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| Home Front: Politix |
| Brig Gen (ret) Blaine Holt - Weak US Will Bring on Four Horsemen of WWIII |
| 2022-06-07 |
| [NUUSMAX] Wars, rumors of wars, famine, and pestilence. Not that we should tempt fate, but it seems giant earthquakes are the only thing left to fulfill ancient prophesy. It is almost cliché today to say that these are indeed biblical times. We were taught that the four horsemen of the apocalypse would be our sign. Amidst a backdrop of unending crises here and abroad where each shockwave is worse than the last, and still, Las Vegas oddsmakers wouldn’t peg a chance of Armageddon at more than 2%. If one had to identify today’s potential four horsemen, one could argue that Russia, China, Iran and North Korea would be burnished into each saddle. Their loathing of the system and resentment, based on ill-defined grievances has brought them in league with each other, despite having such disparate cultures. These horses are dragging us all to World War III. With today’s killing technology, mankind’s existence could well be hanging in the balance. The riders, despotic autocrats, are unified by a deep hatred of the current world order, as led, since World War II, by the United States and the Bretton Woods construct. Recently, Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed the U.S. position to uphold and enforce what he called the "rules-based" order as he attempted to clarify the U.S. policy towards an increasingly aggressive China. In turn, China wasted no time attacking the secretary who barely had time to mention human rights abuses and incursions into Taiwan airspace. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #22 Dispatch from the front lines of the currency wars -- the days of the dollar's reserve currency status are coming to a close: "TOKYO – As JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warns of a coming economic “hurricane” in the US, global investors are simultaneously observing a potential earthquake, too. The shakes are coming from efforts in Moscow and Beijing to join forces against the dollar’s dominance in trade and finance. News this week that monthly ruble-yuan trading volumes skyrocketed 1,067%... |
| Posted by: Jean-Paul 2022-06-07 23:18 |
| #21 The same assholes who thought sanctions would work probably think Russia's still communist. They're hyper-capitalist, more capitalist than is good for them |
| Posted by: Oil Derek 2022-06-07 21:21 |
| #20 Sanctions: the quaint theory that the other guy can always be coerced |
| Posted by: magpie 2022-06-07 21:16 |
| #19 The sanctions policy is like cutting off your nuts to spite your ass LMAO! You owe me a new keyboard |
| Posted by: Oil Derek 2022-06-07 21:15 |
| #18 Sanctions are the ultimate faceplant by the UniParty. They' hurt the US and help Russia Firstly, the first rule of the UniParty is you don't talk about the UniParty. Gotta keep the rubes believing or it's game over. See professional wrestling, for example. Second, what makes you think the UniParty is optimizing for American national interest? The Uniparty is about Power and Money and getting more of both. Heh, national intererst, how quaint! |
| Posted by: SteveS 2022-06-07 21:13 |
| #17 "We're all gonna die" Yes, this is true, but we prefer to die of natural causes rather than due to governmental incompetence. The sanctions policy is like cutting off your nuts to spite your ass. Stupidest of many stupid policies. |
| Posted by: Whereng McGurque6845 2022-06-07 19:59 |
| #16 #1 For Dems, as with Satan - better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven. Nicely put. Destroy the western economies and call it victory. Look at California for another example |
| Posted by: Whereng McGurque6845 2022-06-07 19:52 |
| #15 Sanctions are the ultimate faceplant by the UniParty. They' hurt the US and help Russia |
| Posted by: Whereng McGurque6845 2022-06-07 19:48 |
| #14 I KNEW this would draw our trolls out. Sanctions against Russia bad, we're all gonna starve and die. Ruble is the new world currency, ...yadda yadda |
| Posted by: Frank G 2022-06-07 19:42 |
| #13 Mozambique. Teh-ray-zuh Heinz-Kerry's homeland. Commie bint. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-06-07 18:52 |
#12  Economics sanctions work when the target is small: South Africa in the 1980s,Yes, "worked" to bring about a communist government. I withhold my golf clap and Indlamu dance on that brilliant bit of strategic genius. Care for another helping of Namibia or Mozambique sir ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2022-06-07 18:36 |
| #11 Reduction in Russian supply causes world commodity prices to soar. Cutting Russia off from the West is cutting off the West's legs. Wolfgang Münchau of the Financial Times: The West and the rest The world's economic inter-dependencies are manifold and mutual. Sanctions have large network effects. By Wolfgang Münchau The pandemic and the war taught me something I sort of knew, but not really. It is one thing to say that the world is interconnected, as a cliché. It is quite another to observe what actually happens on the ground when those connections get torn apart. Russia has more wheat than it can eat, and more oil than it can burn. Russia is a provider of primary and secondary commodities, on which the world has become dependent. Oil and gas are the biggest sources of Russian export revenues. But our dependency is most acute in other areas: food and also rare metals and rare earths. Russia is not a monopolist in any of the categories. But when the largest exporters of those commodities disappears, the rest of the world experiences physical shortages and rising prices. Russia is the world largest exporter of gas, accounting for just under 20% of global exports. Russia is the largest exporter of oil, after Saudi Arabia, and accounts for 11% of world exports. Russia is the largest exporter of fertilisers, and of wheat. Russia and Ukraine together account for almost a third of global wheat exports. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of palladium, a metal that is critical in the production of catalytic converters and fuel cells. Russia is also the largest world exporter of nickel, which is used in batteries, and in the production for hybrid cars. German industry is warning that it is reliant not only on Russian gas, but on other critical supplies from Russia. Did we think this through? Did the foreign ministries that drew up the sanctions discuss at any point what we would do if Russia were to blockade the Black Sea and not allow Ukrainian wheat to leave the ports? Did we develop an agreed-upon response to Russian food blackmail? Or did we think we can adequately address a global starvation crisis by pointing the finger at Putin? The lockdown taught us a lot about our vulnerability to supply chain shocks. It has reminded Europeans that there have only two routes to ship goods en masse to Asia and back: either by container, or by rail through Russia. We had no plan for a pandemic, no plan for a war, and no plan for when both are happening at the same time. The containers are stuck in Shanghai. The railways closed because of the war. Economics sanctions work when the target is small: South Africa in the 1980s, Iran, North Korea. Russia is much larger. The relevant size indicator is not GDP. The GDP metric ignores network effects, which are sufficiently large to render the instrument of economic sanctions unsustainable. Alternative sources exist for each and every one of those Russian commodities, but if you cut world supply by a permanent 10, 20 or 40%, depending on the commodity, you cannot physically generate the same output that we generate now at the same prices. The economy reacts through higher prices and falling demand and supply. I have concluded that we are all too connected to be able to impose sanctions on each other without incurring massive self-harm. You may argue that it is worth it If you do, you sound like the tenured economics professor who argues that a rise in unemployment is a price worth paying.. |
| Posted by: Astaire 2022-06-07 18:09 |
| #10 ^ That's called logorrhea right there. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-06-07 17:57 |
| #9 Article like this one are pure trash vomited by American civil servants intentionally obfuscating their incompetence on macroeconomics, and now backpedaling after the immense damage done to our country economic dominance. That bunch of clown’s leaded by the idiots in the CIA completely misjudged the Russian Federation role in the global economy. That bunch of morons in the CIA were under the impression that Russia was more dependent on us than we are on them. Unfortunately for this bunch of highly educated idiots, Russia has more wheat than it can eat, and more oil than it can burn. Russia is a provider of primary and secondary commodities, on which the world has become dependent. Oil and gas are the biggest sources of Russian export revenues. But our dependency is most acute in other areas: food and also rare metals and rare earths. Russia is not a monopolist in any of the categories. But when the largest exporters of those commodities disappears, the rest of the world experiences physical shortages and rising prices. If this country was a serious country the entire cia team related to the policies in russia and Ukraine will be executed. |
| Posted by: Aca Joe 2022-06-07 17:54 |
| #8 We could recover 40% of the worlds rare earth metals from the Salton Sea. First, California will have to be acquired via eminent domain... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-06-07 17:52 |
| #7 We have metal and rare earth mines, too. They just had been ignored in recent years in favour of letting other countries like Russia and various Third World nations exploit their much cheaper labour and much lower safety and health standards to provide the materials at lower cost. But if the charged price goes up or the stuff continues to be made unavailable, it will be worth starting up our mines again. And the world will benefit from having more sources and greater reserves in case of problems. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2022-06-07 17:49 |
| #6 Dr. Fauxi's snake oil is going to shorten many more leftist lives than non-leftist. Short of getting nuked by them, there is pretty much nothing Russia can do to CONUS. If Wall Street types who drank the gerbalist kool ade lose their asses, so be it. Their shoes will be filled rather quickly. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-06-07 17:43 |
| #5 The "four horsemen" are all on the side of the US: War, caused by the reckless, foolish provocations of Nuland and other neocons and prolonged by Biden's band of incompetent freaks. Pestilence, thanks to gain of function research and prolonged indefinitely and years past the normal life of a flu virus due to Fauci and Pfizer's failed gene therapy that has killed many more people than it's saved. Famine, thanks to Biden's idiotic sanctions on Russia. Death of US democracy, dollar dominance and world hegemony due to all of the above. |
| Posted by: Astaire 2022-06-07 17:40 |
| #4 Anything that decreases gerbilization I am in favor of. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-06-07 17:36 |
| #3 "Economic sanctions look like the last hurrah of a dysfunctional concept known as the west. The Ukraine war is a catalyst of massive de-globalisation. "Unless we cut a deal with Putin, with the removal of sanctions as a component, I see a danger of the world becoming subject to two trading blocs: the west and the rest. Supply chains will be reorganised to stay within them. Russia’s energy, wheat, metals, and rare earths will still be consumed, but not here. We keep the Big Macs. "I am not sure the west is ready to confront the consequences of its actions: persistent inflation, reduced industrial output, lower growth, and higher unemployment." |
| Posted by: Sheba Black7622 2022-06-07 17:30 |
| #2 Quit yer yappin', let's get to it! |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2022-06-07 15:26 |
| #1 That's their plan. For Dems, as with Satan - better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven. |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2022-06-07 12:48 |