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Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Bill Mitchell – The working poor are still poor in Australia

Today, we have a guest blogger in the guise of Professor Scott Baum from Griffith University who has been one of my regular research colleagues over a long period of time. Today, he is writing about the impact the recent decision by the Fair work Commission – Annual Wage Review 2020-21 – on June 16, 2021, which raised the National minimum Wage in Australia to $772.60 per week or $20.33 per hour....
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The working poor are still poor in Australia
Scott Baum, Professor of Urban and Regional Analysis, School of Environment and the Cities Research Institute, Griffith University

Liberal Optimism — Paul Robinson

Good post with a link to the author's latest at RT (see below).

I would agree with the thrust but the major deficiency is missing the conflict between liberalism and traditionalism as chief factor in the current moment of the historical dialect. This conflict is seen not only among nations but within nations and even in social groups such as churches and political parties.

This dialectic has many facets, so it is not a simple task to summarize it other than by noting major trends as they develop, usually from already existing conditions. But history is shaped by "humanity," which consists of individuals and social groups interacting in terms of a complex adaptive system subject to reflexivity and emergence. 

Trying to force the process or speed it up is generally to be deprecated, and not only because it is illiberal. Humans just are not that smart and we don't have the foresight needed either. In addition, social groups are often very different in their value systems and this is especially the case with societies, especially civilizational ones.

Moreover, the Western push for liberalization seems not only illiberal but also hypocritical on one hand and "interested" on the other. For one thing, Western nations do not have a clean record, as China is now pointing fingers at. For another, liberalization is a code word for Western dominated neoliberal "capitalism," even thought neoliberalism is incompatible with genuine democracy as governance of, by and for the people.

Irrussianality
Liberal Optimism
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

See also

RT
Western focus on Russian political dead-enders exposes failure to grasp that real change in Moscow will come from system insiders
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Structural defects — Peter Radford

The Bank for International Settlements issued its annual report yesterday. Perhaps the central banks are feeling a little insecure, or perhaps they are a little more sensitive to economic reality, but the BIS felt compelled to use one third of its report to tackle inequality. Here’s the summary as given in the report: 
The Radford Free Press
Structural Defects
Peter Radford

The Chinese Miracle, Revisited — Pepe Escobar

Backgrounder

Strategic Culture Foundation
The Chinese Miracle, Revisited
Pepe Escobar

See also

The Vineyard of the Saker
Pepe Escobar

TASS — Russian economy has adapted to sanctions, Putin says

"We have not merely adapted; our economy has adapted to this sanction pressure and it has even benefited us in certain aspects," the head of state said. "These so-called replacement programs, import substitution, imported equipment and technologies replacement by indigenous ones created a good impetus in developing high-technology production spheres," Putin said.
Increased self-sufficiency.

Globally, the trend toward national self-sufficiency is undermining key principles of liberal globalization that was leading to corporate totalitarianism under a US-dominated "rules-based economic order."

The result has been that the West has begun to lose industrial, technical and agricultural dominance as Russia and China have adapted to the new "rules" that supposedly guarantee Western economic dominance.

Moreover, the economic cost of sanctions and trade contraction have affected all sides, adversely impacting the global economy and advancing the push toward multipolarism.

TASS
Russian economy has adapted to sanctions, Putin says

Thomas Palley — The Macroeconomics of Government Spending: Distinguishing Between Government Purchases, Government Production, and Job Guarantee Programs

Abstract
This paper reconstructs the Keynesian income – expenditure (IE) model to include distinctions between government purchases of private sector output, government production, and government job guarantee program (JGP) employment. Analytically, including those distinctions transforms the model from a single sector model into a multisector model. It also surfaces the logic behind the automatic stabilizer property of JGP employment. The model is then extended to include Kaleckian income distribution effects which contribute to explaining why expenditure multipliers vary by type of fiscal expenditure. The Kaleckian version generates a new balanced budget multiplier driven by changed composition of government spending. It also illuminates some macroeconomic implications of privatization of government produced services....
Post Keynesianism Economic Society

See also by Thomas Palley

PERI (2 June 2021)
Proto-Fascism Unleashed: How the Republican Party Sold its Soul and Now Threatens Democracy

See also

That we are even talking about this indicates a lot — this system is not working.

Naked Capitalism
Biden Classifies Opposition to ‘Capitalism and Corporate Globalization’ As Extremism
Yves Smith

See also
Fossil fuel companies lied for decades about climate change, and humanity is paying the price. Shouldn’t those lies be central to the public narrative?
Reminiscent of Big Tobacco and the cancer coverup? And a host of similar crimes attributable to corporate greed, not the least of which is war. See Gen. Smedley Butler, War Is A Racket.

Guardian
The climate crisis is a crime that should be prosecuted
Mark Hertsgaard

Related

Corruption watch.
Dems bankrolled by Big Pharma are suddenly targeting Nina Turner right after she aired an ad touting Medicare for All.
Daily Poster
Dems Launch Proxy War On Medicare For All
David Sirota and Julia Rock



Berkshire's Charlie Munger says China right to clip Jack Ma's wings — Reuters

The 97-year-old told CNBC in an interview alongside Berkshire CEO and billionaire investor Warren Buffett that the United States should take a leaf out of China's book and "step in preemptively to stop speculation".

I said the same when they did it. They obviously learned from the failures of the US in this regard that led to a global financial crisis and threatened depression in response to which the US ensuring US legislation and regulation was weak and misdirected, so the issues largely remain. As Sen. Dick Durbin said, The bankers control this place (Congress). Not in China. They are out in front of it, which is necessary for modern countries, which are credit-based. Inadequate institutional arrangements in finance create perverse incentives and moral hazard.

The Economic Times — Markets
Berkshire's Charlie Munger says China right to clip Jack Ma's wings
Reuters
Berkshire's Charlie Munger says China right to clip Jack Ma's wings

Bill Mitchell — The central banks don’t seem to be worrying about inflation

It’s Wednesday and I have been tied up most of the day with commitments. So we will have to be content today with a couple of snippets. The first about the on-going inflation mania and the way in which the ECB seems oblivious to it. The second about the gross incompetence of the Australia government, who has put the health of the nation at risk and forced state governments to invoke rolling lockdowns as only a small number of us are vaccinated and cases keep seeping out of a flawed quarantine system (the latter being the federal responsibility). And once the anger subsides from that little discussion, we have the usual Wednesday music offering to restore peace....
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The central banks don’t seem to be worrying about inflation
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

How Europe’s dark fishing fleets threaten West Africa

The Chinese get a lot of flak about over fishing and for fishing in other country's waters, which is true, but the Europeans eat far more fish per capita and over fish in other countries waters as well. It all needs to be cut back for the survival of the oceans. 

Cargo ships from around the world are moving untracked in African waters, where the rise of a new fishing activity affects everything from local biodiversity to piracy


How Europe’s dark fishing fleets threaten West Africa

Tuesday, June 29, 2021

The MOST private email service (2021)

 E-mail remains an essential backbone of internet communication, with over 4 billion users worldwide. But is it private? Actually it's inherently insecure. Furthermore, the vast majority of users rely on free online email services. Did you know that they use AI algorithms to scan your emails in order to learn more about you? Or that emails are stored in the clear, meaning in the event of a hack, all your emails would be leaked? Do you know what Metadata is and how much is collected by your email provider?


In this video, we go over what makes a good private email service and provide you with valuable suggestions for safer alternatives than the big names you are used to. 


There is no one-size-fits-all answer for email, as it depends on your own threat model. But moving away from that old gmail or yahoo account is a GREAT place to start



From the Delta Chat website: "Delta Chat is like Telegram or Whatsapp but without the tracking or central control. Delta Chat does not need your phone number. Check out our privacy statement. Delta Chat doesn’t have their own servers but uses the most massive and diverse open messaging system ever: the existing e-mail server network. Chat with anyone if you know their e-mail address, no need for them to install DeltaChat! All you need is a standard e-mail account."






Katehon — Capitalism must die to protect the sacred

Review of The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save our Earth. The Red Nation (2021), Common Notions.

More traditionalism versus liberalism. As climate change accelerates, this view will be increasingly heard, especially as the Global South/East emerges. An old Native American proverb sums it up, "Don't shit in the teepee."

If the title is too extreme for you, another similar title might be, "Capitalism needs to change to protect the planet." Socializing negative externality is threatening all of us as a species, along with the entire ecology of the planet. This means shifting the emphasis from ownership to stewardship.

Katehon
Capitalism must die to protect the sacred

Bill Mitchell — Australia’s Covid recession has increased inequality – winners and losers

Today is just a number-crunching exercise, which I conducted to allow me to understand where the employment losses and gains in the Australian labour market since the onset of the pandemic. The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics Labour Force data, which I analysed in this blog post – Australian labour market – stronger as working age population flattens out (June 17, 2021) – revealed that total employment in Australia is now above the February 2020 level by 130.2 thousand (1.0 per cent). I noted that some sectors are still languishing while others are rebounding strongly. I had to wait a week before the detailed industrial level employment data was released and today’s blog post is a brief view of that data to ascertain which sectors (and sub-sectors) are in the ‘languishing’ category and which have rebounded. This is also important for assessing any impending inflation risk from the employment growth. There is always a motivation for doing this boring type of number analysis....
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Australia’s Covid recession has increased inequality – winners and losers
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

What are the five evils in modern society? — Richard Murphy

I am interested in other’s opinions on this issue.
To what degree do economic policy and financial institutional arrangements contribute to complicating these issues?

Tax Research UK
What are the five evils in modern society?
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

We Need to Talk about Economics — Paulo L. dos Santos and Noé Wiener

Longish but seminal. It combines economics with economics sociology to arrive at a view of political economy that incorporates the latest thinking, although the roots lie in the classical economists and Marx, institutionalizes like Veblen, and heterodox economics subsequent to the rise of neoclassical economists. Worth a close read.

Development Economics
We Need to Talk about Economics
Paulo L. dos Santos, Associate Professor of Economics at The New School, and Noé Wiener, Lecturer in Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst,and a Research Associate at the Political Economy Research Institute

Questioning Modern Monetary Theory: Part 3 — Nick Johnson

Friendly critique.
This is the third part in my current series which explores certain aspects of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Here I want to focus on unemployment and inflation….
The Political Economy of Development
Questioning Modern Monetary Theory: Part 3
Nick Johnson

Five Years Later, Not Much Doom (Yet!)...[Japan] — Brian Romanchuk

As part of my inflation primer, I hope to dig further into Japan’s post-1990 “inflation” experience, but it does appear to be an interesting example of a fiat currency achieving price level stability. This stabilisation is ignored for two reasons:
  1. western mainstream economists are convinced that 2% inflation is the “correct” level for inflation targeting, and they browbeat Japan for “deflation,” and
  2. everybody is predicting the imminent collapse of the Japanese yen into hyperinflation due to “unsustainable” fiscal deficits and “money printing.”
Bond Economics
Five Years Later, Not Much Doom (Yet!)...
Brian Romanchuk

Bill Mitchell — New Australian inflation measures help us dig deeper into distributional consequences

On November 11, 2020, the Australian Bureau of Statistics published a very interesting new experimental dataset – Non-Discretionary and Discretionary Inflation – which was derived from the standard Consumer Price Index data. It provided us with new insights and a richer knowledge of the impacts of inflation, particularly in distributional terms. Last month (May 25, 2021), the ABS published a followup article – Measuring Non-discretionary and Discretionary Inflation – which summarised some of the key findings. After receiving feedback, the ABS has refined the data series and will publish them on an on-going basis from the September-quarter 2021 as part of the “regular quarterly CPI release”. This new approach to measuring inflation will help us considerably assess the implication of wage movements on the real living standards of Australian workers....
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
New Australian inflation measures help us dig deeper into distributional consequences
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Orkestra Obsolete play Blue Monday using 1930s instruments - BBC Arts

  I thought this was rather good, so I'll shall have to check them out. 


New Order's Blue Monday was released on 7 March 1983, and its cutting-edge electronic groove changed pop music forever. But what would it have sounded like if it had been made 50 years earlier? In a special film, using only instruments available in the 1930s - from the theremin and musical saw to the harmonium and prepared piano - the mysterious Orkestra Obsolete present this classic track as you've never heard it before.




Sunday, June 27, 2021

It's the exporters stupid — Neil W

First published Feb 2014. Quoted in Randall Wray's Modern Money Theory, pp289
Oldie but goodie.

New Wayland
It's the exporters stupid
Neil W

Robert Reich — Why So Much Wealth at the Top Threatens the US Economy

Years ago, Marriner Eccles, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1934 to 1948, explained that the Great Depression occurred because the buying power of Americans fell far short of what the economy could produce. He blamed the increasing concentration of wealth at the top. In his words:

“A giant suction pump had by 1929-1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. As in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.”

The wealthy of the 1920s didn’t know what to do with all their money, while most Americans could maintain their standard of living only by going into debt. When that debt bubble burst, the economy sunk.

History is repeating itself....

Persistent Demand-Pull Inflation is Unlikely in Demand-Led Economies — Peter Cooper

Capitalist economies are demand led in the sense that both output and growth tend to reflect the behavior of autonomous demand, especially in the long run. Prices, in contrast, tend to be supply determined, reflecting cost. Supply shocks can temporarily dominate demand effects on output (for instance, as the result of war, a pandemic, or an oil shock), just as variations in demand, especially if supply is constricted, can temporarily dominate cost effects on prices. But the normal situation for a capitalist economy is demand-determined output and supply-determined prices....
heteconomist
Persistent Demand-Pull Inflation is Unlikely in Demand-Led Economies
Peter Cooper

KV - How the London working class accent is changing

 I came across these videos on Tik Tok recently and they are hilarious, but the new London working class accent is very interesting, even though I have trouble understanding it myself. 

London is now very multicultural, and the young West Indians, mainly from Jamaican descent, are now third generation, and their passed down Jamaican accent has combined with the white London working class accent to produce one of the harshest accent I've heard. 

English, when spoken properly, can be very beautiful. I've included an examples of both very beautiful English and American accents.

All languages are beautiful when spoken correctly. 

In this first video the boys are just acting and so speak quiet nicely at the start, which is probably their normal accent, but then they go into the new hybrid working class accent for the second part. 




This black guy here speaks very nicely, but he gets a shock. 

White working class Londoners do speak like this now in some parts of London. They had to put subtitles in so people could understand it, but the syntax is very different to and also difficult to understand. The youngsters love talking like this - street talk - and getting it right is important for status and acceptance. 



Some examples of very beautiful English accents. 

The content of these videos below are very interesting in themselves too. 


Why I dress as a Regency gentleman... everyday of my life - BBC News

Zack MacLeod Pinsent dresses as a British Regency gentleman every day, saying that the clothing is a "huge confidence builder".

He ceremoniously burned his last pair of jeans when he was 14-years-old and hasn't looked back since.

He's a tailor and has found a market for clients wanting historical pieces overseas






A very beautiful American accent, I thought. 





Socialism Is Gaining Popularity, Poll Shows — Kenny Stancil

The online survey, conducted June 11-25 by Momentive on behalf of Axios, found that 57% of U.S. adults view capitalism in a positive light, down from 61% in January 2019, when the news outlet first polled on these questions. Then and now, 36% are critical of the exploitation of the working class and the environment by the owning class.

Perceptions of capitalism have remained consistent among adults ages 35 and older, meaning that the system’s dwindling popularity is driven by the nation’s young adults. According to the poll, 18 to 34-year-olds today are almost equally likely to hold a negative opinion of capitalism as a positive one (46% vs. 49%). Just two years ago, that margin was 38% vs. 58%.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the severity of the climate emergency, capitalism is particularly unpopular among 18 to 24-year-olds, with negative views outweighing positive views by a margin of 54% to 42%.…

Apparently, the propaganda machine is not working as well as previously, nor is narrative control. 

Truthout
Socialism Is Gaining Popularity, Poll Shows
Kenny Stancil

See also at Truthout

Sitrep — Here Comes China: Great Chinese Firewall, Governance, Space and Spinach.

During this year, China, in my experience, has changed its media coverage. About three years ago at the height of the Trump Trade War, I saw their media coverage change, and they started hitting back at the propaganda media about China. This gave rise to the description ‘Wolf Warrior Diplomacy’.

We’ve had another change and this comes from the idea that they think they are losing the media wars. So, as we see so often, if you put an impediment in front of China, they find some way to go around that impediment. In the media wars, they are distributing the most excellent information that one could wish for. This is new for China as they have always been reticent in talking about themselves.

I am referring to publications such as the following that attempt (and do a good job at it) to explain China to the world.…
This post is a should-read on China. 

The Vineyard of the Saker
Sitrep: Here Comes China: Great Chinese Firewall, Governance, Space and Spinach.
Selections from Godfree Roberts’ extensive weekly newsletter

See also

Chinese government white paper.

Global Times (Chinese state-sponsored media)
Full Text: China's Political Party System: Cooperation and Consultation
Xinhua

Pepe Escobar — A Sovereign Iran Will Move Closer To Russia-China

Backgrounder.
Raeisi acknowledged the immense internal challenges he faces, in terms of putting the Iranian economy back on track, getting rid of the neoliberal drive of outgoing Team Rouhani, and fighting widespread corruption. The fact that election turnout was only 48.7%, compared to the average 70% in the prior three presidential contests will make it even more difficult.

Yet in foreign policy Iran’s path ahead is unmistakable, centered on the “Look East” strategy, which means closer cooperation with China and Russia, with Iran developing as a key node of Eurasian integration or, according to the Russian vision, the Greater Eurasia Partnership.

As Professor Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran told me “there’s going to the a tilt eastward, and to the Global South. Iran will improve relations with China and Russia, also because of US pressure and sanctions. President-elect Raeisi will be better positioned to strengthen these ties than the outgoing administration.”

Marandi added, “Iran won’t intentionally hurt the nuclear deal if the Americans – and the Europeans – move towards full implementation. The Iranians will reciprocate. Neighbors and regional countries will also be a priority. So Iran will no longer be waiting for the West.”...
Zero Hedge
Pepe Escobar: A Sovereign Iran Will Move Closer To Russia-China

Sanders: We’ll borrow money to fund ‘one time infrastructure programs’ due to low interest rates

 

Looks like Bernie wants to take advantage of today’s low interest rate environment to borrow more munnie from China so we can have the munnie to maintain our own infrastructure….  What a f-ing uneducated douche bag unqualified commie idiot…





Yellen: US “out of money!” in August

 

I don’t see it… they are supposed to have the TGA down to 450b area by end July and the deficit has been running about 150b to 200b per month… so they should be able to last 2 to 3 months till the TGA is zeroed… seems like rather Sept/Oct timeframe… which would coincide with regular order for a budget reconciliation…  unless there is an unforeseen fiscal increase then looks like extraordinary measures for a few months then a resuspension of the ceiling via reconciliation of FY22 budget with TGA near zero…  i.e. the usual brinkmanship…





Friday, June 25, 2021

Why Reiving the JCPOA is Difficult for the US — Salman Rafi Sheikh

Without a deal before the new president takes over, a return to JCOPA is looking less and less likely — not that it ever had real legs anyway. Too much politics on both sides, and too many conflicting interests.  

NEO
Salman Rafi Sheikh

Also

RT
Iran says it’s not required to comply with UN nuclear watchdog’s demand of ‘immediate response’ on extending monitoring deal

1920's Flappers in USSR | 1929 AI Enhanced Film [60 fps,4k]

 Who said the Russians never smile?


Description

1920's Flappers in USSR | 1929 AI Enhanced Film [60 fps,4k]

Roaring Twenties Soviet Union in 1929. Brought to life with AI. Filmed largely in Odessa, Ukraine.

Not exactly the image which history has left us of the former USSR.




Jonas Elvander – Interview with Costas Lapavitsas and Nicolás Águila: Modern Monetary Theory says that money is fundamental to human existence

Two Marxian economists critique MMT. 
I want to stress that because people often do not realise it. And more broadly, both MMT and Marxism offer a challenge to the aggressive capitalism of the last four decades.

However, there are crucial differences between us, which Nicolás and I brought out in our paper. They also go back a long time. The most fundamental difference has to do with what money is, and that is not a minor issue. People might think it is a bunch of academics disagreeing about ancient history or abstract ideas. Far from it. The bottom line is this: MMT argues, in the line of previous chartalist theories, that money is created outside the market, that it is the creation of the state, of some sort of a social authority. And, therefore, money in in the power of that authority. In contrast, Marxism argues that money is the creation of the market: it is an unplanned and unintended outcome of spontaneous market interactions. Money emerges when commodities interact, whether you like it or not.
Of course, this is not what MMT says at all. According to MMT, state money has been the dominant financial economic institution for thousands of years. A sovereign has the ability to set and issue the unit of account and ensures demand for it by those who use it by accepting only its currency in satisfaction of financial obligations it imposes, chiefly taxation, but also tariffs, fees and fines. In so doing, the sovereign exerts a monopoly on the currency as issuer. Demand creation for the currency through taxation constitutes a sufficient condition for a state currency to be accepted in the market to transfer privately owned goods to public use. It is, however, a necessary condition for a state to be fully sovereign, which is why those who oppose state power oppose chartal money. If a state has to obtain that which is necessary to transact rather than create it, e.g., under a metals standard, then the state is subject to the dynamics of a monetary system it doesn't control. This limits the fiscal power of the state.


See also

Another take by a Marxist involving MMT.

The Bezos Theory of Value Is Deeply Disturbing — William Banks

 The rationale for capitalism as a socio-economic system based on individualism. (No systems awareness.)

In his final letter to shareholders as Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos offers a novel — and profoundly disturbing — conception of value creation: a handful of visionaries are the sole source of all “real value.” This aristocracy mercifully blesses customers, clients, and even Amazon workers with social goods.

Sailing into Black Sea trouble: the right of innocent passage (with some caveats of course) — Nat South

Good summary of the blow-by-blow in relation to UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea)

Britain and the US caught lying rather than admit they got outplayed (again).

The Vineyard of the Saker
Sailing into Black Sea trouble: the right of innocent passage (with some caveats of course)
Nat South for The Saker blog

RT - China releases footage of last year's deadly border clash with India

Scary! 


Chinese media released unique footage of the deadly border clash between Chinese and Indian troops in the disputed Western Himalayas region last June. The incident left four Chinese and 20 Indian soldiers dead.

The video shows a massive force of Indian troops advancing on a significantly less sizeable Chinese unit while crossing a mountain river.

The release of the previously unseen footage comes after the Chinese military broke its eight-month silence on the event. The two nations have recently reached a disengagement agreement and are currently pulling their troops from the disputed border






The NED’s New CEO: Atlantic Council Warmonger Damon Wilson — Brian Berletic

Wilson’s appointment as president and CEO of the NED may help governments around the globe better explain to their respective populations the danger the NED poses and the necessity of legislation to inhibit or entirely ban the organization and those taking money from them from within their borders.

Gershman – for nearly 40 years – oversaw an NED attempting and ultimately failing to put a velvet glove over CIA-sponsored regime change. Wilson will be overseeing an NED unable to hide behind such facades any longer – with his own pro-war, pro-intervention, and pro-special interests background undermining the organization’s self-proclaimed but obviously misleading mission statement even further.
TPTB may as well just return the US government funded NED to the CIA, from which it was spun off as cover. The masquerade is now completely exposed.

NEO
The NED’s New CEO: Atlantic Council Warmonger Damon Wilson
Brian Berletic, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer. He formerly wrote under the pseudonym Tony Cartalucci.

TASS — Moscow Exchange to reject US clients’ applications for OFZ bonds from June 28

Since June 14, the US authorities have banned American investors from buying government bonds issued by the Russian Central Bank, the Finance Ministry or the National Wealth Fund on the primary market…
TASS

Sputnik — China Launches First Electric Train In Tibet Near India's Border

India and China are trying to outpace each other in infrastructure development along their disputed Himalayan border. Incidents of threats from villagers have been reported on the Indian side. Villagers have demanded that the Indian government provide them with road, rail and electricity infrastructure; otherwise they will seek Chinese help....
"Competition."

Sputnik International
China Launches First Electric Train In Tibet Near India's Border

UN General Assembly Once More Denounces US Blockade of Cuba — W. T. Whitney

The United Nations General Assembly on June 23 overwhelmingly approved a Cuban resolution condemning the U.S. economic, commercial, and financial blockade of Cuba, in place for 60 years, The Assembly has done precisely that every year since 1992, except for 2020, when the vote was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The vote this time was: 184 nations approving; two opposing, Israel and the United States; and three abstaining, Colombia, Ukraine, and Brazil.

All along, the United States and Israel have opposed the resolution, alone on ten occasions, especially since 2010. One or two other nations occasionally joined them, often the U.S. dependencies Palau and the Marshall Islands.…
Economic warfare. 

When the US cannot get its usual toadies to go along, it is obvious that the US (empire) is on the wrong side of history (and refuses to see it). In attempting to isolate others, the US is isolating itself as this vote shows.

Copunterpunch

China Starts Production At Massive Deepwater Gas Field — Irina Slav

China’s CNOOC this week started production from the first deepwater gas field it operates fully, Reuters has reported, adding that the field is expected to yield some 4.39 billion cubic meters of natural gas, representing 2 percent of China’s total output....
Oilprice
China Starts Production At Massive Deepwater Gas Field
Irina Slav

Economics/Finance Analysis Package — Brian Romanchuk

I wrote a free post on my Patreon discussing my open source econ_platform package, which is mainly in Python — although it supports other languages. (I produce my charts in R.) The package is available at https://github.com/brianr747/platform.

The article discusses the core of the package - the fetch() function. Using the fetch command allows me to generate this exciting Icelandic HICP inflation rate in just four lines of code (one of which is the boilerplate library initialisation command).
Bond Economics
Economics/Finance Analysis Package
Brian Romanchuk

James Galbraith — China and Supply Chains – The White House Review’s Focus on US Depenedence

The pros and cons of capitalism. Chimerica was great while it lasted — until the US elite realized that globalization is not necessarily in the interest of the American Empire unless the US is in complete control of it. Thus, the "pivot to Asia" and the attempt to impose a American"rules-based-order" where the "exceptional" and "indispensable" county makes the rules to suit its imperial interests. What's not to like and what could go wrong?

See also

Asia Times
American ‘decoupling’ from China, deconstructed
Urban C. Lehner

The ironic thing is that as the West decouples from China, China will have the space to balance it's economy away from foreign-investment, export-driven toward state-funded, domestic-driven. This is the direction in which China is already heading anyway. So expect import substitution and increased attention on Central Asia including Russia, Africa and Latin America, where China has already made strong inroads in isolating the Global East/South from the Global North/West. After the Modi government, India will also realize that it belong with the Global South/East rather than with its previous colonial masters it still emulates. That is coming to an end.

Thoughty 2 - Why is modern music so awful

 I think Thoughty 2 is right. 

I remember when I was young often buying a naff record but because I had paid money for it, I would persevere and keep playing it, then, after a while, I would often start to like it. After that, I would zoom around my mates house all charged up about this great new band I had discovered, only to be greatly disappointed when my friend didn't like it much either, but within a week or two, he's right into it as well. 

Nowadays, though, with streamed music, if it doesn't hit right away we move on, and now all music is designed to excite straight away and all nuance and complexity has been lost. 



Thoughty 2 - Why is modern music so awful


Also of interest: Modern Music's Death by Autotune. I absolutely can't stand this instrument, but maybe I've just got old, so I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in my dislike. But it is a useful tool when used occasionally. 



Modern Music's Death by Auto-Tune

UK doctor switches to 80% ULTRA-processed food diet for 30 days 🍔🍕🍟 BBC

 When Dr Chris van Tulleken embarked on an ultra-processed 30 day diet to uncover what effect it has on our bodies, the results leave him and the scientists in shock!




Thursday, June 24, 2021

Hypersonic Missiles: A New Arms Race — Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan

China, Russia and the United States are all pursuing hypersonic weapons technologies, setting the stage for an arms race....
The Diplomat
Hypersonic Missiles: A New Arms Race
Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan

Common Dreams — ‘Bipartisan’ Infrastructure Plan is a Privatization-Promoting Disaster

In response, Food & Water Watch Public Water for All Director Mary Grant released the following statement:
“This White House-approved infrastructure deal is a disaster in the making. It promotes privatization and so-called ‘public-private partnerships’ instead of making public investments in publicly-owned infrastructure. Communities across the country have been ripped off by public-private schemes that enrich corporations and Wall Street investors and leave the rest of us to pick up the tab.

“Privatization is nothing more than an outrageously expensive way to borrow funds, with the ultimate bill paid back by households and local businesses in the form of higher rates. The White House identifies privatization as a means to finance infrastructure investment is disappointing and outrageous. Communities need real support, not privatization scams.

“The most sensible infrastructure solution is to provide robust public funding for publicly-owned projects, which would discourage price-gouging by corporate interests, protect public control over these precious assets, and save everyone money. The most comprehensive funding solution on the table is the WATER Act (HR1352, S916), which would provide $35 billion a year to fully fund the state revolving funds and other programs at the level that is needed.

“This package does not provide adequate funding to rebuild and repair our country’s infrastructure, nor does it do nearly enough to combat the climate crisis. Lawmakers can and must press for a better deal.”…

See also

The Political Economy of Development
Privatisation as Ideology
Nick Johnson

Also

Corporate Dems are doing their best to lose control in the midterms.

Common Dreams
Progressives Alarmed by Privatization Dub Infrastructure Deal a 'Disaster in the Making'Jessica Corbett, staff writer

Here Come Wall Street Rental Communities: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? — Pam and Russ Martens

If you’ve been following our reporting of JPMorgan Chase since Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon has been at the helm, you’re aware of one striking fact: this bank has a pattern of getting into bed with unsavory characters: Bernie Madoff, check. Racketeering traders, check. A sex trafficker of children, Jeffrey Epstein, check. Money launderers, check. The guy who bragged on his resume that he knew how to game electric markets, check.

Despite an unprecedented record of five felony counts from the U.S. Department of Justice since 2014, to which it admitted guilt, and the reputational damage this has done to its brand, JPMorgan Chase’s asset management unit made the unusual decision last year to form a joint venture with an SFR (Single-Family Rental company) whose tenant complaints are so eye-popping that they fill pages on the internet and have been the focus of television and magazine reporting.…
Rent-seeking.

Wall Street On Parade
Here Come Wall Street Rental Communities: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Pam Martens and Russ Martens

Bill Mitchell — Massive wastage of labour in the European Union

I have been updating my databases in the last few days and getting up to speed on the latest trends. In the past, I developed a set of broad labour market indicators for Australia with colleagues at the – Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE). Our quarterly measures of underemployment were precursors to the Australian Bureau of Statistics measures which are now published on a monthly basis. I was doing some calculations this morning using Eurostat data as part of some research I am doing to assess the inflationary potential that exists in various labour markets. As regular readers will know, my assessment of inflation risk starts in the labour market. Rarely do we encounter a situation where nominal spending outstrips the productive capacity of the economy (a demand-pull inflationary environment). That can occur is specific product segments but rarely overall. History tells us that there has to be some distributional struggle between labour and capital to drive an inflationary spiral. I am out there looking for any evidence of such a struggle. I am not having much success!….
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Massive wastage of labour in the European Union
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

House Republicans demand accountability for China on coronavirus pandemic: Make them 'feel pain'

 

Notice it’s not that China created the virus that’s the problem (seems like USs NIAID probably  has  co-culpability there) but rather that they withheld information when it was apparent that it was in the China population… oh ok... this is called the old switcheroo…





Wednesday, June 23, 2021

What’s the purpose of mathematical modeling? — Andrew Gelman

And it has this good quote:

Scientists — not just in epidemiology, but in physics, ecology, climatology, economics and every other field — don’t build models as oracles of the future. For them, a model “is just a way of understanding a particular process or a particular question we’re interested in,” Kucharski said, “and working through the logical implications of our assumptions.”
Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
What’s the purpose of mathematical modeling?
Andrew Gelman | Professor of Statistics and Political Science and Director of the Applied Statistics Center, Columbia University

The Prehistory of Private Property: Chapter-by Chapter Summary — Karl Widerquist

The book, the Prehistory of Private Property by Grant S. McCall an me, examines the origin and development of the private property rights system from prehistory to the present day to debunk three widely accepted false beliefs about the private property system: that inequality is natural, inevitable, or incompatible with freedom; that capitalism is more consistent with negative freedom than any other conceivable economic system; and that there is something “natural” about the private property system. That is, the normative principles of appropriation and voluntary transfer applied in the world in which we live support a capitalist system with strong, individualist, and unequal private property rights. The book reviews the intellectual history of these claims and demonstrates their importance in contemporary political thought before reviewing the history and prehistory of the private property system to address their veracity. In so doing, the book uses thorough anthropological and historical evidence to refute these three claims. The book shows that societies with common-property systems maintaining strong equality and extensive freedom were initially nearly ubiquitous around the world, that their claims to common ownership were consistent with appropriation-based theories, and that the private property rights system was established through a long series of violent state-sponsored aggressions.
This post summarizes the book, chapter-by-chapter....

Bill Mitchell — Culture of austerity distorts business decision-making and we all lose

It is Wednesday and so a few snippets and some Afrobeat. Today, I briefly discuss a rather extraordinary claim by the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia that Australian employers refuse to pay higher wages in an environment where the federal government is biases aggregate policy towards surplus creation, even though that strategy was temporarily disabled during the first year of the pandemic. The overall austerity environment has distorted business decision-making to such an extent that firms are now obsessed with cost control and have forgotten that spending equals income and by encouraging a high wage, high productivity culture, their profits rise as well. Win-Win. At present it is lose-lose....
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Culture of austerity distorts business decision-making and we all lose
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Ismail Bashimi - What do you think about China?

 I think really shows why so many of us in on the left are so inspired by China. It has had a chequered history, for sure, and it will have its fair share of right-wing hawks and psychopaths, like any country, and some of these people will be in high places, but we're hoping it's system of governmence will keep them at bay, or even remove them completely before they get too much power. 

Mankind can be brutal, and can often be so even without even fully knowing it (when pretending it to be a necessary evil), and this is why so many of us feel that China is our best chance of changing how the world is run. I'm pro democracy and yet in every democracy the aristocracy rule, not really the people. China keeps the rich out of power (like Jack Ma) which is one of the reasons the Western elite hate it so much. 

You might say that the top of the CPC are the oligarchs, or the elite, but just the same, they are scientists and engineers who have spent many years working their way up to the top of the party by showing their ability when running the provinces. It's a meritocracy where about 85% of the people who run the party came from poor backgrounds. 


China is also standing up to the Western world all by herself. The West hates and fears that China is shooting up to the top. They can't believe their four-hundred-year-old global supremacy is being challenged. They hoped that the more China developed, the more it would submit to their influence, interests, and leadership. That didn't happen. So now they will do anything possible, short of a nuclear war, to make China end. Their goal is to destroy this country. That's why, althought the United States has killed several million people and turned several regions of the earth into hellscapes since I was born in 1988, your TV, newspapers, Google newsfeed, and social media are all cursing, condemning and pandering panic and hatred of China 24 / 7. China is the worst fear of our planet's Western masters. They want you to despise and dread a country that's done nothing to you, that hasn't invaded anyone, bombed or sanctioned anyone, that hasn't overthrown any foreign government, or used its military on anything since 1979. You'll hate China and pray for its collapse, so that the West can continue to do what it's done since the age of Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro — rape and pillage the earth from Latin America to Southeast Asia, and disguise its blood-spattered imperialism in the soft power and propaganda of “Western civilization" and world leadership.

China is the only major country in the nonwhite developing world, to stand up to the West.

Quora 

Ismail Bashimi - What do you think about China?



FT - Will China become the centre of the world economy?ll China become the centre of the world economy?

The global economy is shifting away from the US and Europe towards Asia. The FT's global China editor James Kynge FT economics commentator discuss whether China will dominate global commerce or whether the world economy could split along regional lines


 FT - Will China become the centre of the world economy?ll China become the centre of the world economy?

One pattern of comments — Brian Romanchuk

One pattern of comments that I have seen is where the person making the comment points out some particular price change, and asserts that this somehow proves that inflation cannot be 2%. This is a criticism of CPI data that does not stand up to even a brief examination of the official data...
I've seen this pattern of inflation hysteria for as long as I can remember.

Bond Economics 
One pattern of comments
Brian Romanchuk

CRT [Critical Race Theory] — Robert Paul Wolff

In case you were wondering.

The Philosopher's Stone
CRT [Critical Race Theory]
Robert Paul Wolff | Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Questioning Modern Monetary Theory: Part 2 — Nick Johnson

This is the second part in a new series which explores some aspects of Modern Monetary Theory. As I’ve said already, the series does not aim to be comprehensive. Rather, I cover the aspects which I find most interesting. Here I focus on fiscal policy....
The Political Economy of Development
Questioning Modern Monetary Theory: Part 2
Nick Johnson

Bill Mitchell — Restricting population growth is good for local workers

In the aftermath of the 1991 recession, which was the worst economic downturn in Australia since the Great Depression of the 1930s, I wrote a series of articles that we published in academic journals. In part, they were theoretical pieces that conjectured about the impact of rapid population growth on the labour market, which at the time was characterised by persistently high unemployment and rising underemployment (the recession had replaced full-time with part-time work). My conjecture was that high rates of immigration at a time of slow employment growth would lock unemployed workers into long-term unemployment. Of course, I could not test that proposition because the government maintained the relatively high immigration levels and other factors might have been responsible for the rising long-term unemployment. Last week’s Australian Labour Force data showed that unemployment and the unemployment rate has fallen rather quickly in recent months as the economy recovers slowly from the pandemic recession. Historical comparisons show the unemployment response this time has been much larger than in the previous recessions. The other key point is that the working age population has grown at historically low rates as a result of the border closures. It seems that my conjectures in the early 1990s were correct, despite getting flack at the time from mainstream economists who were pushing the line that immigration is always good for the labour market.
Scarcity rules in markets. Immigration affects that, which is why immigration is a major political issue in the US now. The objection is not just to importing low skilled workers but also knowledge worker. Of course, importing embedded in labor in less expensive goods is also a form of "exporting" jobs and capital. What favors firms in this regard, disadvantages local workers. It's also a reason for opposition to the EU that resulted in Brexit.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Restricting population growth is good for local workers
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

McConnell says no quarter for S.1

 

Maybe some sort of election reform is what GOP will be negotiating for under the “debt ceiling “ brinksmanship...  can’t think of anything else ...





YELLEN, POWELL, GENSLER ATTEND MEETING WITH BIDEN

 

Complete waste of time unless Pocahontas is there....





Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses every year, ITV News investigation finds

 So much for the brown cardboard recyclable packaging Amazon use to promote its green image.


Online giant Amazon is destroying millions of items of unsold stock every year, products that are often new and unused, ITV News can reveal.


Footage gathered by ITV News shows waste on an astonishing level.

And this is from just one of 24 fulfilment centres they currently operate in the UK


ITV


https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-21/amazon-destroying-millions-of-items-of-unsold-stock-in-one-of-its-uk-warehouses-every-year-itv-news-investigation-finds

.

Hayek’s Bastards: The Populist Right’s Neoliberal Roots, By Quinn Slobodian

 The neoliberals view democracy as socialism. To them, the only democracy necessary is when people choose what to buy in the maket place. There is no other accountability. 


Neoliberalism is often described as market fundamentalism, or the belief that everything on the planet has a price tag, borders are obsolete, the world economy should replace nation-states, & human life is reducible to a cycle of earn, spend, borrow, die.


Tribune


Hayek’s Bastards: The Populist Right’s Neoliberal Roots, By Quinn Slobodian


Frank Li on neoliberalism







Monday, June 21, 2021

What Happened to the U.S. Deficit with China during the U.S.-China Trade Conflict? — Hunter L. Clark and Anna Wong

The United States’ trade deficit with China narrowed significantly following the imposition of additional tariffs on imports from China in multiple waves beginning in 2018—or at least it did based on U.S. trade data. Chinese data tell a much different story, with the bilateral deficit rising nearly to historical highs at the end of 2020. What’s going on here? We find that (as also discussed in a related note) much of the decline in the deficit recorded in U.S. data was driven by successful efforts to evade U.S. tariffs, with an estimated $10 billion loss in tariff revenues in 2020.
Interesting numbers.

FRBNY — Liberty Street Economics
What Happened to the U.S. Deficit with China during the U.S.-China Trade Conflict?
Hunter L. Clark, assistant vice president in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Research and Statistics Group and Anna Wong, a principal economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

TASS US-based Bard College deemed undesirable NGO in Russia

 MMT and Post Keynesianism?

Or

Soros connection? Soros is a longtime supporter of Bard.

TASS
US-based Bard College deemed undesirable NGO in Russia

See also

Forbes
George Soros Is Giving $500 Million To Bard College
Susan Adams, Forbes Staff

Also
At Davos, George Soros, in his speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF), Soros committed $1 billion towards fighting nationalism and nationalists. George Soros claimed that the “biggest and most frightening setback” was in India and accused Narendra Modi of “creating a Hindu nationalist state.”
OpinIndia
Moving toward establishing criteria about which govts are ‘objectionable’: What Russian Security Council chief said on George Soros, role in USA unrest

Also
A college in northern Russia has burned 53 books linked to a charity founded by hedge fund mogul George Soros, according to Russian media, just weeks after the organization was banned for being a “security threat” by Russian authorities.
CNBC
Soros charity targeted in Russia book-burning
Kalyeena Makortoff



Book review: Roland Boer – Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners — Tamara Prosic

The truth about socialism with Chinese characteristics lies between the extremes of 11) China has abandoned Marxism and caved to capitalism and 2) China is now a capitalist country, albeit state capitalism (which is one characteristic of fascism as a political theory).

Friends of Socialist China
Book review: Roland Boer – Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners
Tamara Prosic | Senior Researcher with the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Bill Mitchell — Rising prices equal an inflation outbreak (apparently) but then the prices start falling again

In my daily data life, I check out movements in commodity prices just to see what is going on. As I wrote recently in my UK Guardian article (June 7, 2021) – Price rises should be short-lived – so let’s not resurrect inflation as a bogeyman – the inflation hysteria has really set in. I provided more detail in this blog post – Price rises should be short-lived – so let’s not resurrect inflation as a bogeyman (June 9, 2021). Yes, I stole the title of my article for the blog post if you are confused. The inflation hysteria really reflects the fact that mainstream economists are ‘lost at sea’ at present given the dissonance between the real world data and the errant predictions from their economic framework. They cannot really understand what is happening so when they see a graph rising it must be inflation and that soothes them because rising deficits and central bank bond purchases have to be inflationary according to their perverted theoretical logic. The financial market press then just repeats the nonsense with very little scrutiny. But given many graphs are falling again, this Pavlovian-type response behaviour must be really doing their heads in. I have no sympathy....
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Rising prices equal an inflation outbreak (apparently) but then the prices start falling again
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Sunday, June 20, 2021

The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies — The G7 jolly – a symbol of everything that is wrong with the global economic system.

The problem in a nutshell.
However, currently we have a democratic deficit reinforced by a toxic media which, as Raoul Martinez, the philosopher, artist, and filmmaker so rightly notes:
‘As long as the vast majority of wealth is controlled by a tiny proportion of humanity, democracy will struggle to be little more than a pleasant mask worn by an ugly system.’

The world system is becoming increasingly dysfunctional and one of the chief factors is the erroneous 'government as big household or firm' analogy that is standing the way of public policy and concerted action international needed to address existential systemic challenges.

This propaganda for fiscal conservatism is echoed by the corporate media and enforced globally by Western-led military power.

MMT to the rescue.

The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies
The G7 jolly – a symbol of everything that is wrong with the global economic system.

 

Guli: The most ridiculous evidence of genocide in Xinjiang

 laowhy86, a YouTuber who makes anti-China videos, has been caught red handed lying and doing propaganda. He altered some photos and then made up a story. He makes his money out of his followers by doing these sort of videos. 

On YouTube, Twitter, Quora and other media, there are various so-called "evidences" about the existence of genocide in Xinjiang, but in fact none of them are convincing, because these so-called "evidences" are fabricated out of thin air.

Ok, today I will expose a so-called "evidence" fabricated out of thin air.

Through this video, I believe that many people will see the true colors of these people. They don't care what the truth is. They just want to discredit China and Xinjiang because they make a living by it.


Guli: The most ridiculous evidence of genocide in Xinjiang


Saturday, June 19, 2021

Asking Hunter-Gatherers Life's Toughest Questions

 A fascinating look at the life of hunter gatherers in African. The Hadzabe didn't seem to have much interest in the after-life, and all answers went back to being about meat. They are so friendly, healthy, and attractive, but not so friendly to baboons, though. 


The Hadza Tribe or Hadzabe are a remote African Tribe of Hunter-Gatherers in African country of Tanzania. A few months ago, I was lucky to enough to be able to join them on a hunt to baboons. We didn't catch any, so we decided to return to try again. Right before raiding the baboon camp, I took a quiet moment to ask Soloco, the tribe's leader some of life's deepest questions. These were his responses.




Asking Hunter-Gatherers Life's Toughest Questions

 



RAIDING A BABOON CAMP with Hadza Hunter-Gatherers in Tanzania




CATCHING BABOONS with the HADZA PEOPLE (We finally got them)



"Heterodox" economics as rediscovery — Chris Dillow

Mentions functional finance and cites Randy Wray. Good read.

Stumbling and Mumbling
"Heterodox" economics as rediscovery
Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle

On My Research Program — Robert Vienneau

I wonder if somebody that understands something about algebraic geometry could summarize my approach more shortly, but even more abstractly. I hope and wish that I can read sometime somebody extending this research. Some sort of structures definitely seem to exist in these parameter spaces.
Thoughts On Economics
On My Research Program
Robert Vienneau

Friday, June 18, 2021

FT - Elon Musk: CO2 saint or sinner? | FT Film


The electric car revolutionary has built a reputation as a clean energy champion. But SpaceX has never fitted in with Musk's green image. Now the tech billionaire is driving the energy-hungry crypto market. FT writers and experts weigh his climate record, both good and bad, and ask whether his green status stacks up


FT


Elon Musk: CO2 saint or sinner? | FT Film


BRICS Info — China, Russia Reveal Roadmap for International Moon Base

Russia and China unveiled a roadmap for a joint International Lunar Research Station to guide collaboration and development of the project.

Chinese and Russian space officials revealed the plans at the Global Space Exploration (GLEX) conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, stating that the ILRS has received the interest of a number of countries and organizations.

The ILRS is planned to be developed concurrently but separate to the United States’ Artemis lunar exploration program....
BRICS Info
China, Russia Reveal Roadmap for International Moon Base
Space News

Why seagulls are making their homes in our cities

 Seagulls prefer Papa John's pizzas to cod nowadays. 


Much of the birds' success in cities is due to their long lives, which allows the birds to build up an extensive memory of where and how to find food. Unlike garden songbirds (which generally live 3-5 years), gulls can live decades and accumulate valuable experience. The oldest bird studied by Rock was a lesser black-backed gull fitted with a leg ring on a rooftop close to Bristol Bridge in 1989, which lived for 28 years. The gull decided to stay for his final days in the sunshine near Malaga, in Spain, laughs Rock. The European record for lesser black-backed gulls is 34 years of age.

The benefit of this long life, is that older gulls know all the tricks. "A wise gull knows everything about food within its home range," says Rock. The venerable lesser black-backed gull he had been following had frequented the Gloucester landfill for many years and when the landfill shut he found other means.


"The gulls are smart. It is hard to catch them. Once you do, catching them again is even harder,"  says Lesley Thorne, a seabird ecologist


BBC


Why seagulls are making their homes in our cities

Moon of Alabama — U.S. Excluded China From International Space Projects - It Build Its Own

"Competition."
The attempts to keep China and increasingly also Russia away from international space projects have only led to them starting competing projects. These are likely to gain more countries to cooperate with them.

The exclusionary policy of the U.S. has not been successful. In the end it resulted in a loss of influence over future projects for which China and Russia are inviting everyone but the U.S....
Moon of Alabama
U.S. Excluded China From International Space Projects - It Build Its Own