasy is falling apart,” Ritter asserted, explaining earlier that Ukraine had little choice but to hold Avdeyevka for as long as possible so that defensive lines could be built behind it, noting however, that Russian airpower prevented even that goal from being achieved...
..The Kiev regime is “waking up to the reality that their so-called friends and allies are abandoning them and leaving Ukraine to its own fate” Ritter explained earlier while discussing Macron’s comments that French troops may be deployed in Ukraine, a hypothetical that Ritter says is only being discussed because of the position Ukraine is in. “To understand why Macron would be even talking about this, you have to understand how dire the situation is for Ukraine right now. They are facing military collapse, right now as we speak the last reserves of Ukraine are being thrown into the battle outside the village of Orlovka,” Ritter explained. “This is to buy time for a miracle to happen and the Ukrainians are hoping the miracle will be the arrival of a French battlegroup.”...
..Meanwhile, Ritter argues, the election season is forcing the United States to step back from the conflict. “The Pentagon is definitely trying to create political cover for itself because their huge Ukrainian fantasy is falling apart,” Ritter asserted, explaining earlier that Ukraine had little choice but to hold Avdeyevka for as long as possible so that defensive lines could be built behind it, noting however, that Russian airpower prevented even that goal from being achieved...
..The Kiev regime is “waking up to the reality that their so-called friends and allies are abandoning them and leaving Ukraine to its own fate” Ritter explained earlier while discussing Macron’s comments that French troops may be deployed in Ukraine, a hypothetical that Ritter says is only being discussed because of the position Ukraine is in. “To understand why Macron would be even talking about this, you have to understand how dire the situation is for Ukraine right now. They are facing military collapse, right now as we speak the last reserves of Ukraine are being thrown into the battle outside the village of Orlovka,” Ritter explained. “This is to buy time for a miracle to happen and the Ukrainians are hoping the miracle will be the arrival of a French battlegroup.”...
On Friday, Trump met with Orban at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida to discuss a wide range of issues of common interest for Hungary and the United States.
"If the Americans do not give weapons and money, and the Europeans follow them, then the war will end. If the Americans do not give money, then the Europeans are not able to finance this war themselves, and then it will end. Trump is not president now, but his party interferes when the Democrats want to send money to the war. Trump said that if he returns, he will not do this, [he will] not [allocate] a penny. And then this war will end," Orban said in an interview with Hungarian broadcaster M1.
"If the Americans do not give weapons and money, and the Europeans follow them, then the war will end. If the Americans do not give money, then the Europeans are not able to finance this war themselves, and then it will end. Trump is not president now, but his party interferes when the Democrats want to send money to the war. Trump said that if he returns, he will not do this, [he will] not [allocate] a penny. And then this war will end," Orban said in an interview with Hungarian broadcaster M1.
Biden Issues 'Red Line' For Israel Over Rafah, But Won't Do Anything About It
"[We] cannot have another 30,000 more Palestinians dead," Biden told MSNBC in a fresh interview. He was then asked whether Rafah is a red line for him and he responded: "It is a red line." ... But Biden stopped short of saying he would cut off weapons and ammunition supplies to Israel, which remain vital in its war against Hamas. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-just-issues-red-line-israel-over-rafah-wont-do-anything-about-it Sunday Netanyahu responded by vowing to press forward with the planned offensive on Rafah, believed to be imminent, when asked about the Biden red line statement. "We'll go there. We're not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn't happen again. Never happens again."
Netanyahu's focus on tactical wins has led to a disconnect with the broader strategic goals of the war.
The 'progress' made within the Gaza Strip, while significant on a tactical level, has not effectively advanced the strategic aim of eliminating Hamas, Tel Aviv's number one stated war objective. On the contrary, US reports claim that 80 percent of the Palestinian resistance's key military infrastructure remains intact.
This has left Netanyahu facing a critical dilemma: the pursuit of tactical gains has come at a steep cost, jeopardizing the achievement of his strategic objectives. His Gaza assault has resulted in the wholesale massacre of Palestinian civilians – predominantly women and children – widespread global censure, and thousands of dead and injured Israeli soldiers and officers.
This tragic toll has permanently tarnished Israel's international image, undermining its fairytale narratives of 'democracy' and 'victimhood' and casting Tel Aviv instead as a leading perpetrator of state-sponsored terrorism in the world. Moreover, Israel's actions have led to accusations of genocide and human rights violations on the international stage, most notably the recent high-profile case at the International Court of Justice.
Netanyahu and his war cabinet have fallen into a classic trap: allowing pyrrhic wins to distract them from an overarching victory...
..History teaches us that tactical gains, without alignment with strategic objectives, are inadequate for long-term success. The crucial question that looms is whether US intervention will indeed succeed in preserving Israel's strategic aims. The 'progress' made within the Gaza Strip, while significant on a tactical level, has not effectively advanced the strategic aim of eliminating Hamas, Tel Aviv's number one stated war objective. On the contrary, US reports claim that 80 percent of the Palestinian resistance's key military infrastructure remains intact.
This has left Netanyahu facing a critical dilemma: the pursuit of tactical gains has come at a steep cost, jeopardizing the achievement of his strategic objectives. His Gaza assault has resulted in the wholesale massacre of Palestinian civilians – predominantly women and children – widespread global censure, and thousands of dead and injured Israeli soldiers and officers.
This tragic toll has permanently tarnished Israel's international image, undermining its fairytale narratives of 'democracy' and 'victimhood' and casting Tel Aviv instead as a leading perpetrator of state-sponsored terrorism in the world. Moreover, Israel's actions have led to accusations of genocide and human rights violations on the international stage, most notably the recent high-profile case at the International Court of Justice.
Netanyahu and his war cabinet have fallen into a classic trap: allowing pyrrhic wins to distract them from an overarching victory...
https://thecradle.co/articles/chasing-tactical-wins-israel-now-faces-strategic-defeat
..Israel’s public genocide is a private secret among Americans who are paying for it, and among US government officials responsible for regulating the scheme according to US law. According to well-informed bond traders, this deal-making is worth in fees to the dealmakers, led by Goldman Sachs, about $100 million.
Erdogan among ‘greatest anti-Semites in history’ – Israeli FM
John Helmer, Last week it happened that God and the United States Treasury managed to underwrite a record issue of Israel Government bonds to continue the war against the Arabs in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq – and Iran if necessary.
The war financing comprised $2 billion of five-year bonds, and $3 billion each of 10 and 30-year bonds.
The US Treasury guarantees bond holders that if Israel defaults on repayment of its obligations, the US will pay instead. Notwithstanding this, the Israelis were obliged to offer an extra 1.35%, 1.45%, and 1.75% more in interest over the going rate for US Treasury bonds for the same length of term.
The war financing comprised $2 billion of five-year bonds, and $3 billion each of 10 and 30-year bonds.
The US Treasury guarantees bond holders that if Israel defaults on repayment of its obligations, the US will pay instead. Notwithstanding this, the Israelis were obliged to offer an extra 1.35%, 1.45%, and 1.75% more in interest over the going rate for US Treasury bonds for the same length of term.
The Reuters news agency headline on March 6 celebrated “Israel sells record $8 billion in bonds despite Oct 7 attacks, downgrade”....
..With the higher interest rates the market has just demanded from the Israelis, the spread between the Israel bonds and US Treasuries has never been wider, and the worse this spread will become for Israel. This is a vote of no-confidence from the market which the Israelis, the Americans, and their media are trying to keep secret.
The longer the war is protracted, the more obvious the costs of Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) failure will become – and the deeper the negative bond sentiment will grow. By converting secrecy into money, the market is signaling that it has begun to turn against Israel – and profit at Israel’s expense...
..With the higher interest rates the market has just demanded from the Israelis, the spread between the Israel bonds and US Treasuries has never been wider, and the worse this spread will become for Israel. This is a vote of no-confidence from the market which the Israelis, the Americans, and their media are trying to keep secret.
The longer the war is protracted, the more obvious the costs of Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) failure will become – and the deeper the negative bond sentiment will grow. By converting secrecy into money, the market is signaling that it has begun to turn against Israel – and profit at Israel’s expense...
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ranks among the worst anti-Semites in history because of his stance on the Gaza conflict, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has claimed.
In a speech on Saturday, Erdogan compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler, referring to the relentless IDF attacks on Gaza, which have killed at least 30,960 people and wounded 72,524 others, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian enclave. He also again refused to label Hamas a terrorist organization, saying Ankara “firmly backs” the leadership of the Palestinian armed group.
In a speech on Saturday, Erdogan compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler, referring to the relentless IDF attacks on Gaza, which have killed at least 30,960 people and wounded 72,524 others, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian enclave. He also again refused to label Hamas a terrorist organization, saying Ankara “firmly backs” the leadership of the Palestinian armed group.
I signed this petition. ‘Reject AIPAC’ coalition forms against Israel lobby in US
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/03/11/721710/Reject-AIPAC-coalition
Hedge Fund Icon: "We're Just Two Years Away From A US Debt Sustainability Crisis, Sparking A Major Global Market Event"
“The last time the debt as a share of GDP was this large was in 1945-1946, at the end of World War II,” wrote Daniel Wilson and Brigid Meisenbacherat from the Economic Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. I was grinding through my stack, piled high with white papers. “Over the following three decades, the debt-to-GDP ratio steadily fell, reaching roughly 25% by 1975,” ...
..“That 30-year decline contrasts sharply with the projected 30-year increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio, reaching 172%, over 2024 to 2054, according to the latest current Congressional Budget Office projections.” Wilson and Meisenbacherat point out that the Fed projects a longer-term real Fed Funds rate of 0.50%.
And their median projection for long-run real GDP growth is 1.8%. They highlight that the CBO, however, forecasts a lower 1.5% real GDP growth rate, and a longer-term real interest rate on US debt of 2.0%. “In this case, slow economic growth relative to interest rates would exert modest upward pressure on the debt ratio, primarily from higher interest payments,” they wrote.
“The main source of the long-run upward pressure on the primary deficit is spending on mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Current legislated formulas used to determine spending per recipient for Social Security benefits and government health-care programs, especially Medicare, combined with the projected aging of the population, point to large increases in spending for these programs as a share of GDP. This pressure was absent after WWII because the overall US population was younger and because Medicare was not enacted until 1965.”
..“That 30-year decline contrasts sharply with the projected 30-year increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio, reaching 172%, over 2024 to 2054, according to the latest current Congressional Budget Office projections.” Wilson and Meisenbacherat point out that the Fed projects a longer-term real Fed Funds rate of 0.50%.
And their median projection for long-run real GDP growth is 1.8%. They highlight that the CBO, however, forecasts a lower 1.5% real GDP growth rate, and a longer-term real interest rate on US debt of 2.0%. “In this case, slow economic growth relative to interest rates would exert modest upward pressure on the debt ratio, primarily from higher interest payments,” they wrote.
“The main source of the long-run upward pressure on the primary deficit is spending on mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Current legislated formulas used to determine spending per recipient for Social Security benefits and government health-care programs, especially Medicare, combined with the projected aging of the population, point to large increases in spending for these programs as a share of GDP. This pressure was absent after WWII because the overall US population was younger and because Medicare was not enacted until 1965.”
John Barnett, a former veteran Boeing employee of 32 years, passed away from a self-inflicted wound on March 9, as confirmed by the Charleston County coroner, according to BBC which broke the news on Monday evening.
Bartnett's lawyer said that he was found dead in a truck near a hotel parking lot in South Carolina from an alleged "self-inflicted' wound", with Breaking 911 calling it a 'gunshot' wound and BBC, the Gateway Pundit and numerous other sources referring to it as a 'self-inflicted' wound.
..Barnett was involved in a whistleblower lawsuit against Boeing, alleging serious safety concerns at the North Charleston plant, where he managed quality for the 787 Dreamliner production. Bartnett was in Charleston for legal interviews related to the lawsuit when he was found dead...
"This is not a 737 problem, this is a Boeing problem," he said during a recent interview he took with TMZ, speaking out about his concerns with Boeing airplanes. "Back in 2012, Boeing started removing inspection operations off their jobs," he continued.
Bartnett's lawyer said that he was found dead in a truck near a hotel parking lot in South Carolina from an alleged "self-inflicted' wound", with Breaking 911 calling it a 'gunshot' wound and BBC, the Gateway Pundit and numerous other sources referring to it as a 'self-inflicted' wound.
..Barnett was involved in a whistleblower lawsuit against Boeing, alleging serious safety concerns at the North Charleston plant, where he managed quality for the 787 Dreamliner production. Bartnett was in Charleston for legal interviews related to the lawsuit when he was found dead...
"This is not a 737 problem, this is a Boeing problem," he said during a recent interview he took with TMZ, speaking out about his concerns with Boeing airplanes. "Back in 2012, Boeing started removing inspection operations off their jobs," he continued.
Pierre Kory MD, "Long Vax" Finally Enters The Lexicon We finally landed an Op-Ed in a major center-left publication which exposes this reality.
In response, nearly every major academic medical center or large hospital began opening “Long Covid” clinics. Besides being worthless due to the fact they typically offer zero treatments (i.e. they are waiting for the RCT on Paxlovid), they also perform extensive, largely unrevealing testing followed by referrals to specialists like psychiatry and physical therapy. Note almost none of the physicians or specialists are trained in the disease as they; 1) do not recognize the spike protein as the pathogen and 2) do not read the FLCCC scientific reviews and/or treatment guides nor have they attended the three FLCCC medical conferences on the disease to date.
Worse is that, for most of 2022 into 2023, those centers consistently gas-lit the Long Vax patients who presented to those clinics. Gaslighting of medical injuries is the well-described inability for physicians to recognize or accept when their own treatments (i..e the mRNA vaccines) cause harm, a topic written about extensively by my colleague A Midwestern Doctor. The stories my patients would tell me of the care they received included what I would describe as abuse or insults from the treating physicians when the patients tried to convince them that the vaccines were the cause. These stories still make my blood boil and have estranged many of my patients from “the system.” I believe the gaslighting responses have lessened somewhat but I don’t really know how much,
What angered me even further is that the health agencies only directed funding at Long Covid and the medical literature and media only referred to sufferers as having Long Covid. The contribution of the gene therapy vaccines are consistently ignored.
Problem: 70% of our practice are Long Vax, not Long Covid. I strongly feel that society must be aware of both syndromes given that I now believe there may be important differences in approaches to treatment based on the factors unique to mRNA gene therapy (no shut off on spike protein production, widespread dissemination of mRNA and spike to tissue, inflammatory impacts of the lipid nanoparticles, and the short and long term impacts of the DNA plasmid contaminants.
So I think it is important to the millions chronically ill after mRNA vaccination that this syndrome be recognized and appropriately researched along with Long Covid.
Sasha Latypova, Brook Jackson's case v Pfizer under False Claims Act - DOJ plans to intervene to dismiss.
After oral arguments were scheduled for April 17, the DOJ confirms they cannot afford discovery in a court of law. When Elizabeth Dasburg asked in an email how she could enter the Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia if she had only cash, she was told that the site, part of the U.S. National Park Service, could accept cards only.
An employee suggested she go to the local grocery store or “big chains like Walmart” to purchase a gift card. “Since those are cards, we can accept them in leu [sic] of cash,” the site employee wrote.
Dasburg and two others were told the parks they wanted to visit couldn’t accept cash to pay the entrance fee on Wednesday sued the National Park Service, challenging its cashless fee collection policy.
In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the plaintiffs allege the federal agency is violating U.S. law by refusing to accept U.S. currency as entry payment.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is financially supporting the lawsuit.
An employee suggested she go to the local grocery store or “big chains like Walmart” to purchase a gift card. “Since those are cards, we can accept them in leu [sic] of cash,” the site employee wrote.
Dasburg and two others were told the parks they wanted to visit couldn’t accept cash to pay the entrance fee on Wednesday sued the National Park Service, challenging its cashless fee collection policy.
In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the plaintiffs allege the federal agency is violating U.S. law by refusing to accept U.S. currency as entry payment.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is financially supporting the lawsuit.
Almost 8 minutes, reporting a 2015 masters dissertation generated within the USAF Academy. Pole Shift Disaster Is Coming | Military Paper
Changing With the Seasons (displaying tomato start flower, in row of winter brassicas, now beset by cabbage beetles)
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