Weaponising the dollar will only catalyse this process of de-dollarisation. The basis of any financial system or fiat currency is trust. The British pound bears the legend “I promise to pay the bearer one pound” as the note is not money qua money, but a note of promise to pay money to the holder of the note, originally in the form of gold. Using money as a weapon undermines this trust.
The use of dollars as the currency of preference gives the US enormous geopolitical power and at the same time being the reserve currency of choice it also creates an enormous pool of money for the US government to draw on in its own borrowing.
Undermining that trust and penalising Russian banks will only drive Russia closer into the arms of China, with which Russia has already been actively developing an alternative payment system. Moreover, China will be equally concerned by Russia’s exclusion from the dollar settlement system, as clearly Biden’s agenda is to deal with the China problem next and Beijing will be next in line for the same treatment. Other countries that are also on the US problem list will be equally concerned and also want to have alternatives to the dollar system. None of this is in the US long-term strategic interest....
Friday, January 21, 2022
Nato enlargement crisis: money becomes a weapon — Ben Aris
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The past 6 months I have been studying Christopher Hitchens.
Reading all his articles in the national and Vanity Fair and some of his books. A very interesting character indeed who ended up not supporting any political ideology after his deep dive into religion. After 9/11 turned into supporting some of the neoconservative agenda due to his new found hatred of Islam.
What is very fascinating is the depth of political debates in the US in the 80 and 90's that really never took place in the UK. There are loads on you tube.
What I've been looking for is some kind of proof that shows clearly the current economic paradigm was created in a Pentagon cupboard specifically to be used for NATO expansion. A Gotcha moment.
I found one straight from the horses mouth John O' sullivan.
John O' sullivan is a very interesting character he was Thatcherism he was the brain behind Margaret Thatcher. Here is his bio Thatcher was just the person put out front as window dressing.
https://nrinstitute.org/fellows/john-osullivan/
Whilst on the right wing blogs for 4 years I studied the Heritage foundation for 2 years and The Atlantic Initiative briefly to research the history and find out who the power brokers really are. It is fascinating and very interesting. Trumps policies were copy and paste jobs straight out of the Heritage foundation. John O'Sullivan set up the Atlantic initiative. He was one of the leading architects of Thatcherism and Reganism.
Here's the video of one of the debates I was talking about and it is from 1990. Listen to what John O' sullivan says about his plans for Europe when debating with Hitchens. It's only 20 mins.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lUH4RzAofv8
" We have not reached the end of this story yet. we need the some type of economic development that represents Nato. "
Which has nothing to do with full employment and price stability but everything to do with free trade and free markets and NATO expansion. The debates were so sociable and friendly in those days.
That debate above was in 1990 now role the clock forward to 2019. What you get is John O' Sullivan got everything he dreamed for 29 years later and yet seems repulsed by it.
From the Neocon national review....
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/brexit-debate-british-independence/
Clearly now the right act like the old left and the left act like the old right. It is an incredible U turn of ideas. What I call the Brexiverse after Brexit.
Boris got Corbynised by the media like Corbyn, Trump and Sanders. Boris went green and wanted to spend, spend, spend to level up the UK. Sunak the chancellor stopped him and right wing voters started to call him Marxist cheered on by Farage.
John O'Sullivan fully expected the US to take control of the old British Empire in fact as Kipling poem suggests the British wanted the US to take it and hopefully be some kind of partner and not left defeated, washed up and without any power. Free trade, free markets and economics created to fuel NATO expansion. The British got all of that and more. Yet, as the project continued over the years the British quickly realised they were getting weaker not more powerful as things changed across Europe.
That is my take on it anyways after 6 months of research. What's also interesting is Trumps attack on NATO and step back from the EU. Remember Trump was controlled by the Heritage Foundation at the time and Macron only last week saying the EU need to talk to Russia separately from the US.
None of this is controversial or Conspiracy if you go back and study these think tanks in the 80's and 90's and watch these debates on you tube from the 80 and 90's. It is black and white what had taken place.
I will add a little bit of conspiracy. I believe this UK and US step back stems from the hoops the Americans had to jump through for 6 months before they could attack Iraq. They wanted to attack in weeks and Cheney thought it was ridiculous America should wait. As explained in the Blair, Brown 6 part documentary on the BBC I player.
Who knows but both the UK and the US now seem to see the EU as a little bit of a threat rather than a partner. View NATO more as a partner than the EU nowadays. The right in both the UK and US have stepped back from the Frankenstein they created in Europe after forcing everyone to join and the liberals and liberal left in the UK and the US embrace it.
Everything that I found over the last 6 months totally backs up my view that the current economic paradigm was created for one reason and one reason only. Unfortunately, MMT'rs will have to take that into account and will really struggle to implement any real change. The 800 US military bases protect what has been put in place.
Cheney thought getting the UN resolutions to get permission to attack Iraq was an insult to America. Bush had to get Blair to convince Cheney to wait.
If you haven't seen the Blair and Brown years documentary on the BBC I player.
When the MMT economists debate MMT.
If they completely ignore the geopolitical and foreign policy landscape and just debate within their own borders.
Well in my view there is no point debating it at all.
I remember very clearly a recent Bloomberg debate between a neocon, Stephanie Kelton and German economist from the ECB.
Bloomberg organised the debate and Bloomberg readers could vote on Who they thought won the debate.
The very first words out of the German economist mouth from the ECB in the debate was geopolitics. That they can't adhere to the " deficit myth"
Watch it it is there for all to see. You will find it on you tube.
Hitchens was a peddler of anti religion schtick….
MMT can't address geopolitics.
What a proper US isolationist/anti-imperialist would do, is hand over NATO to the EU.
A Canadian isolationist would withdraw Canada from NATO.
Time for Europeans to manage their own affairs.
You think Americans can elect an anti-imperialist through the ballot box?
Think again.
What has to done, pacifists cannot do.
What has to be done, pacifists cannot do
“ hand over NATO to the EU.”
That’s what Trump was trying to do.,.
So why didn't he try harder?
Maybe he was told he'd be JFK'd.
MMT can't address geopolitics.
MMT can inform geopolitics. Geopolitics is about territory. See Robert Ardrey's The Territorial Imperative. It's an instinctual evolutionary trait that persists in humans.
This doesn't mean that humans are subject to the law of the jungle the way that other animals are. Humans have a greater degree of freedom and can also use intellect to supplement and correct instinct. They also have moral intuition or sentiment, depending on how one looks at it.
MMT lays out the field of the possible in terms of allocating real resources that are scarce, that is, not free goods, through price rationing in markets by beginning with institutional analysis.
There are three aspects of institutional analysis. The first is establishing the general case. The second is setting forth special cases. The third is investigating the consequences of institutional change.
In my view, most of the issues involved in geopolitics arise from lack of systems awareness and therefore not being able to think things through.
MMT can shed light on some integral aspects of the world system, making possible more intelligent approaches to addressing issues.
Of course, in the end politics involves power and interests and is dependent on decisions. This raises the question of choice of decision makers. A lot of the issues arise from unqualified people being selected to make crucial decisions. MMT can't address that issue other than pointing it out and showing how it leads to potentially disastrous decisions.
I post links to quite a bit of geopolitical analysis and virtually all of it would be better informed by understanding MMT. These commentators correctly point out that economics is basic to the issue, but almost none of them have a correct understanding of economics and finance.
https://twitter.com/deitaone/status/1484568057917984773?s=21
They had trouble settling Target2 yesterday after German guy blew off dementia Biden re ”Russia!”…
Maybe Germany flexing.., if the Biden people throw Russia off SWIFT probably German banks going to take the biggest hit..,
So Bundesbank refused to settle at ECB for the weekend..,
This is what you leftoids get for President who’s drug addict son is on Ukraine payroll….
Need Trump+ online soon for 24/7/365 “hard drive from hell” media coverage…
@Tom,
Humans are no different than other animals. Our species is governed by instinct. It's a fallacy of composition to believe that rationality at the individual or group level can be expressed at larger scales. Those who would choose war over peace are irrational and amoral. Washington routinely chooses war as a matter of course.
Look at the consensus over climate change and the peril of ecological overshoot. It has not and will not affect our behavior.
The American MMT economists need to talk about it more Tom.
Bill does. Mike tells it as it is.
Germany would have switched on Nordstream 2 by now without Sleepy Joe's interference and he needs to fuck off out of the Northern Ireland debate around Brexit and allow the UK to complete Brexit.
When you read the John O'Sullivan report on Brexit above I totally agree with most of it. Sunak will do whatever wall street tells him to do.
All the Tories that voted to stay in the EU in both the Parliament and the House of Lords want Starmer to win. They are desperate to reverse the Brexit result.
The civil service are doing everything they can to stop brexit.
Both the UK and the US have never been more divided. I hope Starmer and Biden gets wiped out at the next election. They are neoliberal globalist poison.
Hitchens wasn't a peddler of anti religion schtick…. He was absolutely fantastic and utterly brilliant at exposing how insane it all is. A fairy tale made by men.
Humans are no different than other animals.
Let's agree to disagree.
My view is that humans are no different than other animals only in certain respects but not in all and especially the most significant – reasoning, language-use, as well as accumulated knowledge that is not innate and invention of technology, etc., that are consequences of reasoning and communication. These add degrees of freedom that other animals do not possess, at least in the same degree.
Washington routinely chooses war as a matter of course.
I don't see that as the case. Rather, leaders make choices based on interest and in any group there are some conflicts of interest. There is a strong instinctual urge toward territorial control, but it is an instinct that can be controlled.
As far as large groups are concerned, leaders and dominant groups either force other groups to comply or use manipulation to manufacture consent, often against their interest.
These are matters of involving specifically human intelligence and moral sense.
Probably 1/4 of mankind is a warrior class… they don’t have a problem with it…
Most people don't have a problem with it - so long as it happens to people they don't know or care about.
They honor their dead,,, they’re proud of it..,,
https://kenketchum.tripod.com/newyorkchristianlawlibrary/id4.html
Pete this is Ravi Batra on Sarkar 4 archetypes Tom turned me on to this a while back imo there is a lot to it… it seems accurate… imo 100% compatible with Apostle Paul’s teachings.., probably universal knowledge…
“ This social theory divides a society into four main power groups or ways of thinking. The power groups take turn in controlling that society. Effectively you have a cycle of four different social systems. This occurs in a fixed sequence based on human behaviour. Below is a table with the sequence of social systems. ”
One of the 4 groups is a Warrior class…. They are among us…
Ravi Batra's sociology is based on the work of his guide, P. R. Sarkar (Shri Shri Anandamurti), who was an Indian historian and spiritual teacher. He also put forward an economic theory called PROUT: Progressive Utilisation Theory.
Wikipedia
Sarkar's theory of history is based on the ancient Vedic tradition of four castes, which Batra calls intellectuals, warriors, acquisitors, and laborers. The political leadership shifts among these. Plato put forward a similar theory.
The political class in the West is comprised chiefly of acquisitors that are interested in accumulating wealth. In a democracy, they need to gain the support of laborers, since they comprise the majority of the population. This type of ruling class is the lowest, being venal, and it tends to be somewhat disorganized as factions compete for wealth and power. Values deteriorate owing to hedonistic pursuits and excessive individualism. Thus, duty and honor are eclipsed.
Acquisitors have been in control globally for some time. This has resulted in the deterioration of values, The now dominant acquisitors will be replaced by a warrior class that will resurrect values and honor.
Warriors are not as interested in accumulating wealth as they are power and they are committed to duty, honor and other warrior values.
Interestingly, the political classes in Russia and China are largely composed of warriors, hence these societies are tightly organized (hierarchical and authoritarian)
“ In human history there has always been a Teacher and students...”
Correct but too many people think it’s all supposed to be a big behavior modification program.,,,
Our species has no narrative other than procreation and expansion into all available habitat. Just like any other animal species.
What have we done with technology?
Transformed the world so that 8 billion of us can be alive at the same time. Whether we are 8 billion or 8 trillion, our instinct to reproduce and expand will be undiminished.
Just because technology has temporarily made our squalid existence more bearable, doesn't mean we're on the cusp of enlightenment. Civility among humans is energy dependent. Our accomplishments are energy dependent. Our future is a measure of our collective behavior - and that future isn't bright because of ecological overshoot.
Like any animal, we made our bed and will have to face the consequences. We believe we'll get away with our behavior because technology will save us. Evolution says that the only ones who get away with anything are the survivors.
One of the 4 groups is a Warrior class…. They are among us…
There was a time when physical prowess was a requirement for leadership roles. Look at the pathetic frail old men who rule us... with so-called 'warriors' in their employ.
“ What have we done with technology?”
“WE” haven’t done anything… TECHNOLOGISTS have done it who are a subset of one of the 4 archetypes probably specialized laborers…
Don’t be ascribing technical advances to technical unqualified cohorts…
“ Our accomplishments are energy dependent.”
Again the technologists have come up with our energy systems they didn’t “evolve from the apes by random chance!”
Now unqualified art degree morons are trying to dismantle them because they think the ice is going to melt and the water is going to come up…
SCARY!
You guys can’t discriminate… it’s like you think everyone is the same…
Most of you guys are biased anti-war but not everyone is….
Warrior class volunteers to train for warfare and doesn’t have a problem with it…
Technical laborers design and manufacture WMD so they don’t have to get drafted into Warrior class like in the past…
You can just kill the enemy by pushing a button…. So you don’t need as many people on your side you can stay the hell out of it,,,
Development and implementation of technology is a small story.
What we do with technology is the big story.
What we did is plain to see. Built a lot of stuff, destroyed a lot of stuff, and multiplied like rabbits.
I'm saying this isn't higher purpose living.
8 billion humans eating, shitting and stripping a planet bare isn't a sign of a species headed towards enlightenment. I don't use the term 'human locust' lightly.
If you refuse to look at our accomplishments as a species, look at the rise and fall of civilizations. They are miniature scale versions of our likely future.
Warrior class volunteers to train for warfare and doesn’t have a problem with it…
Until they've seen war first hand. Those who aren't sociopaths are psychologically affected. The pretense that 'life is precious' is shattered.
Yes they get PTSD… but many other types can get that too from the stress in their work…
It’s Post Traumatic STRESS Disorder…. Not Post Traumatic WAR Disorder….
It comes from traumatic stress in general…
When everyone and their cat start claiming PTSD, it diminishes the seriousness of the condition.
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