Steve Roth — How Do Americans Get Rich? (And Stay Rich?)

Wealth is generally conceived as a stock that is increased by the flow of income. But some wealth grows by itself, for example, equity prices based on market cap and real estate based on land rent. While interest is considered a type of income and is booked periodically (and is taxable in the period), asset appreciation that increases wealth is not considered income but capital gains and it is not booked (or taxed) until it is realized  even though it results in actual wealth accrual. Steve Roth poses some questions about this.

A huge aid to answering that question arrived last month. Gabriel Zucman, Emmanuel Saez, and Thomas Piketty (PSZ) released one of the most important pieces of economic research in the last century. Their Distributional National Accounts (DINAs) reveal the distribution of national income to different income classes, wealth classes, age groups, and genders (and potentially different races, etc. etc.). This has been unavailable in the national accounts, and as a result it’s absent in most macroeconomic empirical work.…

But impressive as they are, the DINAs don’t fully answer the question of how Americans accumulate wealth. Because the DINAs only tally income, and income doesn’t include households’ holding (or “capital”) gains on stock portfolios, real estate, etc. Income does include much “property income” — dividends, interest, etc. That’s income from owning things. But it’s not everything that households receive from ownership. Holding gains figure large in that picture.

Any investor will tell you: cap gains are a big part of their wealth accumulation. Total return — dividends plus capital gains — is the measure that most savvy stock-market investors care about, long-term (and that fund managers like to tout, loudly). And much of Americans’ retirement saving — especially middle-class Americans — is accrued through capital gains on their homes.

The DINAs’ central goal is to match income as presented in the national accounts, and to reveal a multidimensional pyramid of distributional data underneath that income measure. A deeply worthy goal. But as a result, the DINAs can’t and don’t reveal the whole picture of household wealth accumulation (change in assets and net worth), or its distribution.…

Wealth accumulation greatly exceeds saving from income, pretty much always and everywhere, over very long periods. And holding gains are not a small part of wealth accumulation, especially for already-wealthy households....

Evonomics
How Do Americans Get Rich? (And Stay Rich?)

Steve Roth | Publisher of EvonomicsSae

Robert Paul Wolff — One Last Word on Exploitation

The Philosopher's Stone
One Last Word on Exploitation
Robert Paul Wolff | Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Peter Radford — The Naivety of Economics

Moar on what's wrong with economics.

The Radford Free Press
The Naivety of Economics
Peter Radford

see also

Offer and Söderberg clarify the circumstances behind the shift in economics that occurred in the late 1970’s and came into full effect in the subsequent decades. Their focus is heavily on how the Nobel Prize in economics has reinforced that shift and how the very origins of the prize were steeped in political bias on the part of the Swedish Central Bank, which was involved at the time in a guerrilla war against the then prevailing (in Sweden) economics of social democracy.

This history is, perhaps, the clearest indication of the inherent anti-democractic intentions of modern economics.

This is the period in which neoliberalism was replacing the New Deal in the US and taking aim at social democracy in Britain and Europe.

The Market Turn

Bill Mitchell — Foreign sales of US government debt are largely irrelevant

… there was an article in Bloomberg media (December 30, 2016) – Beware the Foreign Exodus From Treasuries – stirring up fear about the recent sales of foreign-held US government debt. I guess it was a slow news day or something because there is very little in the story that is relevant to assessing whether the US government can run an appropriate fiscal policy stance. The fact is that the foreign sales of US government debt are largely irrelevant for the US government’s capacity to maintain its net spending program. 

The sales are in US dollars and only the US government itself issues those dollars. To think that a foreign purchaser of a US Treasury debt liability are ‘providing dollars’ to the US government is to completely misunderstand the nature of the transaction. This blog considers the current data and explains how to think correctly about these matters. The question that financial commentators really should be asking is why should the US government extend that corporate welfare (risk-free bonds with income flow) to domestic bond-buyers and foreign governments/private investors. 

There is no financial reason (in terms of facilitating fiscal policy) for the bond issuance. It is just a form of welfare spending which helps the top-end-of-town....

[Introduced paragraphing by topic sentence to improve online readability.]

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Foreign sales of US government debt are largely irrelevant
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

More Public-Private Deals

ATC perhaps another area for Public-Private management.

Trump wants to privatize air traffic control, driving up ticket costs and risk of deadly crashes https://t.co/yHKqxY0c0t

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) January 2, 2017

Acquisitors replacing Intellectuals

Trump loading up on other Acquisitors to replace Obama's Intellectuals within the context of Sarkar's Social Cycle Theory.

Our material systems outcomes should improve under these people's rule.

Trump's nominees "include five billionaires and six multimillionaires. This is what is known as oligarchy." https://t.co/6uxz6PBFRy

— Pedro da Costa (@pdacosta) January 1, 2017

Fortune — Grizzly Misstep: Security Experts Call Russia Hacking Report “Poorly Done,” “Fatally Flawed”

On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI released a joint report about Russian cyberattacks, titled “Grizzly Steppe.” The report had been expected to lay out more details about intelligence agency’s claims that the Russian government was directly linked to hacks on the DNC and other organizations, but security experts have expressed broad disappointment with the report.

Jeffrey Carr, author of Inside Cyber Warfare, wrote on Friday that the report “adds nothing to the call for evidence that the Russian government was responsible” for the campaign hacks. Robert Lee, a former Air Force cyberwarfare officer and cybersecurity fellow at New America, argues that the report is of limited use to security professionals, in part because of poor organization and lack of crucial details....

Fortune
Grizzly Misstep: Security Experts Call Russia Hacking Report “Poorly Done,” “Fatally Flawed”
David Z. Morris

Washington's Blog — The Same Hackers Blamed for the DNC Email Hack Were Blamed for Hacking the German Parliament … But that Ended Up Being a Leak By German Insiders, Not a Hack At All

German security officials previously blamed Russia for hacking secret German communications and providing them to Wikileaks (English translation). And see this.

The claim? BBC reported:

"BfV [Germany’s intelligence agency] head Hans-Georg Maassen said Germany was a perennial target of a hacker gang known as Sofacy/APT 28 that some other experts also believe has close links with the Russian state. This group is believed by security experts to be affiliated with the Pawn Storm group that has been accused of targeting the CDU party...."

This is the same group blamed by the U.S. for the hack of the Democratic National Committee....

However, German officials now say that the communications were likely leaked from an insider within the German parliament, the Bundestag (English translation)....

Washington's Blog
The Same Hackers Blamed for the DNC Email Hack Were Blamed for Hacking the German Parliament … But that Ended Up Being a Leak By German Insiders, Not a Hack At All

Glenn Greenwald — Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost Again: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid

The Post has many excellent reporters and smart editors. They have produced many great stories this year. But this kind of blatantly irresponsible and sensationalist tabloid behavior — which tracks what they did when promoting that grotesque PropOrNot blacklist of U.S. news outlets accused of being Kremlin tools — is a byproduct of the Anything Goes mentality that now shapes mainstream discussion of Russia, Putin, and the Grave Threat to All Things Decent in America that they pose.

The level of groupthink, fearmongering, coercive peer pressure, and über-nationalism has not been seen since the halcyon days of 2002 and 2003. Indeed, the very same people who back then smeared anyone questioning official claims as Saddam sympathizers or stooges and left-wing un-American loons are back for their sequel, accusing anyone who expresses any skepticism toward claims about Russia of being Putin sympathizers and Kremlin operatives and stooges....

The Washington Pest (no typo) is coming in for it.

My take is that either the US elite has gone completely paranoid, or else there is method in this apparent madness.

The Intercept

Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost Again: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid

Glenn Greenwald

Jan Oberg — Humans In Liberated Aleppo

Photo journalism by a Swede on the scene at the time of the liberation of East Aleppo. Photographs and commentary that exposes the Western narrative and fake news based on it as propaganda.


Humans In Liberated AleppoDecember 11-12, 2016
Jan Oberg


See also

What happens when you fund terrorists as proxies and give them weapons.

This is hardly isolated but similar to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.

The Destruction of Eastern Aleppo, Syria

Sputnik — China Launches New Global Media Platform

China Central Television (CCTV), the country’s largest TV network, will launch a new global media platform New Year’s Day to tell the world more about the country, the network announced....

CCTV already has English, Arabic, French, Spanish and Russian-language channels and offices in Washington and Nairobi, the Independent notes. Following an announcement in 2009 that the country would spend $6.5 billion to help spread its message overseas, CCTV and the Xinhua News Agency have expanded, hiring journalists around the globe and leasing a giant display in Times Square to highlight its broadcast. (For comparison, the UK government is giving $289 million to the BBC World Service to expand over the next five years, Asia Times points out.)...

Sputnik International
China Launches New Global Media Platform

Matt Taibbi — Something About This Russia Story Stinks

The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up.

If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices in both parties are saying this now.…

Then there was the episode in which the Washington Post ran that breathless story about Russians aiding the spread of "fake news." That irresponsible story turned out to have been largely based on one highly dubious source called "PropOrNot" that identified 200 different American alternative media organizations as "useful idiots" of the Russian state.

The Post eventually distanced itself from the story, saying it "does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's findings." This was a very strange thing to say in a statement that isn't an outright retraction. The idea that it's OK to publish an allegation when you yourself are not confident in what your source is saying is a major departure from what was previously thought to be the norm in a paper like the Post.….

We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find to get a point across. 

Rolling Stone
Something About This Russia Story Stinks

Matt Taibbi

Moon of Alabama — New False Claims Of "Russian Hacks" = Old Ukrainian Malware Found

Moar on fake news distributed by Jeff Bezos' Washington Post, to which I refer less than affectionately as the Washing Pest.

Again, consider that most people read only headlines. The major mode of distributing propaganda is through headlines and media ledes. Even with qualifications embedded in the narrative, or even later corrections, most people will remember the headlines or lede.

This is a full court press against both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump simultaneously, with a side jab at Bernie Sanders, too.

Moon of Alabama
New False Claims Of "Russian Hacks" = Old Ukrainian Malware Found

See also

RT
‘Russian hackers’ penetrate US power grid with ‘outdated Ukrainian malware’

Charles Lyons — The Alt Right: The American Resistance

Another backgrounder that will apparently be useful in the coming year(s) from the way things are going.

Alt-Right, or Identarian, manifesto. I assume it speaks for a at least a significant cohort that identifies as alt-right.

Radix Journal
The Alt Right: The American Resistance
Charles Lyons

Gilbert Doctorow — Letter from India: Local and global speculation about Henry Kissinger

While these two posts are not must-reads, they are important for understanding the subtext rather in order to avoid being taken in by flawed analysis and propaganda. Most Westerners don't understand the Russian world view, which is called Russkiy mir (Русский мир) in Russia. Failure to get this difference in understanding, based on cultural bias, results in the US foreign policy establishment, the US government, and US media in taking a confrontational attitude toward Russia that is based more on imagination than reality.

And this lack of understanding of other cultures doesn't apply only to Russia. Americans generally project themselves on the world and wonder why their analysis doesn't work out as planned, as in Iraqis greeting their liberators with flowers, instituting a Western-style democracy and everyone living happily ever after. Even the American cultural myth of falling in love, marrying a person of one's own choice and "living happily ever after" is fiction instead of reality, judging from divorce statistics and domestic violence.

The first post is a backgrounder on history, international relations, Henry Kissinger and the Realist School (Realpolitik) by an expert and scholar in foreign affairs. Detailed.

The second is a backgrounder on Russia and Russkiy mir (Русский мир) by the Saker, who is from a White Russian emigre family. Detailed.

Une parole franche
Letter from India: Local and global speculation about Henry Kissinger
Gilbert Doctorow | European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord Ltd.

The Vineyard of the Saker
Could there be a grain of truth in the Ukrainian propaganda? (repost with new introduction)
The Saker

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

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

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

Robert Paul Wolff — The Connection Between Expropriation and Exploitations, Part Two

… “Clearly,” I said to myself, “workers in a capitalist economy are getting the short end of the stick, but Marx’s explanation, invoking the distinction between labor and labor-power and all the rest, is wrong. So what is the explanation? What is more, how can we capture in our explanation the central feature of capitalism to which Marx devotes so much time in the opening chapters of Capital, namely its mystification of what is going on?”

So I went back to Marx’s text and looked again. And there it was, as plain as day. The workers in a capitalist economy get only a portion of what they produce by their skill and labor, because by a long historical process of expropriation, they have been denied ownership of their own means of production – of their tools, of their machinery, even of their skills – until all they have left is their labor, which if they wish to live they are compelled to sell in the marketplace as though it were a commodity whose natural price is the cost of its reproduction. Why don’t farmers get to eat all the food they grow, after setting aside what is needed for seed? Because they do not own the land and the farm tools. Why don’t factory workers get to wear the clothing they make or to sell it to buy the food they need? Because they do not own the wool or the cotton or the thread or the machinery with which they turn these materials into clothing.

How, I asked, can we capture this situation in a set of formal equations that explains exactly how the workers are getting screwed and simultaneously explains why in a capitalist economy it seems as though the workers are getting a fair return for their labor? Here is what I came up with:

The Philosopher's Stone
The Connection Between Expropriation and Exploitations, Part Two
Robert Paul Wolff | Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Steve Keen — Teaching Economics the Pluralist Way

This is a talk I gave in Amsterdam to launch the Amsterdam Rethinking Economics critique of the current state of economics “education” in the Netherlands. The text of my slides is reproduced below.

Steve Keen's Debtwatch
Teaching Economics the Pluralist Way
Steve Keen | Professor and Head Of School Of Economics, History & Politics, Kingston University, London

Jason Smith — Chris Dillow, information equilibrium is the framework you're looking for

I think Chris Dillow makes a fine point at the end of his review of The Econocracy about the role of the media with regard to how macroeconomics is disseminated and perceived. I just wanted to add a bit to something he said earlier in his post regarding teaching economics:

For example, some important basic facts in macroeconomics are that: there’s no such thing as a “representative firm” (see this great paper (pdf) by Nick Bloom and colleagues); that GDP growth in developed nations is often stable but interrupted by occasional crises; and that recessions are unpredictable. The sort of theory that can account for these facts is very tricky. A shift away from equilibrium theories towards complexity, evolutionary models and agent-based modelling would require massive changes for which students and perhaps academics are ill-prepared.

I'd like to proffer the information equilibrium/statistical equilibrium framework as a theory that can account for these facts without being "tricky"....

Awhile ago, I put together an outline of an "Economics 101" course that could be taught using the information transfer framework. You might think the math is tricky, but overall it can be understood in terms of the regular supply and demand diagrams with a couple changes: there's another "solution" where supply and demand are tightly linked and move together, non-ideal information transfer turns the supply and demand curves into bounds, and to understand macro you might have to look at ensembles of diagrams (a picture from this link is at the top of this post).

Since this isn't throwing out all of ordinary economics and has a simple diagrammatic representation, it might stand a chance. And it keeps all the hooks for complexity and agent-based modeling. You can even use the framework to understand the classic microeconomic experiments (here, here) and do real forecasting making it more empirical in light of the "credibility revolution".

But one important aspect of the information transfer framework is its plurality. It's a framework, not a specific theory. While I have taken to writing my own models in this framework, there is nothing preventing you from writing down a New Keynesian DSGE model, a stock-flow consistent model, "market monetarism", or even understanding completely different schools of economics.

This last paragraph is significant because it allows for a plurality of approaches in economics in terms of a single framework, where this is hardly possible now with no overarching framework in terms of which economics is pursued as a science.

Information Transfer Economics
Chris Dillow, information equilibrium is the framework you're looking for
Jason Smith

See also

Information transfer economics is getting some traction.

Information transfer economics: a year in review, and thanks

emptywheel — Your Weekly Alarming Anonymous Friday Night WaPo Dump: Vermont Electrical Grid Edition

Moar fake news. Most people just read the headlines.

Here’s the thing. Some of these security professionals are the same ones who’ve been saying for months that the DNC hack can be reliably attributed to the Russian state. I mostly agree (though I’ve got some lingering doubts). And while those of us who follow this closely can distinguish the two different kind of analyses, the general public will not. And — having been alarmed off a premature report here that was not sufficiently researched before publicized — they will be utterly justified in believing the government is making baseless claims to generate fear among the public.

As I said, I mostly agree with reports attributing the DNC hack to the Russians. But seeing inflammatory shit like this peddled anonymously to the press makes me far more inclined to believe the government is blowing smoke.

The boy who cried wolf.

emptywheel
Your Weekly Alarming Anonymous Friday Night WaPo Dump: Vermont Electrical Grid Edition
emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, independent journalist)

Xinhua — China speeds up creation of social credit system

China's national social credit system gained momentum with guidelines issued on creating credit records of citizens and government agencies.

Two guidelines, issued by the State Council on Friday, specified priorities in building the system.

Real-name registration will be promoted in the fields of the internet, postal services, telecommunication and financial accounts to expedite the formation of personal credit records.

Individuals will first form track records in areas including traffic safety and paying of taxes, while civil servants and doctors are among the first group of professionals to register their credit profile.

The credit-worthy will be granted conveniences in education, employment and opening start-ups, while severe wrongdoing will be made public.

Meanwhile, China will offer better protection of personal information and privacy, and introduce a mechanism to restore mistaken and damaged credit records.

For government agencies, acts associated with government procurement, public-private partnership, local government debt are among key areas for improving creditworthiness.

Third-party institutions will participate in credit-rating for government agencies. Dishonesties will be recorded, collected by a national website and made public. 

Ecns
China speeds up creation of social credit system

Xinhua | Editor: Feng Shuang

The Evidence to Impeach Donald Trump May Already Be Here

The left can't wait to get the impeachment ball rolling. But the problem is that three's no legal basis to stand on other than the emoluments clause.

But with the exception of the Emoluments Clause, which provides a pathway to impeachment if Trump seeks gifts from foreign agents, few laws govern the president’s behavior,

But you can be sure that Trump's enemies will be looking for any opening they can find or create.

Counter Current News
The Evidence to Impeach Donald Trump May Already Be Here
Tasha Sharifa

Eric Zuesse — America’s Secret Planned Conquest Of Russia

Why Russia is so touchy. It's under attack by the US strategically, but not yet tactically.

The U.S. government’s plan to conquer Russia is based upon a belief in, and the fundamental plan to establish, “Nuclear Primacy” against Russia — an American ability to win a nuclear war against, and so conquer, Russia.

This concept became respectable in U.S. academic and governmental policymaking circles when virtually simultaneously in 2006 a short-form and a long-form version of an article endorsing the concept, which the article’s two co-authors there named “nuclear primacy,” were published respectively in the world’s two most influential journals of international affairs, Foreign Affairs from the Council on Foreign Relations, and International Security from Harvard. (CFR got the more popular short version, titled “The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy”, and Harvard got the more scholarly long version, which was titled “The End of MAD?”.)

This article claimed that the central geostrategic concept during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, Mutually Assured Destruction or “MAD” — in which there is no such thing as the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. conquering the other, because the first of the two to attack will itself also be destroyed by the surviving nuclear forces of the one responding to that attack — will soon be merely past history (like the Soviet Union itself already is); and, so, as the short form of the article said, “nuclear primacy remains a goal of the United States”; and, as the long form said, “the United States now stands on the cusp of nuclear primacy.” In other words: arms-control or no, the U.S. should, and soon will, be able to grab Russia (the largest land-mass of any country, and also the one richest in natural resources).…

A far less influential scholarly journal, China Policy, published later in 2006 a critical article arguing against nuclear supremacy, but that article has had no impact upon policymaking. Its title was “The Fallacy of Nuclear Primacy” and it argued that, “American nuclear supremacy removes the root source of stability from the nuclear equation: mutual vulnerability.” It presented a moral argument: “U.S. leaders might try to exploit its nuclear superiority … by actually launching a cold-blooded nuclear attack against its nuclear rival in the midst of an intense crisis. The professors discount significantly the power of the nuclear taboo to restrain U.S. leaders from crossing the fateful threshold. If crisis circumstances grow dire enough, the temptation to try to disarm their nuclear adversaries through a nuclear first-strike may be too strong to resist, they argue.”...

The co-authors of (both versions of) the article that had proposed and endorsed nuclear primacy, then published in 2007 (this one also in International Security), a response to that critical article. This reply’s title was “U.S. Nuclear Primacy and the Future of the Chinese Deterrent”. But it had no more impact than did the obscure article it was arguing against.
Thus, nuclear primacy has become U.S. policy, and MAD no longer is U.S. policy (though it remains Russian policy). The U.S. government is planning to take over Russia (basically, to install a puppet-regime there). That’s the reality....

Whether Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, will continue with that longstanding (ever since 24 February 1990) plan to conquer Russia, or instead finally end the Cold War on the U.S. side (as it already had ended in 1991 on the U.S.S.R.’s), isn’t yet clear.

This is what happens when what President Eisenhower called “the military-industrial complex” takes over the country, and everything (including the ‘news’ media) serves it, rather than the military-industrial complex’s serving the public.

It fits in with the massive data which indicates that the U.S. government is run by an aristocracy or “oligarchy”, instead of run by people who represent the public — a “democracy.” Obama as President fit right in.

Of course, that's no secret to Russia — or China, which is next on the list. But it looks like the plan is to "do Iran" first.

These excerpts only scratch the surface of this well-documented article. Read it and understand the deviousness behind the US narrative — the actual fake news — for domestic consumption flogged in the US media's daily news cycle.

Zero Hedge
America’s Secret Planned Conquest Of Russia
Eric Zuesse, investigative reporter

Robert Paul Wolff — The Connection Between Expropriation and Exploitation, Part One

In this lengthy essay, I will explain the relationship between the claim that capitalism arises through the expropriation of workers, and the claim, specific to Marx’s economic theory, that capitalism rests on the exploitation of the working class. The term “exploitation” in Marx’s writings has a specific technical meaning which I shall explain in good time, but we should start by recalling that “to exploit” has two distinct and yet related uses in common speech. To exploit something means to use it for some purpose. “In his architectural designs, Frank Lloyd Wright exploited the particular physical and scenic characteristics of the site on which a building was to be constructed.” To exploit someone means to take advantage of that person for one’s own purposes. “Trump exploits contractors whom he hires on his construction projects by using the expense of legal proceedings to get out of paying the bills he has run up with them.” The first usage has no obvious normative implications. No one save a Mother Earth enthusiast would blame Wright for exploiting nature in his designs. The second usage at least prima facie does have normative implications. Marx deliberately plays on this ambiguity in Capital.

The Philosopher's Stone
The Connection Between Expropriation and Exploitation, Part One
Robert Paul Wolff | Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Rustem Falyakhov — Russia to be cleaned up by Putin

While the US prepares to gut the EPA, Russia gears up an environmental clean-up drive spearheaded by Vladimir Putin. China is already well into its own under the aegis of Xi Jinping. US under the Trump administration headed backward?

Russia & India Report
Russia to be cleaned up by Putin
Rustem Falyakhov, Gazeta.ru,

Michael Brenner — Hypocrisy Over Alleged Russian ‘Hacking’

As Official Washington rages over alleged Russian hacking of Democratic emails, a forgotten back story is how the U.S. government pioneered the tactics of cyber-war and attacked unsuspecting countries, recalls Michael Brenner.

The bipartisan war party should spare the world its false outrage.

In the first place, nothing about the provenance of the material changes the content or impact of the news that came to light roundly discrediting Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and John Podesta. If this was a causal factor in Clinton's defeat, the Democrats have no one to blame but themselves. The information simply confirmed what was already out there anyway. The Democrats are in deep denial over their stupidity and seek to distract attention from their incompetence. They are losers.

Secondly, if it was actually a hack rather than a leak, it is a black eye to the US intelligence community that it cannot secure domestic information. Heads should be rolling in the agencies responsible for incompetence. Instead of blaming Russia for this, the intelligence agencies would be better advised to show how it was a leak, as some experts suspect and there is also testimony to that effect. To top it off, Podesta's email account was not actually hacked into. He fell for a phishing scheme and provided his own password like only a moron would. If the intelligence services pushed the leak narrative, for which there is plenty of evidence, they would not be looking like the fools they are now. What a bunch of dopes. Keystone cops.

Instead, Russia is being made a scapegoat to distract from US corruption and incompetence. It's not going to work, and Donald Trump is very likely to rub it in their faces. 

The US political elite has lost the plot and doesn't deserve to rule. The quicker they are replaced the better — the lot of them. They should all just retire and live happily ever after on the generous pensions they have voted for themselves before they look like bigger nincompoops.

But getting back to Brenner argument that the US outrage is like the pot calling the kettle black. The US been a major employer of black ops for a long time and the first to commit cyber-aggression in planting the Stuxnet trojan horse in Iran's computer system, and then proving to the world that they were clueless by getting caught. Similarly in hacking into Angela Merkel and Dilma Rouseff's email accounts.

In all the excitement, it is easy to lose perspective. Perhaps the biggest piece of the untold story is the United States government’s pioneering role in electronic surveillance and hacking. We seem to have forgotten that the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency eavesdropped on heads of state in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Iraq, Venezuela – and, at last count, several score other capitals. Also, the United Nations Secretary General, the President of the European Union Commission, the European Central Bank and God knows whom else.

This was not coincidental. It was part of a calculated strategy approved by two successive Presidents to monitor all electronic communications around the globe. Author James Bamford and other knowledgeable experts have provided us with a detailed history of the program.

Yet, the U.S. — as presented to us by the mainstream media and most commentators reflecting Official Washington –is portrayed as the innocent among the main protagonists. The plot line represents America as the victim of unprovoked cyber aggression by the Russians and, in other circumstances, the Chinese – these attacks coming out of the blue, an aggressive blow in an assumed contest for global dominance between the powers....

Consortium News
Hypocrisy Over Alleged Russian ‘Hacking’

Michael Brenner | Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and Senior Fellow the Center for Transatlantic Relations, SAIS-Johns Hopkins (Washington, D.C.)

Brenner is a heavyweight by the way.

Michael Brenner is the author of numerous books, and over 60 articles and published papers. Recent works on American foreign policy and the Middle East are "Fear & Dread In The Middle East", and "Democracy Promotion & Islam". He also has written "Nuclear Power and Non-Proliferation" (Cambridge University Press) and "The Politics of International Monetary Reform" for the Center For International Affairs at Harvard. His work has appeared in major journals in the United States and Europe, such as Europe’s World, European Affairs, World Politics, Comparative Politics, Foreign Policy, International Studies Quarterly, International Affairs, Survival, Politique Etrangere, and Internationale Politik. Directed funded research projects with colleagues at leading universities and institutes in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, including the Sorbonne, Bonn University, King’s College – London, and Universita di Firenze. Invited lecturer at major universities and institute in the United States and abroad, including Georgetown University, UCLA, the National Defense University, the State Department, Sorbonne, Ecole des Sciences Politiques, Royal Institute of International Affairs, International Institute of Strategic Studies, University of London, German Council on Foreign Relations, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and Italian Institute of International Affairs. Previous teaching and research appointments at Cornell, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Brookings Institution, University of California – San Diego, and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the National Defense University.

Sputnik — Trump Faces Many Obstacles to Enhancing US-Russian Relations

Good summary of the issues today.

I suspect that the decisive factor in the outcome will be Henry Kissinger and he seems to be pro-detente and setting up an understanding among the US, Russia and China that avoids conflict, which is the opposite of what the bipartisan war party and MIC (military-industrial complex) want. Kissinger is likely Trump's ace in the hole.

Sputnik International
Trump Faces Many Obstacles to Enhancing US-Russian Relations

Jon Rappoport — If you were Chief of CIA Consciousness Ops

Fun post. Before you read it, take the following test.

I. Multiple choice. Circle one option.

1. Matter alone is real.

2. Consciousness alone is real.

3. Mind and matter exist as polar opposites in a dualistic reality.

4. The solution is indeterminable. (skepticism)

5. Other (Specific _____________________)

II. Explain your choice.

Jon Rappport's Blog
If you were Chief of CIA Consciousness Ops
Jon Rappoport, free-lance investigative reporter

Trump's tweet on his reaction to Putin's reaction to Obama's latest move

Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2016

(Sound of heads exploding in the background.)

Cliven Bundy’s “army” is back with more armed threats: “Time for another win”

They're baaack!

Salon
Cliven Bundy’s “army” is back with more armed threats: “Time for another win”

Matthew Rozsa