Pepe Escobar — Russia-India-China share a room with a view

Leaders of these three countries met in virtual secrecy. The very few media representatives present in the shabby room were soon invited to leave. Presidents Putin, Xi and Modi were flanked by streamlined teams who barely found enough space to sit down. There were no leaks. Cynics would rather joke that the room may have been bugged anyway. After all, Xi is able to call Putin and Modi to Beijing anytime he wants to discuss serious business.

New Delhi is spinning that Modi took the initiative to meet in Osaka. That’s not exactly the case. Osaka is a culmination of a long process led by Xi and Putin to seduce Modi into a serious Eurasia integration triangular road map, consolidated at their previous meeting last month at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Bishkek.

Now Russia-India-China (RIC) is fully back in business; the next meeting is set for the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September.

In their introductory remarks, Putin, Xi and Modi made it clear that RIC is all about configuring, in Putin’s words, an “indivisible security architecture” for Eurasia....

Pow! Take that Uncle Sam. Butt out.

Analysis follows.

Asia Times
Russia-India-China share a room with a view

Pepe Escobar

Andrew Woodcock - Jeremy Corbyn condemns Theresa May over complicity in Yemen after G20 meeting with ‘war ally’ Mohammed bin Salman

This is shocking, but I bet most people in the UK probably won't take much notice. They see the Conservative Party as being the honourable establishment that is strong on law and order, and the upper class as the bastions of society, traditional values, and decency, while the left is viewed as being treacherous to British society. Of course, it is the other way around, as many of the aristocracy make their money in unsavoury ways, like perpetual war.

“She should confirm the UK government will immediately stop selling arms to his regime and hold him to account over the horrific murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” said the Labour leader.

“The UK has pumped £4.6bn worth of military equipment into the conflict in the Yemen. Almost a quarter of a million people will have been killed by the end of this year – more than half of them under five years old.

The Court of Appeal has found the UK government ‘made no attempt’ to conclude whether the Saudi-led coalition had committed violations of international humanitarian law in the Yemen. 

“Where the UN sees ‘humanity’s biggest preventable disaster’, this Conservative government sees an arms sales opportunity.

The Independent

Jeremy Corbyn condemns Theresa May over complicity in Yemen after G20 meeting with ‘war ally’ Mohammed bin Salman

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya: 10 years after coup, US controls country

I'm beginning to think that everything in the West is a lie. The Observer did a hit job on Putin this morning, but Britain and the U.S. have far more horrendous crimes to be called out for, like their complicit role in the Saudi war in Yemen. Everywhere you turn there's propaganda.

The Grayzone's Anya Parampil sat down for an exclusive interview with Honduras President Manuel Zelaya, who discusses how, after a US-backed right-wing military coup overthrew him on June 28, 2009, "The United States has almost complete control over Honduras."

Huawei's operating system better than Andriod?

 I bought a Honor 10 phone recently so it has got me interested in the dispute between Huawei and Washington.

I looked at a number of these tech videos now and the tech guys who make them are not political - they just love the technology.

What's interesting is that they are not convinced by what Washington has been saying about Huawei phones being hackable, and seem to think that this is really just a trade war. They are all really excited about the new Huawei phones and their new operating system. They are not patriotic and cheer Huawei on. To me, this gives an indication that at least some of the informed public know what's going on.

BTW, this is the first post I have put out on MNE's using my new Honor 10 phone. My Windows tablet was too slow, and then one day I bought a Kindle Fire in a sale and it was fine until it went dead after 10 months. I've had its replaced twice now but both the new ones are too slow. I looked at better tablets but I couldn't justify the price, and all the cheaper ones were too slow as well, even Huawei ones, but this Honor 10 is fast.

America’s Economic Blockades and International Law — America’s Economic Blockades and International Law—Jeffrey D. Sachs

Trump is often called an isolationist, but he is as interventionist as his predecessors. His strategy is simply to rely more heavily on US economic power than military might to coerce adversaries, which creates its own kind of cruelty and destabilization – and embodies its own brand of illegality....

Project Syndicate

America’s Economic Blockades and International Law

Jeffrey D. Sachs | Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development, and Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network

Opportunity cost, MMT and public spending — John Quiggin

John Quiggin looks at at student debt cancellation in terms of opportunity cost and MMT.

Crooked Timber
Opportunity cost, MMT and public spending
John Quiggin | Professor and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland, and a member of the Board of the Climate Change Authority of the Australian Government

Kevin Vincent - Guardian Propaganda

Natalie Nougayrède is a very hawkish journalist who works for the Guardian, and all she ever writes about is how bad Putin is.

I put out a post here last week where a journalist uncovered documents which showed that the Guardian editors regularly met with MI6 to discuss how best to report the news.

From the Guardian

Forget Putin’s ‘liberalism’ jibe. This man runs a war machine

For too long, the west has turned a blind eye to Russian atrocities in a string of wars

Nougayrède's article is one of the most outrageous pieces of pure propaganda I've seen, where all her facts are in reverse to the truth. She said that Putin runs a war machine that is always at war. Hang on a minute, did I read the right, surely she is talking about the U.S. which has been continually at war since 9/11, smashing the ME up and killing millions.

If you read the article you will see how she portrays Putin as a cunning, sly fox, who is always conniving, cheating, and lying. It's like a caricature of an evil person. See where she says, 'smirks'. Well, we all smirk from time to time. Propaganda always looks childish and this does too.

Ever the opportunist, he takes what’s on offer, he glides, he smirks. And he watches with glee as we huff and puff at his provocations, whose over-riding purpose is to keep us on edge and play on our divisions.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/28/putin-war-machine-russian-atrocities?__twitter_impression=true

Also, the Guardian today had an article on Maduro's son, Nicolasito, who they portray as a gold dealer and playboy who lives the good life  while the Venezuelans go hungry.

Mini-Maduro targeted as US turns screws on Venezuela leader's son

The US has imposed sanctions on Nicolasito, 29, who claims to be an economist and a flautist and has faced claims of nepotism

“Maduro relies on his son Nicolasito and others close to his authoritarian regime to maintain a stranglehold on the economy and suppress the people of Venezuela,” said the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin.

Putin is no angel, and Russia and Venezuela are not perfect, but I know propaganda when I see it.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/28/nicolas-maduro-son-venezuela-sanctions-us

Banks reward shareholders with billions in buybacks, dividend hikes after Fed approval

Post annual CCAR banks win approval for 10s of $Bs of capital redistribution; some pretty big amounts here:

JPMorgan JPM, +2.72% , the nation’s largest bank by assets, said it plans to buy back $29.4 billion in shares this cycle. It would also increase its dividend 12.5% to 90 cents a share. In total, JPMorgan would return roughly $40 billion to shareholders through dividends and stock repurchases over the next year. 

Wells Fargo WFC, +2.23% announced plans to buy back $23.1 billion in stock the next year and increase its dividend 13.3% to 51 cents a share. The bank remains under investigation by state and federal authorities for abusive banking practices. 

Citigroup C, +2.76% said it would buy back $17.1 billion in stock next year and also plans to increase its dividend to 13.3% to 51 cents a share.

I'd assume BofA will do something similar to these other 3 of the big 4.

System was still able to increase bank credit YoY by about $750B to about $13.5T  even with these amounts of distributions due to the current perhaps unprecedented YoY increase in fiscal flow of over 7%.

About a  6% YoY increase in bank credit; not too shabby even with the moron induced chaos in bank reserve asset policy wildly fluctuating by +/- $300B over short periods throughout the year.

* Banks reward shareholders with billions in buybacks, dividend hikes after Fed approval  MarketWatch * Credit Suisse is the sole bank tripped up by Fed stress test as rest get approval to boost payouts  CNBC * Banks announce billions in share buybacks… https://t.co/iHHG2rVHof

— Bemidji Minnesota (@BemidjiMinneso) June 28, 2019

Effect of Policy Rate on Bank System Capital

Cut below from today's nsa H.8 report showing 'Unrealized Gain (Loss) on Available for Sale Securities':

You can see how Fed interest rate increases in 2018 caused a discount in the $trillions of CCAR required out-sized Tier1 quality Bank Assets to a near $50B LOSS by the time of the last December rate increase in late Q4 of 2018; and the corresponding reduction in equity share index prices where we saw those indexes off about 20% by Christmas Eve from the previous Q3 highs as this severe reduction in bank asset prices due to the change in the Fed's rate policy reduced the numerator in bank regulatory ratios which caused a corresponding reduction in total asset prices in the denominator in order to maintain a constant target regulatory ratio...

Now compare that to today (June 19th) under 'debt ceiling!' conditions where the current fixed amount of risk free UST bonds are highly bid under fiscal deficit conditions and this has now swung to a $10B unrealized GAIN in these Tier1 quality asset prices for a net $60B swing in bank equity and the resultant increase of equity share index prices back to near the old highs of 3Q 2018 in the mid 2900s on S&Ps.

This portends a similar further increase adjustment of these 'unrealized gains' and thus a nice further increase in bank regulatory ratios to support increased bank asset prices (bullish) if there is a  Fed policy reversal to a  rate decrease as many predict at the July meeting.

We'll see...

Or.... this all just could be part of a giant dialectic trained Liberal Art moron figurative "neo-liberal conspiracy!!!"...

Or... as Tom posits 5 posts down thread.. these unqualified assholes currently administering our numismatic system are going to change the "framing" aka their figurative language and presto! this is somehow going to magically provide them with a proper and constructively useful understanding of the regulatory accounting abstractions involved...

TIP:  I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for that one...

Will Modern Monetary Theory Go Mainstream? — Eric Winograd

Progress. The author admits that MMT makes sense economically and financially. However, Eric Winograd hopes it won't go mainstream based on expanding the size and role of government. So now it is ideology rather than theory or empirics.

equities.com
Will Modern Monetary Theory Go Mainstream?

Eric Winograd

Tucker Carlson - John Bolton Is A Bureaucratic Tapeworm!" Tucker & Glenn Greenwald

Could this be the beginning of the end of the Neocon war machine?
Another awesome video from Tucker Carlson, where he even interviews Glenn Greenwald.

Tucker Carlson says the Neocons are all over Washington.

Well, I bet the Neocons are planning to get Tucker Carlson removed right now.

Wouldn't it be great to see the whole Neocon and the military industrial complex game exposed, and Tony Blair and G. W Bush put on trail?

Tucker Carlson - Tulsi Gabbard sounds off on 'clear bias' during her debate

This is inspirational, just look at the comments underneath where there are loads of conservatives saying they would vote for Tulsi Gabbard. They're fed up with the Neocon's wars!

Racism is a framework, not a theory — Andrew Gelman

I am posting this for its relevance to philosophy of logic and philosophy of science rather than specifics. It draws a useful distinction between frameworks that generate theories and which are themselves not testable (hence falsifiable) and the theories a framework is used to generate.

This is obviously relevant to philosophy of science, but why philosophy of logic? In his later work, Ludwig Wittgenstein sought to show that the overarching frameworks of a culture as a way of life are deeply embedded in the structure and function of ordinary language.

Such frameworks are "world pictures (Weltbilden) that function as a world view. Although many of the propositions they generate appear to be descriptive, many are normative in operation. For example, the fundamentals of a world views are criteria for valuation and judgment, hence, they are stipulations that cannot be falsified from within that world view. For example, in doing science methodological naturalism is fundamental.

As a result many make the illogical jump from a methodological assumption to a metaphysical assertion (materialism) in neoclassical economics methodological individualism, microfoundations, rational maximization, market forces and equilibrium are key fundamentals that are assumed as criteria. This is a reason that neoclassical economists reject "heterodox economics" out of hand.

World views and ideologies are similar and need to be distinguished. A world view is a way of seeing the world that is embedded in ordinary language based on interpretation of context. They are subconscious and very difficult to articulate since they are the basis for using a language to communicate. This applies even to formalizations to the degree that assumptions are stipulated that link that symbols to life. (Pure math says nothing about the world. It is about how the rules for sign-use work in a particular syntactical system.)

Conversely, ideology is articulated at least in outline and people within a single world view can recognized differences of expression based on competing ideologies. Politics functions in this way, for instance. American liberals and conservatives degree but they function within the same framework.

So the application of the point that statistics professor Andrew Gelman is making goes far beyond the context of racism.

Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
Racism is a framework, not a theory
Andrew Gelman | Professor of Statistics and Political Science and Director of the Applied Statistics Center, Columbia University

Bank "Stress Tests!"

Fed's 2019 Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR), which the Liberal Art dialectic trained morons who cannot understand the regulatory accounting abstractions typically term the figurative "Stress Tests!", results out yesterday.

CCAR is currently functioning as the control variable of effect out of the 4 separate regulatory functions that constitute US bank regulatory policy.

The Board considers both quantitative and qualitative factors when evaluating a bank's capital plan. Quantitative factors include a bank's projected capital ratio under a hypothetical severe recession. 

Qualitative factors include the firm's capital planning process, including its risk management, internal controls, and governance practices. 

The Board can object to the capital plans of all banks in CCAR each year on quantitative grounds, and firms that have been in CCAR for less than four years are also subject to an objection on qualitative grounds. 

If the Board objects to a firm's capital plan, the bank cannot make any capital action unless authorized by the Board. On balance, virtually all firms are now meeting the Federal Reserve's capital planning expectations, which is an improvement from last year's assessment. 

The firms in the test have significantly increased their capital since the first round of stress tests in 2009. In particular, the largest and most complex banks have more than doubled their common equity capital from around $300 billion to roughly $800 billion during that time.

CCAR stress test results: the largest banks still have strong capital levels & most properly account for their risks & capital needs under stress; as a result, all 18 firms not objected to, with one firm required to address weaknesses: https://t.co/4UNgz8GNug

— Federal Reserve (@federalreserve) June 27, 2019

Medicare-for-all has a modeling problem Jeff Spross

Stephanie Kelton interviewed. Modeling this is a huge undertaking.

The Week
Medicare-for-all has a modeling problem

Jeff Spross

Keiser Report - Keiser Report: The Ponzi Lottery

Here, Max Keiser describes George Osborne's Help To Buy ponzi scheme. Only 37% of people truly qualified, but builders and the more affluent made a fortune out of it, greatly pushing up property prices for everyone else too, all paid for by the British tax payer. It did not create jobs, help the economy, or increase Britain's GDP, says Keiser, it just paid rich bums to sit about all day on couches getting bundles of money for nothing.

Rather than help people who couldn't get on the property ladder, the scheme increased property prices by 35% making property even less affordable.

UK Government blew billions on "Help To Buy" scheme that enriched home builders and drove up home prices. Taxpayers on the hook when house prices collapse, new report warns. Wokfstreet.com

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy discuss the new government report out of the UK which proves that the Help to Buy scheme, introduced six years ago, did – as the Keiser Report warned at the time – merely help those who were already able to buy property on their own. In the second half, Max continues his interview with David Morgan of TheMorganReport.com about the precious metals markets, interest rates heading to zero, and what’s next for the bond markets. As David Morgan is a former test pilot, Max also asks him about the future for Boeing in the aftermath of the 737 MAX disasters.

Anthony Cuthbertson - QUANTUM COMPUTING BREAKTHROUGH MEANS GOOGLE COULD BE VERY CLOSE TO REVEALING REVOLUTIONARY MACHINE

It looks like the Chinese have some way to go to yet . Advances in quantum computers are going at double exponential growth, of which there is nothing like that in nature. I guess the thing is designing itself, and as it gets more clever at it, it gets even faster at doing it, and so on.

Instead if 0's and 1's, each state can have a probability of being both noughts and ones at the same time, greatly increasing the speed at which quantum computers can work.

The science is getting spooky now, so let's hope we advance spiritually along with it, otherwise some people could end up with too much power and wreck it for everyone else.

Google is close to realising a practical quantum computer for the first time after making a major discovery with the revolutionary form of computing.

Hartmut Neven, director of Google’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, revealed to Quanta magazine that his lab’s most advanced quantum processor was improving at a rate far beyond what they had previously thought possible. 

The revelation means the tech giant may be just months away from achieving what is known as quantum supremacy, whereby quantum computers are able to solve problems that classical computers practically cannot. 

The Independent 

Anthony Cuthbertson - QUANTUM COMPUTING BREAKTHROUGH MEANS GOOGLE COULD BE VERY CLOSE TO REVEALING REVOLUTIONARY MACHINE

See also, QUANTUM DEVICE THAT CAN PREDICT ALTERNATIVE FUTURES CREATED BY SCIENTISTS

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/quantum-device-predict-future-alternative-scientists-breakthrough-a8861806.html

Southfront — Russia Stopped Using SWIFT And Dollars In Weapon Contracts

Russia has stopped using SWIFT and US dollars in weapon export contracts, Head of Russian Defence Export firm (Rosoboronexport) Aleksandr Mikheev told journalists during Army-2019 forum.

He said that Rosoboronexport is now using national currencies instead of US dollars and emplyos a “closed system” of payments....

Southfront
Russia Stopped Using SWIFT And Dollars In Weapon Contracts

See also at SF
On June 26th, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave a speech at the “Actual issues of information counteraction” conference at the International Military-Technical Forum “Army-2019.”

The defense minister said the aim of the information war led by the Western establishment against Russia has the ultimate aim of subjugating it.

“The main and basic goal of this war is to control Russia and, ultimately, the world,” he said.

According to him, the aggressive Western information influence against Russia is due to it recovering its status of “the second pole” in ensuring global stability.

Sergei Shoigu speaks for the Russian stavka, the military general staff, which is controls Russian foreign policy as well as military policy. The generals are under no illusions that the ultimate objective of the US to subjugate Russia and China, and eventually India, to secure permanent US global hegemony. China of course knows this too and the PLA (People's Liberation Army) plays a similar role as the Russian stavka. I tend to doubt that India has figured this out yet in its concern with China, but Indian leaders are also careful about getting too cozy with the US, still being sensitive to British colonization..

Western Information Warfare Is Aimed At Subjugating Russia And World: Defense Minister

Also

Does this sound like war-talk to you, too?

Sputnik International
Pentagon Chief Calls Russia 'Instigator of Aggression in Europe', Says China a Threat to World Order

Western chipmakers worry Huawei ban will only empower China tech — Kensaku Ihara and Hiromi Sato

Qualcomm, AMD and Arm fear $200bn market swaying to homegrown rivals

The strategy of the Trump administration only makes sense if the US can re-colonize China with its hybrid warfare — economic, information, and cyber. How likely is that?

Nikkei Asian Review
Western chipmakers worry Huawei ban will only empower China tech
Kensaku Ihara and Hiromi Sato | Nikkei staff writers
also

No tariffs needed in China.

Zero Hedge
Chinese Consumers Shun All American Products As Nationalism Soars
Tyler Durden

Guo Shuqing — Rejuvenation of China is unstoppable

Speech by Mr Guo Shuqing, Party Secretary and Deputy Governor of the People's Bank of China, at the Tsinghua PBCSF Global Finance Forum, Beijing, 25 May 2019.

BIS
Guo Shuqing: Rejuvenation of China is unstoppable

Also

Guo Shuqing: Opening remarks - 11th Lujiazui Forum

Wipe Out Student Debt and Everyone Wins, Says Bernie's Economist — Katia Dmitrieva and Alexandre Tanzi

 

Positive reporting. MMT is now being taken seriously.

Bloomberg
Wipe Out Student Debt and Everyone Wins, Says Bernie's Economist 
Katia Dmitrieva and Alexandre Tanzi

Sustainable Cost Accounting — Richard Murphy

Until markets correctly evaluate true price based on true costs, negative externalities will continue to be socialized and the public, which now included everyone in the world, will pay the difference. This won't happen without institutional changes, including legal.

Tax Research UK
Sustainable cost accounting – an introduction

Sustainable cost accounting – the change needed to make business take the Green New Deal seriously

Sustainable Cost Accounting: the paper supporting my arguments

Richard Murphy | Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London; Director of Tax Research UK; non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics, and a member of the Progressive Economy Forum

Bill Mitchell — The European Union once again reveals why it should be dissolved

While the Europhile progressives are publishing papers and holding talkfests to discuss their latest EU reform proposals, the on-going reality of the European Union continues to reveal itself – the pretense that there is a rule of law operating – as laid out in the Treaties and the idea that all are equal under that law. When I was researching my 2015 book – Eurozone Dystopia: Groupthink and Denial on a Grand Scale – and over the long period I have studied the concept of European integration it was obvious to me that despite the chimera of a strict, rule-based system that is run by technocrats, the actual practice of the Union is vicariously ad hoc – rules applied in cases where doing otherwise would present ideological problems, abandonment of the rules and outright illegal behaviour when there the interests of the corporate elites are at stake or the existence of the Union is threatened. And while law breaking, relevant officials produce complicated justifications of their behaviour as if what they are doing is within the boundaries specified by the Treaties. The Europhile progressives, meanwhile, continue to hold this embarrassing monstrosity out as the exemplar of freedom, globalism, cosmopolitanism and sophistication. They have reached such a state of denial that what is obvious to those looking in from the outside escapes their attention, or, in the mould of the European technocrats they just ride along with the spurious justifications for the unjustifiable. Europe in 2019….

The Left is hopelessly lost, and that leaves the field to the Right to deal with neoliberalism. I am seeing less on economics and finance per se, and more on the political fight going on among different camps, including those that are promoting the MMT POV as the optimal way to approach policy. While am encouraged by the strides that MMT has made in breaking into the political ring, with the highly competent Stephanie Kelton is public face, the MMT position is as yet far from strong, since it is mostly allied with a Left that is fractured and largely incompetent.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The European Union once again reveals why it should be dissolved
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

The Saker interviews A.B. Abrams about the geostrategic developments in Asia The Saker

I recently received a copy of a most interesting book, A.B. Abrams’ “Power and Primacy: the history of western intervention in Asia” and as soon as I started reading it I decided that I wanted to interview the author and ask him about what is taking place in Asia in our times. This was especially interesting to me since Putin has embarked on the Russian version of Obama’s “pivot to Asia“, with the big difference that Putin’s pivot has already proven to be a fantastic success, whereas Obama’s was a dismal failure. I am most grateful to A.B. Abrams for his time and expertise....

This is best article on the current state of geopolitics and geostrategy I have run across recently. Abrams provides a very objective assessment.

The Vineyard of the Saker
The Saker interviews A.B. Abrams about the geostrategic developments in Asia
The Saker
Crossposted at the Unz Review

See also

The Western powers have to acknowledge the rise of China and either include the country in the hegemonic core or be prepared for the emergence of a counter hegemonic power, writes David Lane, Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University....

Valdai Analytics
US-China Relations: Trade Wars or Countervailing Powers?
David Lane

EU Commissioner on the U.S.-China Trade War: 'Our List of Countermeasures Is Ready' — Peter Müller and Christian Reiermann interview Cecilia Malmström

In an interview, European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström discusses what the tariff dispute between the United States and China means for European companies and consumers and why President Trump's strategy could end with the "law of the jungle."...

Spiegel Online
EU Commissioner on the U.S.-China Trade War: 'Our List of Countermeasures Is Ready'

Peter Müller and Christian Reiermann interview European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström

See also

TASS
German companies plan to invest around 395 mln euro per year in Russia, says survey

Also

Sputnik International
Trump: My Plan B With China on Trade is to Reduce Business With China

Also

Sputnik International
China Stops All Meat Imports From Canada Amid Strained Bilateral Ties

The Guts of an Apple Iphone Show Exactly What Trump Gets Wrong About Trade — Jason Dedrick, Greg Linden, Kenneth L. Kraeme

Crack open an iPhone and you’ll begin to see why President Donald Trump’s ongoing trade war with China doesn’t make sense.

On paper, imports of the popular smartphone and other goods from China look like a big loss to the U.S. The president certainly thinks so and has often cited the massive U.S.-China bilateral trade deficit – US$420 billion in 2018 – as a reason to fight his trade war.

When an iPhone X arrives in the U.S., it adds about $370 – its factory cost – to the deficit. All told, iPhones add tens of billions of dollars a year to the U.S. deficit with China, which is the gap between imports and exports. But, thanks to the globe-spanning supply chains that run through China, trade deficits in the modern economy are not always what they seem.…

Start with the most valuable components that make up an iPhone: the touch-screen display, memory chips, microprocessors and so on. They come from a mix of U.S., Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese companies, such as Intel, Sony, Samsung and Foxconn. Almost none of them is manufactured in China. Apple buys the components and has them shipped to China; then they leave China inside an iPhone.

So what about all of those famous factories in China with millions of workers making iPhones? The companies that own those factories, including Foxconn, are all based in Taiwan. Of the factory-cost estimate of $237.45 from IHS Markit at the time the iPhone 7 was released in late 2016, we calculate that all that’s earned in China is about $8.46, or 3.6% of the total. That includes a battery supplied by a Chinese company and the labor used for assembly....

The National Interest
The Guts of an Apple Iphone Show Exactly What Trump Gets Wrong About Trade
Jason Dedrick, Greg Linden, Kenneth L. Kraeme

Thomas Scripps - Exposed: The Guardian’s Collusion in State Censorship

Well, this explains the Guardian, I guess its editors went to Eton and then afterwards to either Oxford or Cambridge. They may be liberal, and sometimes even slightly left, but they are still part of the establishment.

Is the Guardian really just controlled opposition?

Minutes of Ministry of Defence (MoD) meetings have confirmed the role of Britain’s Guardian newspaper as a mouthpiece for the intelligence agencies.

Last week, independent journalist Matt Kennard revealed that the paper’s deputy editor, Paul Johnson, was personally thanked by the Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice (or D-Notice) committee for integrating the Guardian into the operations of the security services.

Minutes of a meeting in 2018 read [You can read the full document here, or embedded below – OffG Editor] :

The Chairman thanked Paul Johnson for his service to the Committee. Paul had joined the Committee in the wake of the Snowden affair and had been instrumental in re-establishing links with the Guardian.

D-Notices are used by the British state to veto the publication of news damaging to its interests. The slavish collusion of the mainstream media ensures that such notices function as gag orders.

Johnson joined the committee in 2014 and evidently excelled in his performance. A separate set of minutes from the first meeting attended by Johnson records the Guardian’s close collaboration with military officials.

Off-Guardian 

Thomas Scripps - Exposed: The Guardian’s Collusion in State Censorship

Craig Murray — A Moment in History

Jeremy Corbyn represents the only realistic chance the people of England and Wales have been given in decades, to escape from the neo-liberal economics that have impoverished vast swathes of the population. But he leads a parliamentary party which is almost entirely comprised of hardline neo-liberal adherents.

The majority of the parliamentary Labour party are the people who brought in academy schools, high student tuition fees, PFI, who introduced more privatisation into the health service than the Tories have, and who brought you the Iraq and Afghan Wars. They abstained on the Tory austerity benefit cuts and on May’s “hostile environment” immigration legislation. They support Trident nuclear missiles. Many hanker after bombing Syria, and most are members of Labour Friends of Israel.…

Craig Murray Blog
A Moment in History
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

The 1 question journalists should stop asking 2020 Democrats — Jeff Spros

MMT.

The WEEK
The 1 question journalists should stop asking 2020 Democrats

Jeff Spross

Brief Comments On Libra And Online Commerce — Brian Romanchuk

Facebook has led a consortium which has unveiled a white paper on a proposed Libra cryptocurrency. It is described as being backed by a multi-currency portfolio of government bonds, and so it might be looked at as a currency basket. I am not an expert on Libra, but I just wanted to comment on the pros and cons of such a basket for small online commerce players (such as BondEconomics.com). I also conclude with a short discussion of systemic risk posed by this platform....

Bond Economics 

Brief Comments On Libra And Online Commerce
Brian Romanchuk

Lars P. Syll — The weird absence of money and finance in economic theory

It is indeed strange since "money" as a unit of account is basic for quantitative measurement in economics and finance. Moreover, economic activity involving production, distribution and consumption of real good is dependent of finance in the creation of "money" in a monetary production economy.

"Money" and finance are hidden assumptions in economics that constitute foundations of the framework for economic activity and therefore economics. They are for the most part unexamined, and where they are examined much of the investigation is either wrong or confused. 

The conventional excuse of ignoring "money and finance is that "money" is neutral in the long run and measurement using the money scale is just a convenience that allows for expressing on one scale the range of real goods using prices denominated in a currency unit. End of story.

Economists treat economics and finance is givens, like the metric scale, for example. However, there is little in common between "money" and other quantitive measurement scales. Money is not a measurement convenience. It drives the system so that economics and finance are joined at the hip.

This failure to consider presumptions is one of the major flaws in the conventional approach to economics, in addition to presuming that economic factors are "natural" rather than largely based on institutional arrangements.

MMT corrects that inadequate and careless approach.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
The weird absence of money and finance in economic theory
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Bill Mitchell — An economist trying to stay relevant long after he lost it

This is my Wednesday blog post where I write less or perhaps research the blog post less – both of which save me time to do other things. Today a few snippets. One snippet looks at an article in Marketwatch – What Modern Monetary Theory gets ‘plain wrong,’ according to former IMF chief economist (June 11, 2019). This article should put to rest any claims that the mainstream New Keynesian macroeconomic consensus understands Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) or that MMT is somehow explainable within the mainstream framework. The ‘we knew it all along’ camp who are trying their hardest to stay relevant at a time when it is increasingly obvious that the mainstream economics they preach has nothing valid to say about the realities of the world just had the carpet pulled out from under them by one of their own....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
An economist trying to stay relevant long after he lost it
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins - Amazon's Takeover Of Our Lives

Every time Amazon expands by 1% 8,000 other companies go out of business. Jeff Bezos keeps expanding into new areas which now includes business with the Pentagon.

 I didn't know this, but Amazon uses 'personal pricing ' and my immediate thought was that this was a discount for regular customers, but it's the opposite, in fact. If you regularly buy a product, Amazon may increase the price by 3%, so the price you see is not the one everyone else sees. And they might increase it again sometime later. ,

America’s Lawyer: Mike Papantonio and Trial Magazines Editor Farron Cousins break down the virtual monopoly Amazon now enjoys, given that nearly HALF of all online purchases in the U.S. are now placed through its all-encompassing marketplace. Beyond online retail though, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has expanded the company’s reach to TV streaming, pharmaceuticals, and even brick-and-mortar stores. Plus, a new report showing that the Catholic Church has spent millions of dollars lobbying against the efforts to hold their own clergy members liable for molesting children.

Edward Lane — GND and Modern Monetary Policy

Finally, a positive article on the GND and MMT among a barrage of negative ones.

The Berkshire Eagle
Edward Lane: GND and Modern Monetary Policy

Edward Lane, ASA, CFP, is an adjunct professor of Finance and Economics, University at Albany (SUNY)

Craig Murray - The Question of Character

Craig Murray raises some good points here.

I don't know what to make of Trump either, but underneath Craig article I left a comment saying Trump maybe be a narcissist, but he's not a psychopath. And he even seems to like being loved, especially by his base, which gives him a bit of a human quality.

His base says that Trump hates war. Well, who knows, but let's hope so. Although he did want to start a war with Venezuela, but that may have been another bluff.

I say that with apologies to all my American friends who are suffering from Trump’s harsh domestic policies and his version of the “hostile climate for immigrants” which we have long suffered in the UK. I do not underestimate the harm done by Trump’s penchant for trade wars, or his blindly pro-Israel policies and gestures, nor the continuation of the Saudi anti-Shia alliance.

But the vital fact for the rest of the world is that Trump remains the only US President since Jimmy Carter not to have launched a major war. In this, he is true to what he said consistently during his election campaign. I do not think you have to look any further than that for the explanation of why he pulled out of the attack on Iran following the destruction of the US drone. The mechanics of the decision taking are not its cause, contrary to all the speculation.

I should take the time to congratulate Iran on shooting down the drone. The Americans have killed tens of thousands of people, all over the Middle East and Central Asia, using such drones. That they should holler so much when somebody knocks one down is ludicrous.

I am absolutely convinced that, were Hillary President, the Middle East would now be devastated by the biggest of all the recent wars, and America would have invaded both Syria and Iran by now. Hillary was an enthusiast for the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan and she was personally involved in starting the obliteration of the advanced Libyan state on the flimsiest of pretexts. The potential devastation she would have inflicted and the millions who would now be dead, maimed or orphaned outweighs in my view all the harm perpetrated by Trump. So my conclusion is this: I would far rather not have President Trump nor President Clinton, but forced into a straight binary choice I will take Trump. He has a better character; for all his faults he is the only one of the two who is not a psychopathic killer.

Craig Murray - The Question of Character

Bill Mitchell — The Greek colony remains in depression

On June 13, 2019, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) released its – Terms of Reference for the Evaluation of the Greek Programmes. At the same time, the head of the ESM (Klaus Regling) was lecturing Greece, which is approaching a national election next month, that it “risks missing its budget target” (Source). Apparently, as the failed Syriza government tries to gain electoral support after years of abusing the Greek people who put their faith in them, the bean counters are worried that the permanent state of austerity that the Greek colony is now being held in by the Euro technocrats (and the IMF) might be relaxed a little. Regling claimed there was “great risk” in the Greek government engaging in fiscal slippage. When you look at the data, a fiscal flood is needed not just some ‘slippage’. But such is the oppression of the colony that the technocrats are bearing down on the Government. Meanwhile, the Europhile Left continues to laud the EU as a productive arrangement protecting progressive values. It is beyond laughable....

This is a longish, detailed post that displays the underlying dynamics from an MMT POV. Lots in there.

The post also demonstrates how neoliberalism is jointed at the hip with neocolonialism through finance.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The Greek colony remains in depression
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Reserve Assets vs. Economic Outcomes

Time domain graph (abstraction) below quantifying the policy of US banking system Reserve Asset levels as percent  of US GDP over time for about the last 100 years.

Color lines added to identify periods of time between significant transitions of the policy.

Starting from left, green line identifies a period of time post WW1 where the reduction caused economic out performance known figuratively as 'The Roaring Twenties!'.... 

Red line identifies a period of time when a large and fast increase caused the 1929  large and fast equity shares price reduction known figuratively as "The Crash" the increase continued for another 10 years causing a period of economic under performance  known figuratively as "The Great Depression!"...

Blue line identifies a long and slow period of reduction which caused a long period of economic out performance throughout WW2 and the decades post war ...

Violet line a little blip up post millennium where it caused a small economic recession...

Orange line then another period of decrease which caused economic out performance until 2008...

Yellow line another period of large and fast increase which was very similar to the 1929 function as it caused another severe reduction in equity share prices (-40%) and then a period of economic under performance known figuratively as "The Great Recession!"...

This is NOT a correlation study this is identification of a Functional Relation (Abstraction).... (FD my primary training at University.)

Where the Reserve Assets increase (which via regulation causes immediate price reduction in Risk Assets followed by periods of economic under performance due to lack of availability of finance) this  increase is called by the Liberal Art dialectic trained unqualified morons the figurative "pumping in money!" or they'll say simply "pumping!" or sometimes they say "injection of money!"... maybe these morons have some other figurative language descriptions...

The figurative language is a tip off to where they are making the usual cognitive error of reification (they think what are properly seen as abstractions are REAL) due to their lack of understanding of the regulatory (another abstraction) effects of the policy... e.g. they'll say "we're out of money!" and stupid stuff like that... so then they want to "pump in more money!", etc... moron-fest...

The cognitive error is predicated on a lack of proper understanding of the abstractions.

They are attempting to administer the system using only their Liberal Art dialectic method employing literal and figurative language and are not trained and qualified in proper methods of abstraction and as a result are fucking up BIG TIME...

And they are not going to be corrected by simply using more figurative language ("more framing!"); that approach doesn't work.... you can't correct a reification error via employment of even more figurative language...

In the meantime they think "pumping in the money!" is a GOOD policy... and we're at the mercy of these morons... SCAAAAAARY!!!!!

Zero Hedge — iPhone X Sales Collapse Triggers Serious Breach Of Contract With Samsung

Apple woes mount. Is the shine off?

Zero Hedge
iPhone X Sales Collapse Triggers Serious Breach Of Contract With Samsung
Tyler Durden

Rabobank: Trump-Xi Meeting Is Not About Tariffs Or Trade, But Who Wins The Great Chess Game And How — Michael Every

More geopolitics and geostrategy, and how it impacts finance and economics.

The danger here is that POTUS and US hardliners see this as a zero-sum game. This greatly increases the chance that it will lead to kinetic warfare on a grander scale. The US is already deep into deploying economic, information, and cyberwarfare against a number of countries, and positioning for kinetic warfare.

The situation now is increasingly hair-trigger.

Zero Hedge
Rabobank: Trump-Xi Meeting Is Not About Tariffs Or Trade, But Who Wins The Great Chess Game And How
Michael Every | Head of Financial Markets Research Asia-Pacific, Rabobank

Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez (2002-2018): Income Inequality in the United States — Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez (2002-2018): Income Inequality in the United StatesBrad DeLongBrad DeLong

Grasping Reality
Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez (2002-2018): Income Inequality in the United StatesBrad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

Jonathon Ford - Britain needs cheaper infrastructure, not accounting tricks

I was quite surprised by this Telegraph article, where Jonathon Ford says that private companies are not anymore efficient than publicly run ones, and that there is no 'magic of the private sector'. He then adds that PPI was bad for tax payer.

EDF, an energy company, want money up front to help pay for a new nuclear reactor, but Jonathon Ford says the government could fund it more cheaply and could even start up a national infrastructure fund to finance public projects at fine rates.

Jonathon Ford says that up to the 1990's, private companies had to prove they could build public infrastructure projects more cheaply than the government could, without hidden costs turning up, like the notorious overruns. This was known as the Ryrie rules.

Jonathon Ford seems to be asking for the mixed state, and not for any ideological reasons, but because it is pragmatic and sensible.

The state shouldn’t wade in and take scads of private sector risks, but should confine itself to areas where market signals are weak and non-existent. Electricity is a good example: traditionally privately financed, it is now almost entirely strategic and state ordained.

Britain’s unlamented private finance initiative shows all too well the mistakes that governments make when they bail in costly private cash to back public projects. With the country facing fresh demands from the need to decarbonise rapidly, it cannot afford more of the same.

Newsgroove

Jonathon Ford - Britain needs cheaper infrastructure, not accounting tricks

What Do the Oligarchs Have in Mind for Us? — Joel Koltin

Does technology lead to technocracy and is technocracy a form of feudalism?

Technocracy and its tendency toward neo-feudalism is based on ownership of natural monopolies. Natural monopolies are candidates for anti-trust action.

The New Geography
What Do the Oligarchs Have in Mind for Us?

Joel Koltin

Indoctrinated by Econ 101 — John Warner

My fundamental understanding of the world has been warped by a now challenged approach. I'm not alone.…

In the end, the chief byproduct of my general education exposure was a kind of indoctrination into the centrality of markets to understanding human behavior and the apparent importance of economics professors.

I’m not alone. Introductory economics could be one of the most widely received credits in all of higher education. And unlike other common courses (like say, first-year writing), Econ 101 is extremely similar institution to institution. Supply and demand is framed as a law in the same fashion as gravity. When supply and demand does not seem to work according to the “law” (e.g., health care) it is the not the law that is faulty, but the market itself, with much public policy effort going toward trying to bring the market in compliance with the law, often to negative effect.

That supply and demand might not be a law doesn’t seem to occur. Higher education seems to be bumping up against these tensions as well....

Bingo! That's is the purpose of it, after all. Some are finally waking up to it. Fake news is one thing that drives the narrative, and fake knowledge is another.

And it is not just Econ 101. The brainwashing continues through the PhD.

Inside Higher Ed
Indoctrinated by Econ 101

John Warner

See also

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Economics is an ideology

America’s Finest Economists Have Been Needlessly Undermining Growth, Study Confirms — Eric Levitz

A few lonely voices disputed this consensus. In their view, these two distinct mysteries weren’t actually distinct — or all that mysterious. The reason wage growth wasn’t rising as one would expect with the economy near full employment was that the economy wasn’t near full employment. And the reason the economy wasn’t near full employment was that all those prime-age workers who’d supposedly exited the labor force for reasons totally unrelated to the strength of the economy hadn’t actually exited the labor force for reasons totally unrelated to the strength of the economy.

In this view, both of the supposed mysteries stemmed from the same mistake: Economists had too much faith in the official unemployment rate. That rate counts only those who say they’re actively seeking employment as available workers. And yet many Americans who say they aren’t looking for a job (and are, therefore, classified as nonparticipants in the labor force) also say that they would like a job if one presented itself. Meanwhile, survey data show that even those Americans who say they aren’t looking for a job – anddon’t want one – can abruptly change their minds. Such workers often go from being “outside the labor force” to being employed without ever registering as “unemployed” in the government’s data.

This reality has a major implication: The pool of surplus labor that employers have at their disposal at any given time is much larger than the unemployment rate lets on.…

New York Magazine — Intelligencer
America’s Finest Economists Have Been Needlessly Undermining Growth, Study Confirms

Eric Levitz

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

Jason Smith — A Workers' History of the United States 1948-2020

After seven years of economic research and developing forecasting models that have outperformed the experts, author, blogger, and physicist Dr. Jason Smith offers his controversial insights about the major driving factors behind the economy derived from the data and it's not economics — it's social changes. These social changes are behind the questions of who gets to work, how those workers organize, and how workers identify politically — and it is through labor markets that these social changes manifest in economic effects. What would otherwise be a disjoint and nonsensical postwar economic history of the United States is made into a cohesive workers' history driven by women entering the workforce and the backlash to the Civil Rights movement — plainly: sexism and racism. This new understanding of historical economic data offers lessons for understanding the political economy of today and insights for policies that might actually work.…

Information Transfer Economics
A Workers' History of the United States 1948-2020
Jason Smith

More "Pumping!"

Oh goodie... More reification error from the Liberal Art trained unqualified perhaps on the way...

The world's most powerful central bankers are preparing to pump a whole lot of cash into the global economy https://t.co/qHfjTzilNP pic.twitter.com/Hv837xhXz9

— Bloomberg Economics (@economics) June 24, 2019

Biden on Social Security Cuts

And nothing has ever changed....

I wonder what @BernieSanders and @ewarren think about @joebiden’s long-history of trying to cut social security benefits for elderly Americans? pic.twitter.com/eRkZwHQMmF

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 22, 2019

New U.S. doctrine claims it could win nuclear war if engaged

The people who think like this are dead! They are the most extreme people but it is they who are in power. Blowing the planet up is unthinkable, but not to these people. Billions dead, a nuclear winter - 'so be it', they say. I guess they will be sitting in their nuclear bunkers for ten years.

America Must Prepare for the Coming Chinese Empire — Robert D. Kaplan

Robert Kaplan does geostrategy and does a credible job of it. In my view he sees the big picture  in outline pretty well, although I would quibble with some of the details. It is written from the US POV, of course, but he is able to stand back from it enough to make the article worth a read. Robert Kaplan and his spouse Victoria Nuland are mainstays of US foreign policy, so it is important for that reason alone.

The National Interest
America Must Prepare for the Coming Chinese Empire

Robert D. Kaplan | managing director for global macro at Eurasia Group

See also

The following is a transcript of Robert D. Kaplan's speech at the Michael J. Zak Grand Strategy Lecture on March 7th, 2018.

CNAS
Robert Kaplan: Grand Strategy and the Return of Marco Polo's World

Europe – especially Greece and Italy – is not working

Isn't new technology amazing? I remember reloading Windows 10 on my PC and then, without me doing a thing, icons started reappearing on my screen until my old Windows configuration and had been rebuilt with all my original software loaded back on.

The modern technology may be crazy, like 3D printing, but it seems we are finding very smart ways to run our economies too.

Those Minibots again!

Unemployment

Many observers will have forgotten that German unemployment was higher for 3 years from 2005 to 2007 than the rate of Greece and Italy. 

But obviously since then, unemployment in these countries exploded, Germany’s has dropped. How can we get it down again? The previous post on Minibots has already talked about ways of getting unemployment down in Italy. Increase aggregate demand through offering a limited job guarantee (20 hours a week) plus an state-owned electronic transfer system for the new Minibots in electronic form, which would pay each Italian 10 minibots a month (helicopter money), to increase acceptance of these minibots by making them universal.

A similar scheme had previously been proposed by me for Greece. The advantage would be that the extra GDP from these measures (multiplier of 2) would be sufficient to increase GDP, and generate enough extra income to prevent a shortfall in taxes.

Radical Economic Thought

Europe – especially Greece and Italy – is not working

Matt Usselmann - Minibots increase liquidity, but how about unemployment?

Italy's new Minibot currency sounds a bit like MMT to me. Intriguing!

The Italians are proposing to use new printed notes (minibots) to pay back all the arrears the state has accumulated in the past. These unpaid bills from the Italian state to the private sector amount to Euro 53 billion, about 3% of GDP. Minibots will provide liquidity and alternative notes, but will not solve Italian unemployment (10.2%) unless the concept is expanded.

Minibot means huge interest saving for Italian state

Instead of increasing the deficit further, by issuing more interest bearing treasury bills or government bonds, the Italians propose to print minibots instead. That saves the government up to 3% interest a year (Euro 1.6bn a year on Euro 53bn). That is an enormous advantage, as much interest goes to foreign investors and is lost to the Italian economy.

Minibots will look and feel like money and can be used to pay tax liabilities. Acceptance in the private sector is voluntary, as only the Euro is legal tender.

Radical Economic Thought

Matt Usselmann - Minibots increase liquidity, but how about unemployment?

We Tried to Publish a Replication of a Science Paper in Science. The Journal Refused.

Our research suggests that the theory that conservatives and liberals respond differently to threats isn’t actually true.

By KEVIN ARCENEAUX, BERT N. BAKKER, CLAIRE GOTHREAU, and GIJS SCHUMACHER

Are conservative and liberal brains hardwired differently? look around the net and you see the research quoting that this is the case, and many books have been written about it too. But what if it's wrong and that conservatives and liberals aren't doomed to be forever at each others throats. This new research seems to suggest that the environment plays a big factor in forming our attitudes.

The above scientists were excited about the research showing differences in how the brains of conservatives and liberals work, but their far more extensive research could not replicate the original study, even when using its criteria.

We Tried to Publish a Replication of a Science Paper in Science. The Journal Refused.

AOC Gardening

Climate nutter thinks photosynthesis is "magic!"  LOL! 

Hey moron ever hear of:

6CO2 + 6H2O ------>  C6H12O6 + 6O2

Try taking a biochemistry course some time Liberal Art trained moron!!!  LOL!!!!  Probably withdraw failing after the second week!!!   LOL Unqualified dialectic trained moron!!!!





Says we're all dead in 11 years!!! LOL!!!!  What's her downside if she is wrong???  Nothing!!!

Johannes Stern - European Union rearms for World War III

The Western protection racket gears up.

I can't see what Russia has done wrong? Crimea? But the Crimean people had an referendum and voted to become part of Russia again, a right written into their constitution. No figting, no loss of life, no thousands of troops marching in, no tanks, and no NATO photographs showing any of this, but Europe is arming up for war, a war that would leave no winners because everyone would die in the nuclear winter that follows. 

Following the announcement last week by the US Defense Department of its biggest ever arms deal involving the purchase of nearly 500 F-35 fighters, Europe replied in kind on Monday. At the world’s largest air show in Le Bourget near Paris, the German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen, together with her colleagues from France, Florence Parly, and Spain, Margarita Robles, signed major agreements to develop a joint European air combat system (Future Combat Air System—FCAS).

The cost of FCAS, which is announced to be operational by 2040, is immense. Up to €8 billion will flow into joint development alone. Overall, costs are expected to be more than €100 billion. The Handelsblattnewspaper reports that “by the middle of the century” the FCAS project could devour “up to €500 billion.” The same sum would finance Germany’s entire education budget for 27 years!

The massive armaments project is part of plans to transform the European Union into a major military power capable of waging war independently of and, if necessary, against the United States.

Johannes Stern - European Union rearms for World War III

Trump facing EMP weapons, 'saves the world' with second thoughts on illegal Iran strikes

The first half of this is very interesting (The second half is local British politics which is also interesting).

Iran has a secret weapon to counter the US military in the region,  which is an Electromagnetic pulse weapon which will knock out all the US military communications rendering them useless. It's not sure what the Iran military will use for communication, except it's likely to be the good old fashioned stuff, like pigeons, etc, :)

Second hour Investigative reports US Drone shot down by Iran – then US were about to attack but Trump pulled them back: attack not condoned by UN Security Council or US Congress;  UK SBS Special Forces were sent to Oman shortly before attacks on tankers;  Revealed - Iran's TOP SECRET weapon which will stop any US invasion attempt in its tracks – Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) weapon – 2014 incident with the USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea: the Russian Su-24 that buzzed the USS Donald Cook carried neither bombs nor missiles but only a basket mounted under the fuselage, which, according to the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta [2], contained a Russian electronic warfare device called Khibiny. As the Russian jet approached the US vessel, the electronic device disabled all radars, control circuits, systems, information transmission, etc. on board the US destroyer. In other words, the all-powerful Aegis system, now hooked up - or about to be - with the defense systems installed on NATO’s most modern ships was shut down, as turning off the TV set with the remote control

U.S. projected to fall as world's economic leader

Both India and China have much larger populations than the U.S. so they will become more powerful eventually. The analyst here, Jill Schlesinger, says it's not a problem as the standard of living in the U.S will remain the same, but what is concerning is the U.S lack of investment in its people. China, she says, is using A.I. to teach children in the remotest parts of China in preparation for new technologies, while the US lacks any such innovation.

There were articles posted here last year about how many in the U.S ruling elite tend to think that it is a waste of money paying taxes to educate Americans when all the industry has been sent abroad and A.I is coming.

A new report from Standard Chartered Bank says the U.S. will not be the world's economic leader by the year 2030. Instead, China and India will take the top two spots. CBS business analyst Jill Schlesinger joins CBSN AM to discuss what it means for the U.S.