It's about the US maintaining and extending global hegemony in face of the challenge of China's rise.
The 2018 US National Defense Strategy all but spells it out.
We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order…Translation: The so-called international liberal order that held sway in the West since the end of WWII is fracturing, challenging Western hegemony under "US leadership."
China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea. Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions of its neighbors....
The central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition by what the National Security Strategy classifies as revisionist powers. It is increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model—gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions.
Translation: Other countries are no longer doing what the US tells them to do as global leader. That is unacceptable under the Wolfowitz doctrine, that the US will brook no rivals.
The Greanville Post
Russiagate Isn’t About Trump, And It Isn’t Even Ultimately About Russia
Caitlan Johnstone
30 comments:
Russia is a big oil producer, which makes them a target. Also lots of MIC profit in mandatory "defense" spending under NATO.
There are a lot of layers here and every one is being fully exploited.
The oil curse.
Your Article title is Precise.
This is about Liberty and a current apparatus of Slavery and Organized Crime without accountability to the Public.
"To put this diseased apparatus of Evil in perspective, at one-point, former CIA (Phillip Mudd) via CNN interview on television proclaimed, "The President of the United States of America should be scared of his Intelligence Community".
Do you think anyone in the United States, and I mean anyone, let alone the President (or any elected official) should be scared of their intelligence community? "
Russia-Gate; Murder-Gate
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yj8tT_MsXZfSQpdanwgWXUowIzE99ZnI/view
http://www.basrc.biz/help
Guys hello Trump's election is shutting off all of those old post WW2 arrangements that were necessary for post war re-development in the ROW.... the admin just went to Davos and told the ROW those days are now over:
http://fortune.com/2018/01/24/davos-2018-trump-wilbur-ross-trade-war-tariff/
"The U.S.’s approach to trade is dated, Ross said. “These are old systems; the world has changed,” he said. Concessions made in the wake of World War II are “not so appropriate as we get here to this year.”
And they have modified the US tax policy to accommodate this financially by reducing the corporate rate from previous 35% now down to 21% to equalize the purely financial terms of trade... (real terms are still going to be imposed by the national governments via minimum wage, work week, etc...)
With a 15% tax differential, there is YUGE incentive to move the maximum amount of production to the low tax jurisdiction and then import at high prices and ONLY retail at razor thin margins within the US... while retaining profits tax free in offshore jurisdictions..
Now those financial terms are equalized so production intended for sale in the US is going to transition back to the US as there is no longer a financial incentive to produce offshore...
Jobs are coming back and GDP will start to move back up ....
Trump is thinking in financial terms. PBTB think in terms of power.
If DJT doesn't get that and adapt to it, they will cut him off at the knees.
Judging by his 37% increase in the DOD budget over Obama and his hawkish stance in contrast to his campaign rhetoric, he gets it.
He's caved to the point that some are questioning whether he has morphed into HRC after they voted for DJT because they were afraid of HRC's war-mogering.
We’ve got substantial degradation in the strategic systems Tom after almost 2 decades of priorities on spec ops... so priorities swinging back to strategic systems and they are more expensive....
No biggie...
The foreign heads of multinationals Trump and Ross met with are having no problem with Trumps new balanced trade policy as the tax reform makes it no problem...
All they want to do is make money ...
No biggie....
No biggie...
Unless one thinks that increasing the probability of nuclear war is no biggie. The hands of the clock just moved closer to midnight.
There are plenty of other reasons to think that another arms race is indeed a biggie.
The foreign heads of multinationals Trump and Ross met with are having no problem with Trumps new balanced trade policy as the tax reform makes it no problem...
All they want to do is make money ...
No biggie....
Lotsa people freaking out about the onset of a trade war and accompanying currency war.
'All they want to do is make money'
Haven't they for enough already, the greedy, horrible, selfish, pathetic, good-for-nothing, losers, inhuman, sociopaths.
The One Percent don't like to marry outside their class, but there is not a lot of them, about 0.00000001, or wherever, so they have a small gene pool. They are inbreds and barking mad. They have been a problem for centuries.
Another issue is that they don't just want "money." After getting more than enough to satisfy even unreasonable wants, the desire turns to status and power.
The big four are fame, fortune, power and pleasure. Taken together they are called "glamor."
The proper pursuit and the only one that leads to genuine fulfillment is the pursuit of excellence, defined as progressive unfolding of one's potential as a human being and a unique person, says Aristotle in Nichomachean Ethics.
This is the basis of the Western liberalism that emerged at the time of the Enlightenment.
Currency volatility should settle down as the US rate cut moves comparative tax rates more towards unity... and there won’t be a trade war if the perennial US dual deficits are greatly reduced... yes there will remain some volatility as nations still vary their real terms of labor domestically ... one thing at a time...
And more reliable strategic systems are probably safer...
China has already said it will respond to US punitive tariffs just imposed.
China also runs fixed exchange rates so they are an outlier... they will not be a first adopter they never are they just hack the West after we have figured it out... once they see this working out better in the west then they may get in...
“Haven't they for enough already, the greedy, horrible, selfish, pathetic, good-for-nothing, losers, inhuman, sociopaths. ”
Yo These are the people who actually are productive you’re talking about...
You guys just seem envious of their material largesse ...
I thought I better change that comment, because there are decent people amongst the One Percent, but most of the ruling elite are parasites.
Yo These are the people who actually are productive you’re talking about...
Much of the share that goes to the top is from economic rent, which is defined as unproductive gains owing to market imperfections. Most market imperfections come from asymmetric power.
No one is more envious of others than the rich themselves. They can't stand it if someone is richer than them.
No one is more envious of others than the rich themselves. They can't stand it if someone is richer than them.
This is the driver of the dynamic at the top.
Some produce things, like Bill Gates, but even then be was just lucky to get in first. Steve Jobs did well, but most are just sociopaths who have a burning desire to be rich - AT ANY COST!
Matt says that if bringing the world to the brink of WW3 is making some people a lot of money then that's okay. Just guys making money. What!
I'm not envious. If the rich were trillionaires and had penthouses on Venus but everyone else had a good standard of living, spent less hours at work, and the third world wasn't being ripped off anymore because the trickle down effect works, I would say, hey, leave our rich alone, they are doing a grand job. But it's nothing like that. It's the other way around.
But they can't moan about other people being envious when they are the worst for it.
Some produce things, like Bill Gates, but even then be was just lucky to get in first.
Microsoft had a near monopoly on the dominant operating system. It's industry dominance was constructed artificially through intellectual property laws and anti-competitive practices.
Microsoft: A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and Consumer Harm
Kaivey we’ve had military conflict since the oldest recorded history of mankind... it’s nothing new...
Kaivey we've had military conflict since the oldest recorded history of mankind... it's nothing new...
What's new is nuclear weapons.
Game-changer.
You're telling me. And just because we've always had, it doesn't mean we have to always put to with it.
We need to filter out the psychopaths and stop them getting positions of power.
Time to put the CEOs and their children on the front lines of the wars they are continually starting
"And just because we've always had, it doesn't mean we have to always put to with it. "
You need the warrior class just as much as the labor class or intelligensia class or acquirer class...
You guys are like the labor/intelligensia class advocating against the acquirer/warrior class...
With Trump admin we have acquirer/warrior class now running the thing... we will get a lot better material system results... Obama admin was intelligensia/labor class... and F-ed it all up materially....
We need a period to get our material systems back up to snuff we've had a lot of deterioration...
An interesting PDF, Tom. I didn't know it was that bad. Today, every PC comes with Windows. Every PC in the world. Something needs to be done about it. I think Europe tried, for a while.
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