17 Comments
User's avatar
james whelan's avatar

Excellent as always. I think it can be further boiled down to private banking versus public banking. Nothing much has changed in 200 years, the money men behind the British Empire are still calling the shots.

Expand full comment
dornoch altbinhax's avatar

I'd agree that the clearest difference is in who issues credit, private banking has learned to hide itself behind legislation and legalese as the ownership of central banks (outside the US FED constellation) is often presented as government owned and controlled, but effectively is captured via appointments to boards. What to make of Alex Krainer's claims Trump vs the City, hmm, I don't believe that Wall St is subordinate to the City of London.

Expand full comment
dornoch altbinhax's avatar

Exactly. And Iran must rid itself of both the West's (US) comms hardware, from phones to comms infrastructure and uproot western big tech software. This applies to any nation that wants to exercise its sovereign rights. Huawei is the pre-eminent supplier and innovator which is why it is sanctioned, and now the extra territorial US sanctions against Huawei and Chinese tech (AI+services) is so fierce. It's not compromised for exploits and essentially is immunized against western terror ops. Remember the US demanded by diktat that its vassals remove all Huawei comms from their networks, that's the clearest signal that the US wants to implant handcuffs on all its vassals, which is proceeding apace. Hopefully ASEAN got the message and is removing Ericsson or refuses to install this into their network space.

Expand full comment
susan mullen's avatar

6/29/1997, US taxpayer cash entices Eastern European nations to join NATO: "To entice those same nations to buy American weapons, the Pentagon has laid out a smorgasbord of grants, discount loans and free leases. The Air Force and the Navy have offered Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland five-year leases of F-16 and F-18 fighter jets, free of charge. That offer came after the three nations asked the Pentagon about the individual prices and availability of more than $8 billion in jets, according to documents obtained by Arms Trade News.

Eight billion dollars exceeds the three nations' combined annual defense budgets.

Last month [May 1997], Romania became the first country to tap into a $15 billion defense export loan guarantee fund, created by Congress in 1995 at the urging of executives like Mr. Augustine. The Romanians want the money to buy $23 million in unmanned reconnaissance planes. And this year, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland received $30 million from a $60 million Pentagon grant program."..."Arms Makers See Bonanza In Selling NATO Expansion," NY Times, Gerth, Weiner...

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/29/world/arms-makers-see-bonanza-in-selling-nato-expansion.html

Expand full comment
Lubica's avatar

This is interesting. Thank you, Karl, esp., the end — “a conflict between different political-economic philosophies as during the Cold War: Neoliberal Financialized Capitalism versus an Industrialized Social Sustainable Capitalism, which could be distilled further to Rentier Capitalism versus Industrialized Socialism.”

Expand full comment
Tedder130's avatar

Thank you, Karl. I have struggled to find just the right words to express our existential struggle, and your "Neoliberal Financialized Capitalism versus an Industrialized Social Sustainable Capitalism, which could be distilled further to Rentier Capitalism versus Industrialized Socialism." hits a home run/1

Expand full comment
Loon's avatar

What isn’t said ?

Is the populace going do anything about these leaders destroying their countries prosperity, and unleashing an unrelenting oppression upon their own voters?

Are people really willing to be sheepole?

Expand full comment
Garry Gerskwotiz's avatar

Unfortunately many americans have no clue that they are the sheeple, they still believe that USA,USA is the most exceptional country in the world. The MAGA crowd have there reasons on that as well as the centrists(D elites&party) The independents have different thoughts then both MAGA/D's do.

Expand full comment
WTFUD's avatar

The combined National Debt of the G7 is approximately $70 Trillion

The External Debt of the G7 a multiple of 3 on National Debt

Only God knows what future underfunded/unfunded liabilities that lurk on their Balance Sheets amounts to having robbed Peter to pay Paul over decades of mismanagement.

In their demented minds land/resource grab through WAR is their only option to remain relevant, even if it means facing off against the world's foremost military/nuclear power Russia, when in fact they lasted under 2 weeks fighting Iran who possess only a small fraction of Russia's might.

The $8 trillion held under-management by Larry The Fink/Blackrock amounts to a piss in the ocean, probably 2 years worth of Interest Payments on the aforementioned DEBT.

Expand full comment
Anna's avatar

Thank you

Expand full comment
J. Matson Heininger's avatar

Appreciated Read thank you

Expand full comment
Don Firineach's avatar

The European Union was constructed to prevent war. It is now, sadly, being weaponised using false propaganda, to act as the West Eurasian outpost of the Evil Empire to wage full-scale war in the near future against the Russian Federation on instruction from its Evil Empire masters. This, of course, also forces RF to expend resources to counter this threat - resources which could be better spent on welfare. The big losers are the citizens of the EU whose welfare, and national sovereignty, is being sacrificed to this end,

Medvedev is simply taking account of this new reality - no RF objection to Ukraine joining the old EU previously - now joining the EU is simply equivalent to joining NATO - Brussels is now a threat to RF.

As a European who had long advocated a security and trade agreement between the EU and RF to the benefit of both this is a bitter pill to swallow.

Keep up the good work Karl.

Expand full comment
Davy Ro's avatar

Wise words indeed Karl, what I believe many are missing about the collapse of American domination & capitalist structure in the West. Is who & what are the Western Worlds greatest adversaries. I believe the Western elites have totally taken their eyes off the ball. Looking at China, Russia, Iran all of the BRICS organisation as their biggest threat. For me the biggest threat to the Western elites today. Is from their own citizens. It's become totally natural & the norm for all of the Western rulers. To ignore their citizens opinions, wants & interests. We only have to listen to any UK/EU leader speak. They brag about wasting money they don't have, inflicting sanctions upon countries that damages themselves. Like they believe they're impressing their citizens. While their citizens standards of living are sinking rapidly. The last thing the citizens of the UK/EU want hear is their taxes being wasted on conflicts & weapons. The last thing American citizens want to hear, is their taxes being spent on Israel. But the brag about these actions. While infrastructure is collapsing, Healthcare disappearing, education sinking. But most of all poverty growing massively. This is a recipe for disaster, then add to that the capitalist model of the wealthy always getting wealthier. People are starting to question the whole financial system in the West. Especially when we can see China, Russia even small countries progressing massively without getting more & more destructive debts. The Western rulers totally ignore the biggest threat to themselves in my opinion.

Expand full comment
dacoelec's avatar

Perfect analysis of Trumps first term.

Expand full comment
Garry Gerskwotiz's avatar

And his 2nd term is a resounding forwarding of the Biden era. Brian Berletic is spot on when he says it matters not who is president, the policy will always remain the same.

Expand full comment
Ed's avatar

EU is the monetary arm of the empire NATO is the militarism.

Empire propaganda has its members as liberal democracies (their own definition) compared to the BRICS whi are errant children, misguided colonies.

Empire is rising!

Empire democracy as evil as the demos ordering conquered put to the sword.

Expand full comment
Garry Gerskwotiz's avatar

Now if I'm not mistaken it appears as if Iran is turning to China for weapons to help defend it's airspace. Supposedly Russia/Iran has been feuding over this but this is coming from the western propaganda(media)arm so I'll take it with a grain of salt.

Also Putin seems to be getting pissed at Donald's lack of humanity/smarts/class/IQ/you name it. And while Iran might say they're negotiating with the empire, I think they do it to gather info for whatever the empire says the complete opposite is the truth. IOW's the empire has become the mark at the poker table and they don't even know it

Expand full comment