Image is of a crowd protesting in Athens.
Last week, on Friday, hundreds of thousands of Greeks poured into the streets to strike and protest on the second anniversary of the deadliest train crash in Greek history, in which 57 people died when a passenger train collided with a freight train. On this February 28th, public transportation was virtually halted, with train drivers, air traffic controllers, and seafarers taking part in a 24 hour strike - alongside other professions like lawyers, teachers, and doctors.
The train crash is emblematic of the decay of state institutions brought about from austerity being forced on Greece in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession, in which the IMF and the EU (particularly Germany) plundered the country and forced privatization. While Greece has somewhat recovered from the dire straits it was in during the early 2010s, the consequences of neoliberalism are very clearly ongoing. Mitsotakis’ right-wing government has still not even successfully implemented the necessary safety procedures two years on, and so far, nobody has been convicted nor punished for their role in the accident. The austerity measures were deeply unpopular inside Greece and yet the government did not respond to, or ignored, democratic outcry.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
A number of schools in Hunan, Anhui and Zhejiang provinces in China have recently started implementing a new policy of 2-day off week for high schoolers, and have sparked quite a debate among parents and netizens in China.
- High schoolers in Grade 10 and 11 will now get 2 days off per week, and Grade 12 students get to have 1 day off every week.
- Currently, there is no weekend for many high schoolers in China (the “higher ranking” a school, the tougher the routine), you get half a day off per week (~2 days off per month).
- A typical high school day looks like this: wakes up at 6am, arrives at class room at 7am, starts morning self-study routine, sits through the classes, stays for the evening self-study session, gets home at around 10pm, and if you’re lucky, gets to bed at around 12am. Rinse and repeat every day.
- As anticipated, many parents are not happy with the new policy: the gaokao (national unified exam) is so competitive that even a 1-point difference in scoring can make or break your chances of getting into university. Some parents in Hangzhou are worried that their kids might be disadvantaged if kids from the other cities don’t have as many days off.
- This has led to an explosive demand for private tuition on the weekends as parents send their kids to tuition classes instead. Previously, tuition was part of the school program and parents pay ~1000 yuan per semester. Now they have to pay an additional 1000-2000 yuan per month.
- Some private tuition companies have seen the business opportunity and have begun advertising “weekend packages” for parents, with such slogans as “you can go to work with a peace of mind. we will take over the duty of the school to take care of your kids instead.”
- One such “weekend package” as reported by the news which includes tuition for 6 subjects + physical education costs 3680 yuan per month, which is 47% of the monthly income for an average household.
- Some parents are now petitioning for the schools to keep their libraries open on the weekend and crowdfunding to pay for the teachers’ “weekend overtime fee”.
- Even more absurdity ensued, as some schools received “letters to volunteer to return to school on the weekends” by “very concerned” students.
China can be a magical place sometimes. The level of extreme competition has intensified in recent years to such an extent that it is taking a toll on everyone’s daily lives, and I don’t blame the people who want to emigrate to Western countries at all. I know many Chinese immigrants overseas who don’t want to put their kids through this.
That is so depressing to read, everything about it is sad.
A society doing this to their children is profoundly sick. (As are western societies, to be clear).
This is sadly common in East Asian culture.
South Korea is just as tough if not even worse. The CSAT started in 2006, and while gaokao exams took place over 2-3 days, for CSAT, students have to finish the exams for all 6 subjects in just over 8 hours.
There was a South Korean documentary made in 2016 (공부의배신 Betrayal of Study) that examined the lives of high school students. One girl slept only 4 hours every night, took 5-6 doses of coffee to stay awake, spent more than 10 hours practicing writing on exam papers that her fingers formed blisters and started to bleed. She ended up tying the pen to her finger with a knot and kept going.
I watched the documentary with Chinese subtitle but unfortunately couldn’t find any source with English subtitle, otherwise I’d link it because it’s quite revealing.
Parents spend tons of money to get their kids to private tuition classes. According to a survey, there are now 3 times more private tuition centers in South Korea than there are convenience stores.
For the students, this is their one shot to get a white collar job after graduation.
This was actually one of the themes explored in the film Parasite and there are layers that can be easily missed by the audience if you’re not familiar with the societal competitive pressure exerted upon the students.
For the students, this is their one shot to get a white collar job after graduation.
I think this is the key problem underlying all of this. Asian parents and students are not irrational, they are reacting rationally to a brutal system. You can not blame them for doing what it takes to achieve what is considered a good and materially safe life.
A society in which you only get one shot at “the good life” is inevitably going to promote this sort of behaviours.
A less severe variant of the same mechanisms can be seen in the west where increased social stratification has made the educational system more competitive and led to alarming levels of anxiety and other mental health issues among young people.
You can treat symptoms to some extent by banning private tuition or by making ad campaigns telling young people how awesome it is to get a trade job instead of pursuing academic training but it is always going to be a bandaid.
The radical response, the one that goes to the root of the problem, is to construct the economy in such a way that social recognition and material comfort is not a privilege for the meritorious few but a fact of life for the masses. An advanced economy needs engineers, doctors and accountants but it also needs carpenters, binmen and truck drivers. The idea of your kids growing up to have an average position in society should be comforting, not terrifying.
How are these “weekend packages” skirting the ban on private tutoring that’s been in place since 2021? I assume it’s not that hard given the parents will do anything to get them and they’re not online so you can structure it as a club or something, but curious what the reaction of regulatory officials has been.
Short answer is the parents simply don’t care.
This is nothing new. South Korea has tried banning private tuition years ago. In fact, the South Korean government went so far as to canceling middle school and high school admission tests, and introduced a system that randomly allocates students to high schools to eliminate “elite schools” and to prevent parents from gaming the system.
This merely drove the parents to send their kids to private tuition, which the South Korean government also tried banning. None of this is going to work. In a system where securing a white collar job at Samsung is literally going to change your life, parents will do everything - no matter how illegal it is - to make sure their kids have a shot at this.
All the punitive tax through law enforcement on private tuition is only going to drive up the costs of education, with parents willing to dish out more and more of their monthly income to ensure that their kids can gain even a slight advantage over their peers. It also drives up administrative cost because good luck taking down all the illegal tuition centers (and many businesses have dozens of inventive ways to skirt the rules like turning them into “training courses for parents that happen to involve students”).
In a society where education is given the utmost priority, the end result is that your average household is going to spend even less on other stuff, and drags down the economy as a whole.
Without a true reform on the education system and the economic structure at large, you’re merely treating the symptoms.
theyre not, the police get kickbacks and look the other way so long as people upstairs arent pressured to ‘do something’
there are routine inspections but heads up will be given so people can clear out ahead of time
as demographics shift, the problem of education (elite overproduction) will fix itself to some degree (50% hs admittance cutoff already relaxing, blue collar work is more and more well compensated as labor pool shrinks), but it wont go away without massive reforms, which will likely not happen as there are too many people who benefit from the way it is currently set up, same as hukou
this case of education and its motivating factors is a great example of superstructure shaping base, how pecuniary emulation remains a relevant, perhaps even marxist, concept even today, and is a primary driver of why the asian diaspora, particularly in america, is so dependent on white supremacy for its continued existence
What does pecuniary emulation mean?
A different term for “social climber” basically. People putting themselves into situations where they devote their labor to climbing the ladder and emulating the lifestyles of those above them thereby reinforcing the current state of things.
The most extreme version of it would probably be the Wealth Gospel trend in America, where the actions of millions of proletarians are shifted into a form of emulation of the wealthy thereby algning their interests with the wealthy in practice. They will work against their own interests for the possibility of becoming their oppressor.
Damn that’s sad. Definitely the Government should clamp down on cultural bads.
I’ve seen the study hours for the gaokao. It gets very, very intense.
How much is the university entrance stuff “real” vs cultural high demand on kids/students? Like can people generally get into a college and get a good education but it just isn’t the super “prestigious” schools?
To what extent is this caused by lack of access to higher education? Or, rather, would this problem be alleviated by more openings or are things so competitive that nobody cares to be the 2nd best student in the 2nd best med school in the country?
Around the year 2000, many Chinese universities began to massively expand their enrollment number. So, the competition occurred because there is now a chance for everyone to get into university. For the students, this is their one shot to get a white collar job after graduation.
As you know, education is very important in East Asian society, and being able to get a white collar job not only means higher pay but also reflects a certain status. This is exacerbated by the fact that many Chinese parents only have one child, so they’d do anything to make sure that their kids can have a shot to enter universities.
You can even see this kind of mentality persisted in Asian parents who have immigrated to Western countries which has become the Asian parent stereotype.
My impression is that competition for its own sake has become culturally endemic in the region and I was hoping to challenge that notion. Maybe, I reasoned, there are enough openings in East Asian universities to give everyone a chance, but crucially not enough to make that chance a reasonable one. Therefore if enrollment numbers increased even further, you’d still have competition for the top university spots but the competition wouldn’t be so fierce.
However, I suppose it doesn’t matter if everyone who wants to become engineers and doctors actually can when the competition is downstream from those guaranteed high status, high paying jobs.
In my experience it’s not about raw numbers or an endemic culture of competition so much as generational trauma and perfectionism. China is still only 2 generations out from the Cultural Revolution. My parents were in the first wave to go to university after it ended and for them, a difference of .5 marks meant falling 50 places in the rankings and losing their only shot. Even though I grew up in the west, that anxiety passed down in the way they raised me.
The other thing about Chinese culture is that we are obsessed with optimising. Everything should be done in the most efficient way possible. And so for a lot of kids the pressure isn’t so much about competition but about achieving an ideal of perfection. It’s taken years of work to unlearn that for me.
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The interesting part about the Imperial Exam in ancient China is that it was literally created for the Emperors to reassert their control over the feudal aristocrat classes.
China is a large country and throughout the dynasties and even periods within a dynasty, aristocratic factions (usually formed based on geographical boundaries) vie for control over the country and the entrenched class holds a lot of sway over the imperial policies, with the most prominent one being the Guanlong group that has massively entrenched over the late Northern/Southern Dynasty and the ensuing Sui and Tang dynasties.
Often times, when a new Emperor ascends to the throne, those with ambitions would want to establish their own power base, and the imperial examination was one such mechanism to recruit talents from the lower classes (寒门) to fill the ranks. Note that these officials who are born in the lower class are still treated as a different class in the Imperial Court even though they work directly for the Emperor. Such is the social structure of feudal societies.
I’m not too familiar with European history, but I would guess that the European nation states were too small to allow for such fierce internal division of aristocratic factions. The Emperor of China ruled over a huge territory and when one dynasty overthrows the other, the new government cannot simply replace the local provincial courts with its own people as that would quickly lead to rebellions. So substantive change has to take place slowly and insidiously, while at the same time, such arrangement naturally opened up the spaces for influential vested interests to form over time.
I’m not too familiar with European history, but I would guess that the European nation states were too small to allow for such fierce internal division of aristocratic factions.
They were tiny by comparison. The Kingdom of France was considered big by (Western) European standards and it was smaller than Nanzhao. The small size of European polities also meant they didn’t need a giant feudal bureaucracy.
In European history, aristocratic factions also very much existed based on regional power - eg anyone with the surname Dudley or Warwick had immense sway over who was on the throne of England for several hundred years, because they held military power in the form of private armies (retainers) and could choose whether to back up the king with that power or not.
It seems this plan doesn’t address the root of the problem, so I can see how parents might get upset. It sounds like there needs to be some fundamental restructuring of the university system or something like that.
A typical high school day looks like this: wakes up at 6am, arrives at class room at 7am, starts morning self-study routine, sits through the classes, stays for the evening self-study session, gets home at around 10pm, and if you’re lucky, gets to bed at around 12am. Rinse and repeat every day.
this is child abuse. rare china L
This reminds me of your post comparing the work conditions of car factories, with workers organizing to demand more hours from their bosses.
It seems like changing the gaokao and university entrance process is the only way to alleviate the concerns of giving kids more time off, which should be encouraged. I had heard school was competitive, but high schoolers at school for over 100 hours a week really puts it into perspective. How long is a school day before high school?
Middle school (Grades 7-9) isn’t as intense, but in Grade 9 most students will take the admission tests for ordinary high schools (普高).
Only half of the middle schoolers will succeed in entering an ordinary high school, which will then set them off the path towards taking the gaokao, while the rest who failed will go to vocational or technical schools.
The pressure is still there, and some say it’s even harder than gaokao to get into a good ordinary high school (schools with resources that give greater likelihood for their students to succeed).
Thanks for this insight.
One more question I have, if you don’t mind humoring me: if parents in China didn’t care about pushing their kid to be successful via these metrics, can a child go through this education system without having to be put through such intense pressures? Does the school itself enforce as much as the parents are, or is it more an issue of parental pressure than baked into the education track ?
I went to elementary school in China for two years, in grade 2 + 3 (age 6-8). I arrived at school at 7:45am for pre-class prep, and left at 5:30 usually. I think classes were until 4:30 or 5. This was back in the mid 90s and I’m fairly sure it got worse after I left
Thanks for sharing your experience. Was there a lot of play and art and such things that could be considered fun by kids or did it already start feeling like preparing for academia at that age?
There was no play other than at break times, it was a full schedule of classes. In the summer we got an extra hour for lunch though so we could have a nap. It was funny because you had to have a nap in that time - at home room after lunch everyone who didn’t have a nap had to admit to it and explain why they didn’t 🤭
We had art classes - it was mostly learning to draw as I recall. The school didn’t have a lot of money for stuff like art supplies back then. The classes I remember were: Chinese (learning characters, making words, reading texts, memorising poems, writing short essays); maths (we had to memorise the times table up to 9 and each recite it individually for the headmaster who graded us on it - most terrifying moment of my life at the time! Also I remember doing basic algebra); civics (actually my favourite, it was mostly about learning to contribute to society and not being selfish); art; and PE. I’m sure there must have been science, history, and geography but I can’t remember them at all.
We had little red neck scarves made of silk which were a sign of your pride in the country / communism. I remember being so chuffed the day I got mine as I’d heard a rumour that you wouldn’t get one if you weren’t a good student and I didn’t know if I’d make the grade since I had moved home from abroad and was behind in everything. We also learned how to use an abacus to do arithmetic and calligraphy. We had flag raising every week and outdoor stretches every morning. There were ~50 kids in my class I think!
Our teacher was strict but super caring and kind. I remember every time when we got homework back from the teacher, she would ask everyone who got 100% to stand up and everyone else would admire them. One time in Chinese class she did that and I was the only one who stood up! Proudest moment ever. She then remarked to the rest of the class “this kid only started learning to write this year, y’all have no excuse” lolll suckers
cuck n chad ranking: blast from the past edition
Note: RUS vs UKR back in first row
Gigachad Chad Neutral Beta (Fe)Male Virgin Cuck Daily map enjoyers (still caring about Russia capturing a treeline in Bumfuckskoya after three years makes us chads) Putin (riding out the global war against him by basically doing the same thing for three years, every day is better than the day before for him) Ukrainian diaspora (I respect the sheer shamelessness of cheerleading for a war that you watch on TV while driving a taxi in Berlin and going to nightclubs there) Medvedev (somehow the most unhinged poster in this entire war, somebody needs to take his phone away) Zelensky (getting the cuck treatment in the US by being the most annoying person to ever exist The people of Gaza (Allah’s bravest creation, just their existence and steadfastness makes the zionists shake) Erdogan (no person in the world gets more undeserved Ws than him, somehow comes out as a winner in everything) Donald Trump (the whole Zelensky saga is hilarious and a net positive, but he’s so unhinged and is leading the world into some fucked up territory) Jolani/Sharaa (screaming about jihad and justice until Israel is taking his territory, then it’s pure silence) UAE (on a streak of multiple Ls after their loss in Yemen, loss in Sudan and their failure to save Assad) Hassan Nasrallah (permanent gigachad spot for the Master of the South, I miss him every single day) Sudanese Army (successfully kicking out the RSF maniacs day by day, respect to those dudes) Qatar (the most confusing country in the world, made sure that Gaza could breath with the ceasefire, but the biggest backers of Jolani at the same time) JD Vance (this guy is so fucking annoying, who the fuck allowed a 4chan poster to become vice-president of the most powerful empire in the world) the EU (never seen such a cucked organization in my life, they only exist to bet on the wrong horses and take Ls) Some worrying events in the Middle East as of the past 48-72 hours. A United States Navy Carrier Strike Group, presumably the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), was spotted entering the Red Sea on ESA Satellite Imagery on March 2, and one of its planes was observed on FlightRadar24. So the US carrier is back in the Red Sea.
Earlier today (March 4) , the United States Air Force flew a nuclear capable B-52H Stratofortress bomber off of the coast of Israel and Gaza, descending down to a low altitude of 11 000ft at times. We know that this bomber (Registration 60-0037) is nuclear capable due to the presence of ‘New START agreement’ fins on it’s fuselage, pictured below. If you’re interested in reading the whole documentation of how New START applies to the B-52 fleet, the 240 page PDF documentation is available here. So yes, the USA did fly a nuclear capable bomber off of the coast of Gaza.
In response, Ansarallah (known as the Houthis in western media) have claimed to have shot down the 15th MQ-9 Reaper drone of the conflict so far, with the wreckage landing in the Red Sea. The US will be forced to fly their jet engined RQ-4B and MQ-4C drones again to carry out surveillance.
English translation
With the help of God Almighty, our air defenses succeeded in shooting down an American MQ-9 hostile drone while it was violating Yemeni airspace and carrying out hostile missions in the airspace of Al Hudaydah Governorate.
This is the fifteenth drone that our air defenses have succeeded in shooting down during the battle of the promised conquest and the holy jihad in support of our mujahid brothers in Gaza and Lebanon.
The Yemeni Armed Forces continue to carry out their defensive missions to confront any aggression against our country, including monitoring and following up on hostile movements in the Red and Arabian Seas, and they are fully prepared to deal with any developments during the next stage.
1-trump says stupid shit
2-the stocks go down
3-buy low
4-backpedals
5-the stocks go back up, they sell.
6-profit
It do be like that. Very rational much efficiency
Graphic design is my passion
Petro wins, US military deportation flights suspended
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-deportation-flights-paused-cost-c37c577a
jdpon chuck joins the crusade against the dollar
Investors dare to imagine a world beyond the dollar
Investors are starting to imagine a financial system without the US at its centre, handing Europe an opportunity that it simply must not miss.
This exercise in thinking the unthinkable comes despite a cacophony of noise in markets. Mansoor Mohi-uddin, chief economist at Bank of Singapore, recently travelled to clients in Dubai and London. To his surprise, not one of them asked him about short-term issues like tech stocks or tweaks to interest rates. Instead, he says, “people were saying, ‘What’s going on?’ The free trade, free markets, globalisation era is over, and nobody knows what’s going to replace it.”
They refer, of course, to the new US administration. Within a month of retaking his seat at the White House, Donald Trump & co had all but trashed the transatlantic alliance, and ridden roughshod over the key checks, balances and institutions on which true US exceptionalism is built.
“It’s such a momentous change going on. If it continues like this, capital allocators will wonder: ‘Do I want to stay allocated to the US?’” Mohi-uddin says.
This cuts across asset classes. In stocks, the preference for Europe is clear — markets are streaking ahead of the US in a highly unusual pattern. But flighty stock markets are just the surface. The bit that really matters is the international use of the dollar, and dollar bond markets, as the supposedly risk-free bedrock of global finance.
This is already starting to show. On Tuesday, for instance, despite the shock of new US trade tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the dollar is not climbing in its usual fashion. Deutsche Bank says this in part reflects “the potential loss of the dollar’s safe-haven status”.
“We do not write this lightly,” wrote currencies analyst George Saravelos. “But the speed and scale of global shifts is so rapid that this needs to be acknowledged as a possibility.” What was once outlandish is now becoming plausible.
Economists close to Trump have been clear that they view the dollar’s status as the world’s pre-eminent reserve currency as a blessing and a curse — “burdensome” as adviser Stephen Miran put it. It remains a possibility — again unthinkable just a few weeks ago — that the US could seek to pull the dollar lower in an effort to support domestic manufacturing. But the US could also dismantle its own exorbitant privilege through accident rather than design by pushing the big beasts of bond markets — foreign central banks and other official reserve managers — into the arms of other nations.
The dollar makes up more than 57 per cent of global official reserves, according to benchmark data from the IMF, far in excess of the US’s slice of the global economy. The euro accounts for 20 per cent, and everyone else is picking up scraps.
Starry-eyed optimists have argued for years that the euro’s slice of the pie should be bigger, but they have been fighting reality. Europe’s bond markets are fragmented into constituent states, with Germany at the centre. The monetary cohesion is there but not the fiscal or strategic cohesion. No national market is simultaneously large, safe and liquid enough to suit a reserve manager’s needs. Super-sized trades leave a mark and in an emergency, these big hitters find only the slick US government bond market will do.
The EU has struggled to offer an alternative. That is where this moment in history comes in. Its urgent need for defence spending simply overwhelms the capacity of its individual national bond markets. Joint borrowing — easily said but devilishly tricky to do — is the obvious answer. The result could well be that Europe is thrust further to the centre of the global financial system.
The Covid-19 pandemic offered a taste of how pooling resources might work at scale. Then, bonds issued by the EU itself, rather than individual states, were met with enormous demand. The urgency of the present situation offers little choice but to move fast. “Collective action could be an answer, even if consensus has not built yet,” said analysts at rating agency S&P Global in a note last month.
If the EU could seize this moment, it would tap in to a deep well of willing buyers keen to trim US exposure. “Plenty of reserve managers could shift very quickly,” says Mohi-uddin. “There would be huge take-up.” US dominance of global debt markets does not have to end with a bang. Large, slow-moving investors would simply have to accumulate other assets rather than necessarily dumping their Treasuries. But over time, the result would be the same. Regime shifts of this kind do not happen often. But they do happen. Sterling was the global reserve currency once too.
Leave it to Comrade Trump to achieve the impossible, folks.
The question is what are they moving their assets into? Bitcoin and gold? lmao.
Richard D. Wolff & Michael Hudson on The EU Has LOST its Mind
transcript from Wolff:
Understand this—let me come at it from a slightly different angle. I think that the leaders of France, Germany, and England are in very, very deep difficulty at home as political leaders. All of them—the newly elected Merz in Germany, but also Macron, who was elected long ago by a fluke, and Starmer, who got in due to the wholesale withdrawal of British voters from the Conservative Party—are in deep trouble.
According to public polling, Merz is taking over a government that is basically a continuation of the Scholz government, with Scholz’s party as his partner, just as Merz was Scholz’s partner before. This is the same old, same old. These are politicians whose entire political careers have been as junior partners—I’m being polite here; a synonym would be “lackey”—of the United States.
Now, they have discovered that the United States, their backer, their liaison, their supporter, is abandoning them. As a result, they are headed for political collapse. They have no support anymore—their own people don’t want them, and the United States is less and less interested.
Take the absurd visits of Macron and Starmer to Washington last week. They were spoken to as if they were visiting cousins who couldn’t be rescheduled for a later time. Everything they had hoped for was denied, culminating in the Zelensky theater at the end of the week. These were demonstrations of absurdity.
What we’re witnessing here is the behavior of desperate politicians—snatching those 300 billion from the Russians when every major financial advisor has told them the obvious: they will pay a long-term price. No shaky government in the world will ever leave its money in Europe again after seeing what the Europeans are prepared to do with it. This is a bigger blow to Europe’s importance than anything related to Ukraine.
Why would you keep fighting a losing war? You have to be desperate to do that.
Canadian oil is partially exempt from the US tariffs, will be tariffed at 10% (current tariff is 0%), instead of at 25% like everything else.
All Canadian energy is going to be 10%. I can only hope that in New England this is going to be the year where we
regional energy conglomerate CEOs. Our prices are a cluster fuck because of inept government management (thanks “transition” fuel and “free market” energy) and the fact that our regional energy conglomerates are monopolies that have captured all regulation, to the point where they are freely admitting they haven’t done proper maintenance and also that money is gone so they need to raise the rates to do maintenance. Obviously the YoY profit keeps coming.
im late ik. Democrats are so useless all sitting there doing nothing, no booing, no slogans, no shouting, nothing. except for that one guy.
Apparently lots of pigs out protecting Tesla dealerships today in Chicago and New York
92 of the International Republican Institute’s destabilization programs in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have been CANCELED following cuts to State Dept. and USAID grants. 175 of the Institute’s programs worldwide are now in limbo because they directly depend on NED funding.
Yet another open admission that the opposition activists, “political prisoners”, and US-bankrolled “religious groups” in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela exist only because of DEEP, LUCRATIVE and sometimes long-standing CONTRACTS.
Washington’s political and media mercenaries (see: “democracy activists”) have been making bank 🤑💰💳 in recent decades in Latin America. SecRubio’s friends in Latin America are desperately calling him to try to get their payments resumed. He probably had to change his number.
Another L for Narco "Nazi’ Rubio
Pipe/tunnel guys, we are so back.
Photo is supposedly of a Russian soldier infiltrating Sudzha (Kursk region) through a gas pipeline.
It sounds like the operation might have been a failure, but we’ll have to wait for more info. I would not be surprised, because it’s likely Ukraine expected this and planned for it due to previous events.
North Korean media have published photographs of the country’s first nuclear-powered submarine, armed with “guided missile nuclear weapons,” under construction. Thus, the DPRK is preparing to enter yet another elite club of powers.
- Telegram
