Before I launch into Crooke’s SCF essay and chat with Judge Napolitano, I must announce the efforts by Dr. Hudson regarding the anti-Genocide protests at universities and elsewhere nationally and globally along with the rise of the new Congressional McCarthyism paid for by US tax dollars that get recycled back to the USA via AIPAC and other donor organizations in the form of legalized bribes known as campaign contributions which aren’t supposed to be allowed under US campaign finance laws. Dr. Hudson, an alumni of Columbia U, has written a scathing op/ed on the recent attack on students over the past two weeks calling Anti-Semitic the new epithet replacing Communism of the McCarthy Era and the notorious anti-democratic HUAC (House Unamerican Activities Committee) that existed from 1947-1975, "
they all wanted to saddle up with the exceptional nation and it is falling apart.. at the height of usa power, were the seeds of its own demise and we are definitely on the other side of the heights of usa power, although the usa has a long ways to fall.. meanwhile those who wanted to saddle up with it - uk, europe, ksa and friends and etc - can all see a faint reflection of what a decaying empire looks like..
some can see a more clear image of this - the homelessness, the leadership race for president in 2024 with a couple of dysfunctional at best leadership candidates, the crime, drugs, and number of people incarcerated in the usa ( canada too fwiw) and etc. etc... all the signs are their of a falling empire for anyone who wants to look! and of course - the inferior military products when put to the test directly... it is all falling apart, but like your grandparents - they can last longer then you know, in spite of their waning years..
"...Consider the Sunni Arab States that have been working in various forms of collaboration (normalisation) with Israel..."
The attraction that the Saudis and Emiratis have for the US although bolstered by their cultural ties are based on two ideas. First that the US is the dominant power in the region. Secondly that the dollar is the international reserve currency.
Both the US economy and the US military are being revealed as weak and weakening.
The reasons for reaching agreement with Israel are diminishing very quickly. And Israel's reputation for hating Arabs and killing them by the hundred thousand, however insouciant MbS and MbZ may be, makes the Abraham Accords close to being impossible.
"..which Friedrich List advanced in his critique of the laissez-faire individualist approach of the Anglo-Americans..."
Let us not forget that List developed his theories in the US and that they were known by Henry Clay as "the American system." In fact the US never did fall in with the British Free Trade ideas, even though the Southern plantation owners promoted them and saw them as complementary to the slave society. As they were.
I just wrote the Judge a suggestion to talk about the asset theft and what that means for property rights, which is a Big Picture issue few are writing about except for the occasional short missive like Medvedev's.
I could argue that Western military power contains several paradoxes. On the one hand it is designed for long [never ending?] low intensity sand-box wars against non-peer opponents. On the other hand - and by necessity - it must fight a short high intensity war against a peer or near peer foe. The west has a "shop window" military - with few reserves, stockpiles and low [immediate] industrial potential and mobilisation potential. And I think the West's enemies know this and have worked out that the way to prevail in any military conflict is to outlast and exhaust the West's military capabilities. Much like the proxy war being waged in Ukraine which has stripped the NATO cupboard bare. Of course the USA might be an exception to this generality, but even there we see critical shortages and over-engineered equipment that cannot be readily produced in numbers.
There is a move to re-militarise, particularly in Europe. As an example, pre WW2 the UK - which at the time controlled a global empire and all its resources - spent most of the 1930's spending 2 to 3% of GDP on defence. In the late 1930's this began to rise towards 15% to 20%. We now see Europe spending 1 to 2% of GDP on defence with plans to increase to maybe 3%. Pre WW2 in the UK it took huge state backed industrial investment to create the factories that ultimately produced the weapons and munitions used in that war. These factories were planned in say 1938/39 and many did not produce weapons until 1941 or even later. To reindustrialise a MIC will not only take much more money than is available, but also much more time than is imagined. It will also require a workforce with skill sets that largely no longer exist, at least in the UK. And you can bet that what kit is manufactured will be complex, unreliable and expensive. Let's not even debate the electoral consequences of floating conscription as a policy to cover for the disasterous DEI policies on western military recruitment.
Cont...None of this is to say that NATO will not improve its military capabilities over time. It would be hard for Germany [for example] to be any worse than at present. However I wonder if the results will match the rhetoric? I think not. We prefer butter over guns and are simply not prepared to sacrifice what is required to undertake a serious military build-up. And having said that, makes you wonder why picking a fight with the Bear was thought to be such a good idea?
As Crooke has said many times, the fight against Russia wasn't at all thought through, many myths were believed to be true that utterly were not. In the Napoleonic Wars, Russia was able to make more artillery pieces AND bred many more horses to move them. When the French retreated from Russia, they killed almost all their horses for food, and by 1814, France was still desperately short of that Eras most important asset to facilitate logistics.
The Neocon extremists on both sides of the Atlantic cannot conceive of their being defeated by Russia, which is why we see the current hysterics. I wrote an article several months ago about NATO being drunk on its own Kool-Aid, and that holds true today. And the Outlaw US Empire's military has no weapon systems capable of defeating Russia as most everything is decades old and nothing that's new is really any good, and what few things that might have a chance are too few. The MIC was turned into a Ponzi Scheme back in 1980 and a vehicle for Congressional corruption with the recycling of MIC contract monies into campaign contributions.
The coal has not gone - there is still 300 years worth of supply available. Rather, it is the economics and political will to get it out of the ground. Given the current buy-in to 2030 and net zero goals, it is seen as political suicide to reopen the mines.
How will the UK run its infrastructure and reindustrialize to rebuild its MIC without coal? Yes, I know it's not all gone, but what's the cost to extract and make "clean"? Will that make UK economy competitive? If Labor wins, how will it power the nation to mollify its ranks? I see no choice to not use coal.
I believe the UK thought it might purchase cheap gas from what it considered 'vassals' in the Arab states. Unfortunately their plans are mightily frustrated by the rise and rise of China and its trading diplomacy with Arab nations and Iran, then their imagined local policeman, Israel, went off half cocked. To cap it all off those Houthis asserted an independent will to disarm the local policeman. Oops, looks like UK might have a serious energy problem and all priced by some market forces outfit in Amsterdam! Gasp, what a turnaround. I guess its time to edit Shakespear's 'Merchant of Venice' ;))
Diversification is the mantra of investing--don't put your eggs all in one basket. But that's exactly what was decided with the adoption of the already discredited EU Green Energy policy--no nukes, no coal, even though dense energy is required to build Green Energy components--AND--service them over time. It appears the pipe smoking caterpillar shared its hooch and hoodwinked all those Alices. Russia and China both have Green Energy policies, but they're thought through and include a very significant percentage of nuclear and gas power. It's clear they don't intend to abandon their heavy industry as they both have lots of development to accomplish.
By 2030, the EU energy picture will be very ugly unless ties to Russia and reestablished. But the biggest tree to fall in the forest will be the Outlaw US Empire as it's not at all ready for the coming reduction in supply and rise in price of all energy sources. I'm very glad I prepared for that 20 years ago.
Yes to that. I dont have a problem with nukes if they are built well and located away from tsunamis. Ideally they should be fuelled by non weapons grade fuels and that is easy to achieve nowadays. Certainly the western pot boilers are an immense problem due to their absolute link to weapons grade fuel production as a sideline. Not to forget their overarching financial formula being neo liberal economics.
Unfortunately, as a 'poodle' of the Outlaw American empire we have our own 'Uni-party political system' that is tied into the OAe's world-view. The old divisions exploited by the 'political-class' have become irrelevant to the aforementioned group since they became imperial managers for the OAe. As to our MIC, I can only assume that it functions much like an automobile production factory that imports it's heavy industry parts and constructs vehicles lego-fashion. Here in the UK we measure out our lives with coffee spoons - we are a consumer sector in the globalised vision of the OAe...
I'm responding in light of the Tory's recent spouting of policy ideas aimed at MUKGA. On the flipside, how is it possible to correct all the Tory mistakes without that form of energy use just to make UK livable? How deep down the rabbit hole will the UK people go before they stop digging deeper?
it was fascinating because Glen and Alexander gradually - to my mind at least - became aware of how far down the rabbit hole they were in the face of Michael's implacable analysis of the FIRE sector's parasitic qualities. There is a twinkle in his eyes when 'the penny drops' for Alexander. It's worth watching for that IMO.
Thanks for sharing that. The game being presented we've seen before and goes back to Korea and then to Vietnam--the formula is almost the same for all. Netanyahu has announced the Zionists will attack Hezbollah in an "offensive" where they risk losing Haifa as a port as well as the secondary others. Plus, Hamas has shown it's not staffed with fools. Two good questions are how much ordinance does the Zionist Air Force have remaining after its orgy of Gaza bombing, and how many AD missiles does it have to try and defend against what Hezbollah will launch. And then, how many soldiers are the Zionists willing to lose?
they all wanted to saddle up with the exceptional nation and it is falling apart.. at the height of usa power, were the seeds of its own demise and we are definitely on the other side of the heights of usa power, although the usa has a long ways to fall.. meanwhile those who wanted to saddle up with it - uk, europe, ksa and friends and etc - can all see a faint reflection of what a decaying empire looks like..
some can see a more clear image of this - the homelessness, the leadership race for president in 2024 with a couple of dysfunctional at best leadership candidates, the crime, drugs, and number of people incarcerated in the usa ( canada too fwiw) and etc. etc... all the signs are their of a falling empire for anyone who wants to look! and of course - the inferior military products when put to the test directly... it is all falling apart, but like your grandparents - they can last longer then you know, in spite of their waning years..
"...Consider the Sunni Arab States that have been working in various forms of collaboration (normalisation) with Israel..."
The attraction that the Saudis and Emiratis have for the US although bolstered by their cultural ties are based on two ideas. First that the US is the dominant power in the region. Secondly that the dollar is the international reserve currency.
Both the US economy and the US military are being revealed as weak and weakening.
The reasons for reaching agreement with Israel are diminishing very quickly. And Israel's reputation for hating Arabs and killing them by the hundred thousand, however insouciant MbS and MbZ may be, makes the Abraham Accords close to being impossible.
"..which Friedrich List advanced in his critique of the laissez-faire individualist approach of the Anglo-Americans..."
Let us not forget that List developed his theories in the US and that they were known by Henry Clay as "the American system." In fact the US never did fall in with the British Free Trade ideas, even though the Southern plantation owners promoted them and saw them as complementary to the slave society. As they were.
re List see Henry Carey.
I just wrote the Judge a suggestion to talk about the asset theft and what that means for property rights, which is a Big Picture issue few are writing about except for the occasional short missive like Medvedev's.
I could argue that Western military power contains several paradoxes. On the one hand it is designed for long [never ending?] low intensity sand-box wars against non-peer opponents. On the other hand - and by necessity - it must fight a short high intensity war against a peer or near peer foe. The west has a "shop window" military - with few reserves, stockpiles and low [immediate] industrial potential and mobilisation potential. And I think the West's enemies know this and have worked out that the way to prevail in any military conflict is to outlast and exhaust the West's military capabilities. Much like the proxy war being waged in Ukraine which has stripped the NATO cupboard bare. Of course the USA might be an exception to this generality, but even there we see critical shortages and over-engineered equipment that cannot be readily produced in numbers.
There is a move to re-militarise, particularly in Europe. As an example, pre WW2 the UK - which at the time controlled a global empire and all its resources - spent most of the 1930's spending 2 to 3% of GDP on defence. In the late 1930's this began to rise towards 15% to 20%. We now see Europe spending 1 to 2% of GDP on defence with plans to increase to maybe 3%. Pre WW2 in the UK it took huge state backed industrial investment to create the factories that ultimately produced the weapons and munitions used in that war. These factories were planned in say 1938/39 and many did not produce weapons until 1941 or even later. To reindustrialise a MIC will not only take much more money than is available, but also much more time than is imagined. It will also require a workforce with skill sets that largely no longer exist, at least in the UK. And you can bet that what kit is manufactured will be complex, unreliable and expensive. Let's not even debate the electoral consequences of floating conscription as a policy to cover for the disasterous DEI policies on western military recruitment.
Cont...None of this is to say that NATO will not improve its military capabilities over time. It would be hard for Germany [for example] to be any worse than at present. However I wonder if the results will match the rhetoric? I think not. We prefer butter over guns and are simply not prepared to sacrifice what is required to undertake a serious military build-up. And having said that, makes you wonder why picking a fight with the Bear was thought to be such a good idea?
As Crooke has said many times, the fight against Russia wasn't at all thought through, many myths were believed to be true that utterly were not. In the Napoleonic Wars, Russia was able to make more artillery pieces AND bred many more horses to move them. When the French retreated from Russia, they killed almost all their horses for food, and by 1814, France was still desperately short of that Eras most important asset to facilitate logistics.
The Neocon extremists on both sides of the Atlantic cannot conceive of their being defeated by Russia, which is why we see the current hysterics. I wrote an article several months ago about NATO being drunk on its own Kool-Aid, and that holds true today. And the Outlaw US Empire's military has no weapon systems capable of defeating Russia as most everything is decades old and nothing that's new is really any good, and what few things that might have a chance are too few. The MIC was turned into a Ponzi Scheme back in 1980 and a vehicle for Congressional corruption with the recycling of MIC contract monies into campaign contributions.
You also need energy, and for UK that was coal, most of which is now gone.
The coal has not gone - there is still 300 years worth of supply available. Rather, it is the economics and political will to get it out of the ground. Given the current buy-in to 2030 and net zero goals, it is seen as political suicide to reopen the mines.
How will the UK run its infrastructure and reindustrialize to rebuild its MIC without coal? Yes, I know it's not all gone, but what's the cost to extract and make "clean"? Will that make UK economy competitive? If Labor wins, how will it power the nation to mollify its ranks? I see no choice to not use coal.
I believe the UK thought it might purchase cheap gas from what it considered 'vassals' in the Arab states. Unfortunately their plans are mightily frustrated by the rise and rise of China and its trading diplomacy with Arab nations and Iran, then their imagined local policeman, Israel, went off half cocked. To cap it all off those Houthis asserted an independent will to disarm the local policeman. Oops, looks like UK might have a serious energy problem and all priced by some market forces outfit in Amsterdam! Gasp, what a turnaround. I guess its time to edit Shakespear's 'Merchant of Venice' ;))
Diversification is the mantra of investing--don't put your eggs all in one basket. But that's exactly what was decided with the adoption of the already discredited EU Green Energy policy--no nukes, no coal, even though dense energy is required to build Green Energy components--AND--service them over time. It appears the pipe smoking caterpillar shared its hooch and hoodwinked all those Alices. Russia and China both have Green Energy policies, but they're thought through and include a very significant percentage of nuclear and gas power. It's clear they don't intend to abandon their heavy industry as they both have lots of development to accomplish.
By 2030, the EU energy picture will be very ugly unless ties to Russia and reestablished. But the biggest tree to fall in the forest will be the Outlaw US Empire as it's not at all ready for the coming reduction in supply and rise in price of all energy sources. I'm very glad I prepared for that 20 years ago.
Yes to that. I dont have a problem with nukes if they are built well and located away from tsunamis. Ideally they should be fuelled by non weapons grade fuels and that is easy to achieve nowadays. Certainly the western pot boilers are an immense problem due to their absolute link to weapons grade fuel production as a sideline. Not to forget their overarching financial formula being neo liberal economics.
Unfortunately, as a 'poodle' of the Outlaw American empire we have our own 'Uni-party political system' that is tied into the OAe's world-view. The old divisions exploited by the 'political-class' have become irrelevant to the aforementioned group since they became imperial managers for the OAe. As to our MIC, I can only assume that it functions much like an automobile production factory that imports it's heavy industry parts and constructs vehicles lego-fashion. Here in the UK we measure out our lives with coffee spoons - we are a consumer sector in the globalised vision of the OAe...
I'm responding in light of the Tory's recent spouting of policy ideas aimed at MUKGA. On the flipside, how is it possible to correct all the Tory mistakes without that form of energy use just to make UK livable? How deep down the rabbit hole will the UK people go before they stop digging deeper?
Michael Hudson appeared on a Glen Diesen and Alexander Mercouris podcast some time ago:
https://rokfin.com/post/173934/US-Economic-Decline-and-Rise-of-Greater-Eurasia--Michael-Hudson-Alexander-Mercouris--Glenn-Diesen
it was fascinating because Glen and Alexander gradually - to my mind at least - became aware of how far down the rabbit hole they were in the face of Michael's implacable analysis of the FIRE sector's parasitic qualities. There is a twinkle in his eyes when 'the penny drops' for Alexander. It's worth watching for that IMO.
Here is additional material from Jonathan Cook:
https://steelcityscribblings.uk/wp/2024/04/30/the-us-israel-gameplan-for-gaza/
Not good news but entirely expected of the genocide team.
Thanks for sharing that. The game being presented we've seen before and goes back to Korea and then to Vietnam--the formula is almost the same for all. Netanyahu has announced the Zionists will attack Hezbollah in an "offensive" where they risk losing Haifa as a port as well as the secondary others. Plus, Hamas has shown it's not staffed with fools. Two good questions are how much ordinance does the Zionist Air Force have remaining after its orgy of Gaza bombing, and how many AD missiles does it have to try and defend against what Hezbollah will launch. And then, how many soldiers are the Zionists willing to lose?