Michael Hudson — Note to China

How not be to taken over by the Empire. Although Michael Hudson doesn't mention in this post, this is a goal of the trade war as well as the economic war that the US is waging worldwide to cement permanent US global hegemony.

Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of Neoliberalism
Note to China
Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

See also

IMMR CoffeeHouse Discussion Forum # 8Full Transcript (EDITED VERSION)Thurs. Dec. 19, 2019

Michael Hudson on how debt money has pushed the US and European economies to their financial limit. Followed by an open discussion forum.

Democratizing Money – a discussion

Ramanan — Paul Krugman, Empire Man

I would simply add to what Ramanan says in this post that the US is functioning like all previous empires, for good and ill. The good is that empire reduces transaction costs in international trade and the imperial economy, so it is a benefit to belong to that system. On the other hand, it is the empire that formulates and enforces the rules, for the "benefit of the empire," which means in practice that the core comes first rather than the empire as whole being considered as an integrated social, political and economic system.

Paul Krugman, like most of the elite of the empire and the most favored minions, focuses on the benefits as positive externality while ignoring the considerable negative externality.

The question now is whether the world is ready for a cooperative system that provides the benefits that empires have provided in the past without the negative externalities associated with empire. This is the "case for concerted action."

The Case for Concerted Action
Paul Krugman, Empire Man
V. Ramanan

Peter James Hudson — How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean

The expansion of banks such as Citigroup into Cuba, Haiti, and beyond reveal a story of capitalism built on blood, labor, and racial lines. 

Scrubbed from the pages of glossy coffeetable books, the history of U.S. imperialism can be found in the archives of Wall Street’s oldest, largest, and most powerful institutions. A deep dive into the vaults and ledgers of banking houses such as Citigroup, Inc., and J. P. Morgan Chase and Co. reveals a story of capitalism and empire whose narrative is not of morally pure and inspiring economic growth, technological innovation, market expansion, and shareholder accumulation, but rather of blood and labor, stolen sovereignty and pilfered resources, military occupation and monetary control. Sugar comingles with blood, chain gangs cross spur lines, and the magical abstractions of finance are found vulgarized in the base manifestations of racial capitalism.

Boston Review
How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean
Peter James Hudson

Edward Gibbon on public virtue and the collapse of the Roman Empire

Gibbon quote from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Incidentally,  historically, the Roman Empire includes the Byzantine Empire although most people in the West don't realize this.

Gedanken our Geschichte (Thoughts on History)
Edward Gibbon on public virtue and the collapse of the Roman Empire

Eberhard Hamer — The US are using Volkswagen (VW) to test their TTIP power

What the United States and their global corporations call “Free Trade Agreement” (TTIP) has been compared to NATO by former US-vice president Biden. It is meant to subject Europe to American economic domination and their interests. This has an inner and an outer goal….

Voltaire Network
The US are using Volkswagen (VW) to test their TTIP power
Eberhard Hamer

Ekaterina Blinova — It’s Never Wise to Enter Russia Carrying a Sword – Canadian Academic [Michael Jabara Carley]

The Great Game goes on. Geopolitical history of Russia in a nutshell.

Sputnik
It’s Never Wise to Enter Russia Carrying a Sword – Canadian Academic

Ekaterina Blinova

Also

Russophobia: Western Elite's Old Tool to Pressure Russia into Submission

Interview with Michael Jabara Carley | Professor of History, Université de Montréal

The Saker — Ukrainian analysis by the Saker: no hope for peace left

Always keep in mind that the real goal of the next Ukronazi offensive will not be to defeat Novorussia, but to pull Russia in and then be defeated by Russia. Such a defeat at the hands of the Russian military will probably provide NATO with a justification for its existence for the next 50 years and completely crush any European desires to rid itself from the EU’s current status of “voiceless US colony”.  Should that happen, the much awaited “new Cold War” will be again in full swing, the US military-industrial complex in complete bliss and the US population suitably “re-terrified” by the next “global enemy”.

There are some indications that more and more European politicians are beginning to understand the risks, but they are too weak to meaningfully oppose the AngloZionist [Neocon] hegemony.

Having a war in Europe on a regular basis has always been the linchpin of British foreign policy and this “tradition” has been fully passed on to the US “successor empire” (which immensely benefited from both WWI and WWII). What the Americans want is plainly simple: a major war in Europe, but also one contained to Europe.

The Vineyard of the Saker
Ukrainian analysis by the Saker: no hope for peace left
The Saker

Mark Fleming-Williams — China: The Next United States?

Stratfor's economic assessment of US-China rivalry.

EconMatters
China: The Next United States?
Mark Fleming-Williams, Stratfor Global Intelligence

Sputnik — Russia’s Multipolar Concept Runs Counter to US Hegemonic Ambition

Unlike the Unites States, Russia is interested in building a multipolar world based on balanced relations and mutual respect, analysts told Sputnik on Thursday.

They commented on Russian President Vladimir Putin's remark about Washington claiming exclusivity as the sole center of power and seeking "vassals," rather than allies. The Russian leader was speaking during his annual Q&A session on Thursday.

China and India's view, too, being mature civilizations and former empires themselves. This also includes Iran (former Persian empire) and Turkey (former Ottoman empire). They view the US as the new kid on the block and still wet behind the ears. They learned to share power and the US hasn't yet.

Sputnik
Russia’s Multipolar Concept Runs Counter to US Hegemonic Ambition

George Friedman — Limits of the American Empire

"Empire" is a dirty word. Considering the behavior of many empires, that is not unreasonable. But empire is also simply a description of a condition, many times unplanned and rarely intended. It is a condition that arises from a massive imbalance of power. Indeed, the empires created on purpose, such as Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany, have rarely lasted. Most empires do not plan to become one. They become one and then realize what they are. Sometimes they do not realize what they are for a long time, and that failure to see reality can have massive consequences.…

The reluctant empire, or being in denial.

EconMatters
Limits of the American Empire

George Friedman, Stratfor Global Intelligence

Ekaterina Blinova — Eurozone: A Union of Democracies or Berlin's Backyard?

Berlin has transformed the European Union from a union of democracies into an "empire," imposing its will on the indebted Eurozone periphery, a British analyst notes.

Philippe Legrain, a former economic advisor to the president of the European Commission, expressed his growing concerns regarding evident constraints imposed on democracy in the Eurozone by Germany and Brussels. 

The author is citing German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, who claimed ahead of the Greek elections in January 2015 that "new elections change nothing." And he was right: regardless of their electoral pledges, Greek authorities have been forced to accept the bailout conditions, voiced by the "omnipotent" German finance minister. 

The analyst underscored that Greece's issue is not the only one: in almost every election since the financial crisis of 2008 European voters "have thrown out their government, only to be told by Schauble and his Eurozone minions that the new administration must stick to the failed policies that the voters have just rejected."....

Fourth Reich?

Sputnik
Eurozone: A Union of Democracies or Berlin's Backyard?
Ekaterina Blinova

A Particularly Messy ‘End-Of-Administration’ Kabuki Dance In "Versailles-on-the-Potomac" - Chuck Spinney

Chuck Spinney writes:

Killing the Hog (II)

(reprinted with permission)

"President Obama’s sacking of defense secretary Chuck Hagel began a particularly messy ‘end-of-administration’ kabuki dance in Versailles on the Potomac. This link will take you to a very insightful interview explaining the nature of this spectacle.

Ian Masters (of the excellent radio show Background Briefing) talks to Pierre Sprey* about the third-tier selection of the industry-friendly Ashton Carter to replace Hagel. But there is much more. The discussion quickly spins off into a wider discussion of the dysfunctional politics of the American Empire and the permanent war economy, before it ends with a brilliant discourse on the Air Force’s plan to kill the A-10 Warthog.

Sprey knows what he is talking about. He understands Pentagon politics as well as anyone I ever met. An engineer and mathematician, a highly accomplished bureaucratic infighter, Sprey was a principal member of the design team that over came massive Air Force resistance to create the highly successful F-16 and A-10 jet-fighter bombers in the late 1960s and early 1970s (see Robert Coram’s, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War).

In the case of the A-10, Sprey was the both the inspiration and guiding force in its conception and design. He was also the key strategist the bureaucratic battles to stop the Air Force from killing the program — battles that began in late 1960s, when the A-10 was a paper airplane, have continued intermittently to this day, including the current efforts by the Air Force to kill the A-10 over the objections of the Congress.

I urge you to take 20 minutes to listen to the discussion between Ian Masters and Pierre Sprey."  Chuck Spinney

___________
* "Caveat emptor: Sprey is a long-time associate and close friend of mine. I have had a front row seat in the peanut gallery or been a minor player in the A-10 wars from the time I was a 2nd Lt in the AF in 1968 until I retired from the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2003. So I freely admit that am proudly biased both with regard to both Sprey’s work and the A-10."

The Rentier Empire Strikes Back?

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)



The decades from 1970-2000 are looming as an abject failure of situational awareness and assessment. The class war Luddites were just waiting for faintly plausible excuses to continue old ideology?

200 years of Revolution, writing a Constitution, reinventing democracy, waging civil war, trust busting, Square Deals, New Deals & 2 world wars .... and then we go back to idiotic, class-based NeoLiberalism?

How pathetic. Where's the Greatest Generation, and how do we get them back?

Ignore aggregate demand & general welfare of the people, & return to previously discredited ideas? Werks fer mi!

And subsequently also throw out any attempt at regulating our own frauds?

Madness Posing as Hyper-Rationality: OMB's Assault on Effective Regulation

Tom Engelhardt — How to Be a Rogue Superpower

If Edward Snowden is proving one thing, it’s this: in 2013, Planet Earth isn’t big enough to protect the American version of “dissidents.” Instead, it looks ever more like a giant prison with a single implacable policeman, judge, jury, and jailer.

Truthout — | News Analysis
How to Be a Rogue Superpower
Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch

Global totalitarianism is only possible for an empire. When is the president going to stop the pretense and start using his real title.

What Englehardt calls "deterence" is, of course, intimidation. Is the next step public execution.

John Pilger — There's a New Fascism on the Rise, and the NSA Leaks Show Us What It Looks Like

The power of truth-tellers like Edward Snowden is that they dispel a whole mythology carefully constructed by the corporate cinema, the corporate academy and the corporate media.

AlterNet
There's a New Fascism on the Rise, and the NSA Leaks Show Us What It Looks Like
John Pilger

Constructing the American myth and myth machine.

William Hogeland — Why the Founding Fathers Loved the National Debt

Both the young Alexander Hamilton (savviest of the founders regarding finance) and his mentor Robert Morris (the wartime Congress’s superintendent of finance and America’s first central banker) believed that a domestic debt, supported by federal taxes collected from all the states, would unify the country. It would concentrate wealth, and yoke that wealth to a consolidated government. The goal was a nation capable of grand projects -- ultimately an economic empire to compete with England’s....

In letters written before the Constitutional Convention to George Washington, another supporter of sustaining federal debt via taxes, Madison made clear the nationalists’ shared desire to shore up public credit by throwing out the Articles of Confederation and forming a nation. Edmund Randolph opened the convention by charging the delegates to redress the country’s failure to fund -- not pay off, fund -- the public debt by creating a national government with the power to do so....

The founding alliance that made federal debt a supporter of nationhood, and nationhood a supporter of federal debt, came about in direct opposition to a radically egalitarian, communitarian movement that is in many ways the intellectual antecedent of modern social-contract liberalism.

The radicals of that movement -- evinced in episodes such as Shays’ Rebellion -- wanted to devalue the merchant class’s crushing loans to ordinary people; disconnect bondholders and bankers from government; prevent widespread foreclosures; more tightly regulate business; and disseminate, rather than concentrate, American wealth. 

Bloomberg | Echoes
Why the Founding Fathers Loved the National Debt
William Hogeland