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Serious The End of Empire

superpower

Alfrescian
Loyal
1721538588472.png

He’s got balls.

IBRAHIM TRAORÉ:

"Imperialists have their own vision of the world, which I will explain to you.

For them, the world is summarized in a triangle, which you will see in most of their symbols.

You may not understand, but for them, the world is a triangle.

At the top of this triangle is the 'Empire of Good,' and they believe they are this empire.

It represents prosperity and everything positive, and they believe they have the right to all happiness and wealth in this world. They think it's their right to impose their worldview and way of life.

That's why, during the conquest, they came to our lands, claiming to have 'discovered' them, because they saw us as mere savages with nothing in common with them.

They called us 'indigenous,' believing they have all the rights and that the world should function according to their wishes.

To illustrate, just look at their movies. They've brainwashed their people into believing they're superior and entitled to everything.

In these films, the villains are almost always Russians, South Americans, or Blacks portrayed as drug dealers, pimps, or human traffickers. Recently, Arabs have been cast as terrorists.

This reveals exactly how they perceive the world.

On the economic front, who among us hasn't labeled Chinese products as 'cheap goods'? But today, I can tell you we were wrong.

China has advanced technology, and most countries source their goods there, rebrand them, and sell them back to us as their own.

Look around: those in the construction industry will confirm that their equipment is now mostly Chinese. The transport sector will say the same.

They lied to us.

During our travels over the past 20 months, we've seen businesses and factories worldwide and realized it all leads back to China.

Yet their propaganda made us despise Chinese products and believe that quality only comes from them.

To better understand, let's go back in time.

Read about the Tsars, Mongol conquests, Persian, Turkish, and Ottoman empires. You will understand why the world is the way it is.

At the base of the triangle, there are two empires: the Empire of Evil and the Empire of Slaves. The Empire of Evil includes the groups I mentioned earlier.

According to the imperialists, the Empire of Evil must disappear as it embodies the devil.

This was communicated to their people, especially during the 1980s, with the collapse of Russia under President Gorbachev, orchestrated by President Ronald Reagan.

Three main strategies caught our attention.

First, they asked Saudi Arabia to lower oil prices from $35 to $7 to collapse the Russian economy.

Second, they armed the Taliban (who were received by President Ronald Reagan at the White House) with CIA-supplied Stinger surface-to-air missiles to fight the Russians, then later pretended to fight the Taliban themselves. Go figure!

Third, they bluffed with the Star Wars project (Strategic Defense Initiative), leading Gorbachev to create the Paulus Project, which weakened Russia.

After Russia's collapse, those who claimed to be the 'Empire of Good' started to gloat until Vladimir Putin and his team came to revive Russia.

The 'Empire of Evil' (according to them) has suffered greatly.

Look at Iran today, facing all possible sanctions.

Look at how they label certain peoples.

Through their propaganda, they can make you hate or love a people. They are masters of communication, using every possible channel to manipulate.

Look at the wars that are raging. They invented them for their own interests.

And finally, the Empire of Slaves, according to them, is Africa and some nations of South America.

In their minds, Africa belongs to them—our lands, our riches are theirs.

They cannot conceive of Africans emancipating themselves, lifting their heads above water, and standing up to them.

For this reason, they stereotype Africans as easy to manipulate and driven by emotions.

They will always find an African to fight against his own brother, and it has always been this way.

Through their communication, they have led you to hate your own skin color.

In our cultures, and in many cultures in Burkina Faso, mourning was symbolized by the color blue. When a woman lost her husband, she wore blue garments to mourn for a certain period.

They came and told you that black symbolizes mourning, the devil, mediocrity, and everything negative. Unfortunately, we accepted this so much that now, when we mourn, we wear black.

We need to wake up.

This is their stereotype: they are the Empire of Good, others are the Empire of Evil, and we are the Empire of Slaves.

This is the imperialist worldview.

You need to understand this.

Now, I want to address certain intellectuals who keep preaching for the imperialists. Do they ignore this part of history? I am not making anything up; it has been declassified.

You can find everything I said in libraries or online. Have these intellectuals not read it? Do they not know the history of this world?

Perhaps it is dishonesty or a few dollars that lead them to always preach for the imperialists.

Our intellectuals must always strive to raise awareness in our people, our masses, so they understand where they come from and how they are viewed by the imperialists."
 

superpower

Alfrescian
Loyal
Interesting and Excellent Read worth your 30 minutes by Julian Assange. Deep insights into how the world financial system works. And why USA must keep the world in turmoil.

The US said its goal is to "weaken and defeat Russia" in Ukraine. Is China the next target after defeating Russia?
100%. In fact, under Trump, the plan was to be friend with Russia, while America take on China. When American troops were pulled out of Afghanistan, everyone was guessing which would be the next target, and many guessed it would be Taiwan. But Biden’s think tank has a bigger stomach, they go for both.

To understand why Russia and China are targeted. We need to look at how the US economy works.

Former American NSA chief Zbignew Brzezinski once put it: “It is IMPERATIVE that no Eurasian challenger emerges capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America”.

Because America has just 4% of the world’s population, and it’s isolated from the Eurasia continent with 70% of world’s population, or 87% with Africa included (Red circle). Defensively, it’s an advantage to America, but economically, it’s a handicap. That’s why economically, Eurasia is a competitor to America and the Euro is a threat to the dollar.

How does America with an isolated and small share of world’s population maintain it’s position as the world’s biggest economy? The dollar must stay as the world’s reserve currency. This allows the size of the US economy to be highly scalable, instead of being sized according to the fundamentals.

To be the world’s reserve currency, the dollar must be circulated in the world. America created a huge consumption-based economy, so that dollars flow out of America to product suppliers like China or Japan. To make products, China and Japan need energy, the dollars are spent to buy petrol from Saudi. With the US stock/financial market performing at an averaged annual gain of 37% (inflation compensated) per year since 1990, the dollars from Saudi are attracted back to America. The money printed in America to exchange for goods from outside eventually ends up with the Wall Streets, where the rich gets richer. And that completes the cycle of circulation of the dollars.

For that to work, (a) Saudi has to sell petrol in dollar, hence the petrol-dollar scheme with Saudi, (b) the US stock/financial markets have to perform better than other major economies, that’s why America has a highly leveraged financial economy and highly speculative stock market, while the less profitable manufacturing sector is outsourced to China. With a good living standards, America attracts top talents around the world to bolster its high technology sector, so a technological gap is maintained between America and other major economies like China. And that’s the real reason why the world leading patents holder in 5G, Huawei, is banned.

After selling products to America, if China or Japan bring back all their dollars and exchange to the local currencies, it causes inflation, making their exports expensive. So, China and Japan use a portion of the dollar earned to buy US debts (treasury bonds). That’s why America, a rich country, is in-debt to China which has just 1/5th of America’s GDP per capita. By holding US treasury bills, China and Japan have to support the US dollar, for if the US dollar collapse, their hard earned money would become worthless. In China’s case, some of the dollar is also used to fund the Belt and Road Initiatives projects all around the world, so when the infrastructures are built, they have more business opportunities in the future.

With a huge population, if Asia and Africa develop rapidly, the share of America’s economy shrinks, and the importance of the US dollars shrinks accordingly, and then the Euro could replace it as the world’s reserve currency. When that happens, the USA would no longer be able to print money out of nothing without an inflation like Venezuela. Then the size of the American economy has to fall back to the fundamentals, which is small nowadays compared to the inflated economy. The faster Eurasia grow, the earlier that will come. That’s why no country in Eurasia is allowed to be economically big compared to America. When Japan was catching up fast on America in the 1980s, they were knocked down to a three decade stagnancy. And the IMF’s influence in the decision making in the financial plans of the developing countries make sure that these countries could only afford paying interests over a long period of time, and little money for meaningful infrastructures and economy development, so labor cost remains cheap and the share of America’s economy remains big.

When America prints a lot of money, other countries’ foreign reserves in dollars shrink in value. Furthermore, to prevent exports to America become expensive, these countries have to print money too, which devalues the savings of the people, and causing inflations in these countries. For some countries, inflation can be mitigated by producing more. But for the lower tier exports like agricultural products, ramping up production is not possible in a short time due to limited time and resources, so the developing countries are most affected by inflation. It is estimated that our wealth in cash depreciate about 9% every year since the abolishment of the Bretton Wood System, after which America started to print money with no more gold-backing and rely on just creditability.

Although North America continent is the easiest to defend, America has a military budget the combine of the next top 11 countries in the world (year 2021). That’s because the money (from the money printers and American tax payers), are used outside of America for its 800 military bases around the world to protect America’s interests and most importantly, to protect the hegemony of the dollar.

For the record, USA had no mercy on anyone threatening the dollars:

** In 2000 Saddam Hussein said he would start selling oil in Euros not Dollars. >Saddam was hanged by the US.

** In 2009 Gaddafi made Libya export oil in Gold Dinars. >Gaddafi was killed by US-backed NTC.

** Syria had an independent Central Bank NOT under Federal Reserve controlled Bank of International Settlements (like Iraq and Libya once had before US regime change). >Obama attempted to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

** Iran has been trading oil in currencies other than US dollars since 2011. >Iran was being sanctioned by the US.

** In 2019, Putin (1) completely ditched dollars in oil trades, (2) sold almost all the US treasury bonds, (3) is now the forerunner in de-dollarization. >America wants to topple Putin.

** China (1) introduced the Belt and Road Initiatives in 2013 which helps many Asian, African, South American countries to grow, (2) used non-dollar in oil trades with Iran and Russia, (3) introduced the CIPS which is an alternative to the West’s SWIFT system which has been weaponized by America to put sanctions on countries that do not conform, (4) China’s economy size is catching up fast >China has become America #1 target.

If a country supports the dollar, it’s being looted; if a country doesn’t support the dollar, the government is changed by America. This is financial slavery.

40% of the dollars in existence in America was printed during the last 12 months. America’s debt has reached 30 Trillion dollars. This huge bubble and weaponization of the dollar, by sanctioning 39 countries, has increased the urgency in other countries to de-dollarize in trades and a reduction of US debt holdings. The dollar is in a creditability crisis. When countries start dumping their dollars, the dollar will flow back and flood America, causing unprecedented hyperinflation. Therefore America want to take on Russia and China.

After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, US President Bill Clinton had the choice to integrate Russia into Europe and abolish NATO, OR, to slowly alienate Russia to keep them divided. Clinton chose the latter, because if there’s no more Russia “threat”, there would be no more NATO to control Europe. As the first NATO Secretary General, Lionel Ismay described NATO: “To keep America IN, to keep Russia OUT, to keep Germany (Europe) DOWN”.

The probable reasons behind the war in Ukraine and the potential war in the East:

(1) Prolonged wars to weaken Russia and China, to remove the threats to America and the dollar’s hegemony.

America can’t go to wars directly with Russia or China, because they are nuclear armed. Proxy wars put the battlefields outside of America. Back in the 1980s, America supported the Afghan Mujaheddin in a proxy war with the USSR, which helped drain the economy of the USSR.

Russia and China have given their clear redlines. America would use the proxies at Ukraine and Taiwan to push across Russia’s and China’s redlines to trigger the wars.

After the war broke out on Feb 24, the dollar strengthened.

(2)To kill the Nord Stream II gas pipeline

Last year, America warned Germany and Russia to stop the construction of the Nord Stream II. However, the warning was ignored and the pipeline was completely. The war was America’s response. Why America allowed a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany passing through Ukraine, but not the Nord Stream II running directly from Russia to Germany? Because then America could control energy supply to Europe at its proxy state Ukraine, which has a neo-Nazi military Azov Battalion supported by America since the Maidan coup in 2014 and a puppet president.

Now the pipeline is frozen and Germany has signed up for gas from America at much higher price.

(3) Continuity for the Military Industrial Complex

America has a war economy. After the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a war has to start somewhere to keep the war industry rolling.

This is a plan to breath new life into the ailing Anglo-American Empire. Remember, after WW II, Europe, Russia, Japan and China were devastated, but America emerged as the world’s biggest economy and the dollar became the world’s reserve currency.

The best way to know our world is to look at the think tanks’ plans.

Who dictates the world today? The transatlantic globalists from Wall Street and the City of London. They consist of capitalists with enormous wealth from financial institutions like Goldman Sach, the IMF and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and big corporations like Pfizer, Exxon and Monsanto, and the Military Industrial Complex with its affiliates like Lockheed Martin. And they get aids from the intelligence from America (CIA) and the UK (Mi6). These people use platforms like the World Economic Forum to write their agendas and apply the rules to the whole world. The politicians are just their preselected representatives.

The Rule Based International Order is created by America to sideline the UN, with America being the sole rules maker and the only judge, and others just followers to the rules. It’s created because China and Russia have veto power in the UN.

Also, if a country is submitted to the Western financial system, the foreign policies are hard-wired to that of the Washington and London. That’s why Scott Morrison have to do crazy things when he was the Prime Minister of Australia: (1)Sacrificing 30% of export to please America, (2)spending 3.5 billion dollars to buy American battle tanks (which they don’t need because Australia has no land-connected neighbors), (3)offending France by canceling a submarine deal with France and opted for a deal from America.

Similarly, the European leaders have to support the American proxy war in Ukraine, even if that means economic turmoil for their people.

And what will happen in the next few years? Just look at what the elites do. Bill Gates acquired a lot of farm lands, and he’s now America’s biggest farmland owner. So we can expect a food crisis down the line. Rough time’s ahead.

“If wars can be started by lies, they can be stopped by truth.” - Julian Assange
 
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superpower

Alfrescian
Loyal
Catch-22: The US has a $1 trillion trade deficit. Because their manufacturing base is hollowed out, the US can’t export more but have to import many manufactured products - those they don’t make and those that are cheaper to import to control rampant inflation. So the trade deficit will have to go up, which will lead to even lower demand for local goods, job losses and further weakening of manufacturing base. Plus the trade deficit will have to be made up for by further borrowing. And in a dedollarisation environment it will cost more and more to borrow USD/sell treasuries. The lower demand for USD may also lead to the collapse of the equity and capital markets. Bloody vicious circle.

That’s why the US has to reset the financial & economic systems through a political solution: war
 

superpower

Alfrescian
Loyal
One way out is to dismantle the empire, pull back funding of military bases, stop starting wars, plough the money back into the nation, rebuild your manufacturing capability, invest in infrastructure, invest in education and provide universal healthcare. US can be a strong nation again sans empire. It is very painful, it will suck money away from the cabal and power elite, but in the long term the people will emerge healthier and wealthier
 

k1976

Alfrescian
Loyal
One way out is to dismantle the empire, pull back funding of military bases, stop starting wars, plough the money back into the nation, rebuild your manufacturing capability, invest in infrastructure, invest in education and provide universal healthcare. US can be a strong nation again sans empire. It is very painful, it will suck money away from the cabal and power elite, but in the long term the people will emerge healthier and wealthier
Uncker Sam bao jiak whole world liao...
 

Leongsam

High Order Twit / Low SES subject
Admin
Asset
View attachment 202830
He’s got balls.

IBRAHIM TRAORÉ:

"Imperialists have their own vision of the world, which I will explain to you.

For them, the world is summarized in a triangle, which you will see in most of their symbols.

You may not understand, but for them, the world is a triangle.

At the top of this triangle is the 'Empire of Good,' and they believe they are this empire.

It represents prosperity and everything positive, and they believe they have the right to all happiness and wealth in this world. They think it's their right to impose their worldview and way of life.

That's why, during the conquest, they came to our lands, claiming to have 'discovered' them, because they saw us as mere savages with nothing in common with them.

They called us 'indigenous,' believing they have all the rights and that the world should function according to their wishes.

To illustrate, just look at their movies. They've brainwashed their people into believing they're superior and entitled to everything.

In these films, the villains are almost always Russians, South Americans, or Blacks portrayed as drug dealers, pimps, or human traffickers. Recently, Arabs have been cast as terrorists.

This reveals exactly how they perceive the world.

On the economic front, who among us hasn't labeled Chinese products as 'cheap goods'? But today, I can tell you we were wrong.

China has advanced technology, and most countries source their goods there, rebrand them, and sell them back to us as their own.

Look around: those in the construction industry will confirm that their equipment is now mostly Chinese. The transport sector will say the same.

They lied to us.

During our travels over the past 20 months, we've seen businesses and factories worldwide and realized it all leads back to China.

Yet their propaganda made us despise Chinese products and believe that quality only comes from them.

To better understand, let's go back in time.

Read about the Tsars, Mongol conquests, Persian, Turkish, and Ottoman empires. You will understand why the world is the way it is.

At the base of the triangle, there are two empires: the Empire of Evil and the Empire of Slaves. The Empire of Evil includes the groups I mentioned earlier.

According to the imperialists, the Empire of Evil must disappear as it embodies the devil.

This was communicated to their people, especially during the 1980s, with the collapse of Russia under President Gorbachev, orchestrated by President Ronald Reagan.

Three main strategies caught our attention.

First, they asked Saudi Arabia to lower oil prices from $35 to $7 to collapse the Russian economy.

Second, they armed the Taliban (who were received by President Ronald Reagan at the White House) with CIA-supplied Stinger surface-to-air missiles to fight the Russians, then later pretended to fight the Taliban themselves. Go figure!

Third, they bluffed with the Star Wars project (Strategic Defense Initiative), leading Gorbachev to create the Paulus Project, which weakened Russia.

After Russia's collapse, those who claimed to be the 'Empire of Good' started to gloat until Vladimir Putin and his team came to revive Russia.

The 'Empire of Evil' (according to them) has suffered greatly.

Look at Iran today, facing all possible sanctions.

Look at how they label certain peoples.

Through their propaganda, they can make you hate or love a people. They are masters of communication, using every possible channel to manipulate.

Look at the wars that are raging. They invented them for their own interests.

And finally, the Empire of Slaves, according to them, is Africa and some nations of South America.

In their minds, Africa belongs to them—our lands, our riches are theirs.

They cannot conceive of Africans emancipating themselves, lifting their heads above water, and standing up to them.

For this reason, they stereotype Africans as easy to manipulate and driven by emotions.

They will always find an African to fight against his own brother, and it has always been this way.

Through their communication, they have led you to hate your own skin color.

In our cultures, and in many cultures in Burkina Faso, mourning was symbolized by the color blue. When a woman lost her husband, she wore blue garments to mourn for a certain period.

They came and told you that black symbolizes mourning, the devil, mediocrity, and everything negative. Unfortunately, we accepted this so much that now, when we mourn, we wear black.

We need to wake up.

This is their stereotype: they are the Empire of Good, others are the Empire of Evil, and we are the Empire of Slaves.

This is the imperialist worldview.

You need to understand this.

Now, I want to address certain intellectuals who keep preaching for the imperialists. Do they ignore this part of history? I am not making anything up; it has been declassified.

You can find everything I said in libraries or online. Have these intellectuals not read it? Do they not know the history of this world?

Perhaps it is dishonesty or a few dollars that lead them to always preach for the imperialists.

Our intellectuals must always strive to raise awareness in our people, our masses, so they understand where they come from and how they are viewed by the imperialists."

The imperialists are absolutely correct in their view of third world countries.

The IQ levels of Africans in general is way lower compared to the Whites which is why they cause so much turmoil no matter where they are in the world.

The chinks may be smarter but they are godless and morally suspect at all levels of society. They'd sell their mothers if the price is right.

Without the West we'd still be in the dark ages. We have to thank Europe and the Jewish diaspora for the comfortable lives that we lead today.
 

k1976

Alfrescian
Loyal
The imperialists are absolutely correct in their view of third world countries.

The IQ levels of Africans in general is way lower compared to the Whites which is why they cause so much turmoil no matter where they are in the world.

The chinks may be smarter but they are godless and morally suspect at all levels of society. They'd sell their mothers if the price is right.

Without the West we'd still be in the dark ages. We have to thank Europe and the Jewish diaspora for the comfortable lives that we lead today.
Boss, we are in a High Tech Dark Age :smile:
 

k1976

Alfrescian
Loyal
The imperialists are absolutely correct in their view of third world countries.

The IQ levels of Africans in general is way lower compared to the Whites which is why they cause so much turmoil no matter where they are in the world.

The chinks may be smarter but they are godless and morally suspect at all levels of society. They'd sell their mothers if the price is right.

Without the West we'd still be in the dark ages. We have to thank Europe and the Jewish diaspora for the comfortable lives that we lead today.
Cina best is ownself sell ownself also dun realise
 

superpower

Alfrescian
Loyal
How Financialization is Destroying American Economy and Society
Casino capitalism, de-industrialization, predatory capitalism

SL KANTHAN

“Fugazi, fugayzi. It's a woozie. It's fairy dust. It’s not real.” That’s US economy!

Welcome to Geopolitics Demystified. I am your host S.L. Kanthan. Today, we talk about a very critical topic – how financialization has ruined the United States of America. This is also an important lesson for countries around the world, since many are misled into thinking that the way to become prosperous is to follow the US model.

The quote you heard about “fugazi” is from a scene in the movie Wolf of Wall Street where a veteran stockbroker explains the strategy for recommending stocks to customers. And that is also how the US economy works now. Somewhere along the way, the US forgot its own industrial past, and allowed the parasitic financial class to de-industrialize the country, destroy the free market, and create what can only be described as casino capitalism. Fueled by money-printing, unsustainable debt, massive fiscal and trade deficits, speculation and financial engineering, the American Empire superficially looks wealthy, but is actually teetering on the edge.

Three watershed moments

Paradoxically, the three global events that propelled American primacy would also be responsible for its eventual downfall. First, it was the famous Bretton Woods conference in 1944 and the devastation of WW2 that replaced the European empires with the American Empire, which immediately set out to dominate the world. However, this hubris led to humiliating failures in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. More importantly, the US was bankrupt in merely one generation after WW2. Thus, in 1971, the US went off the gold standard and defaulted on its financial obligations. Remember Richard Nixon’s famous speech – a.k.a the Nixon Shock -- in 1971 when he announced that the US would temporarily go off the gold standard? Well, of course, it was a permanent shift to fiat currency, since the US had run out of gold.

The second event that saved the US was the Saudi petrodollar deal, which rescued the US dollar from demise and re-established the greenback as the world’s reserve currency. On the flip side, this was akin to giving a teenager a platinum credit card with no limit. Excited by the possibility of immense and constantly growing demand for the dollar, America’s politicians went on a borrowing binge. The US debt-to-GDP ratio doubled between 1980 and 1992 – from 30% to 60%. Wall Street also loved free money and deregulation, which led to a spectacular boom in the 1980s and a crash in 1987. The 1980s also laid the foundation for outsourcing, de-industrialization of US economy, stock buybacks, hostile takeovers, vulture capitalism obsessed with profits for shareholders, and exotic tools such as derivatives. Then, we saw the dot com boom which went bust in 2001… followed by the real estate bubble, which burst in 2008. The COVID pandemic was a great coverup for the same boom-bust cycle. Since COVID, US debt has gone up by a staggering $12 trillion, but nobody can really tell you where that money went – it certainly didn’t go into the pockets of middle-class Americans.

The third event that was the last nail on the coffin was ironically the fall of the Soviet Union. This led to the birth of the unipolar moment, which in turn sparked uncontrolled hubris among globalists, banksters, corporate overlords, neocons and the military industrial complex. The irrational exuberance inside the American echo chamber led to prodigious outsourcing of manufacturing, the dot-com bubble, disastrous multi trillion-dollar wars in the Middle East, and a real-estate bubble which ended in a global financial crisis spawned by banks and Wall Street shysters.

What are the consequences of financialization?

Income and Wealth Inequality

First, Americans stopped worrying about fiscal discipline and embraced debt wholeheartedly. The US government has a debt of $35 trillion and, for the first time, the interest payment alone has exceeded the spending on military. American families and corporations have racked up another $32 trillion of debt. However, the biggest debtor in the history of mankind shamelessly claims that it’s the wealthiest.

Meanwhile, 2 in 3 Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, since the real wages – adjusted for inflation – of the average American has remained stagnant for four decades. Look at the wage increases for different groups of American between 1979 and 2019:

· Top 0.1% -- wages grew 375%
· Top 1% -- wages grew 160%
· Middle Class – wages grew 14%
· Bottom 10% -- wages grew 3%

From 1945 through the 70s, a typical American family could own a home, a car, and all the essentials with one wage earner, the husband. Now, in most families, both the husband and the wife must work to make the ends meet.

The wealth inequality in the US is staggering -- the top 10% of Americans have nearly 70% of the wealth, while the bottom 50% are left with just 3% of the nation’s wealth. If you include debts such as car loans, student loans, and credit card debt, the net wealth of many Americans will be negative.

Poverty is so bad that Americans are stealing electrical wiring from street lights, internet cables, and other public properties all across the country. In Los Angeles, people are stealing fire hydrants!

This Neo-feudalism is sold to the masses as freedom and democracy.

Poverty and inequality are mostly taboo topics in the US, where the society is taught to blame the poor. Thus, even though homelessness and drug addiction are at record levels, there is no debate about the fundamental economic system.

Casino Capitalism

Las Vegas is a very popular destination because it is a Sin City that clouds people’s judgments. Although vast majority of people end up losing money, they gamble hopefully, because the few winners are always loud. And Vegas offers plenty of cheap drinks to drown the sorrow of losers.

Well, the US economy is modeled after Vegas.

The only way to accumulate wealth in America is through speculation – mostly in real estate and stocks. And just like in Vegas, for every winner, there are many more losers. The stock market crashes periodically, but there is no choice but to participate in it, since American wages do not allow people to save steadily. And, just like Vegas, the “house always wins.”

In the stock market, insiders engage in pump-and-dump. Consider Tesla stock: Starting in March 2020, it went up 8-fold within a year, making millionaires and the billionaires a lot wealthier. However, the stock has lost half its value in the last year. Guess who was the sucker? The average investor, who buys high and sells low, since he hears all the hype close to the peak.

But a sucker is born every minute. The latest hype is Nvidia, which has a market cap of mind-boggling $3.3 trillion – India’s GDP in 2022. Nvidia’s profit is only $30 billion. In a logical world, this valuation means that it would take more than 100 years to recoup the investment. So, why would anyone buy Nvidia shares? In the hope that the stock price would keep going up.

But such absurdity is celebrated in the US mainstream culture. The Netherlands had the Tulip Mania in the 17th century; the US has non-stop mania or irrational exuberance.

There is also plenty of financial engineering. Stock buybacks used to be illegal until the 1980s. But now, US corporations spend almost $1 trillion a year buying back their own shares, artificially boosting the stock price. Many corporations even borrow money to use for the buyback programs. Thus, when the US boasts that its stock market is worth $50 trillion, it’s nothing but “fugazi.”

Corporate CEOs and the large shareholders such as BlackRock do not care about investing in production, research, technology or the employees. Instead, the priorities are stock prices and dividends. This is why the US is losing to China, which now leads in 37 out of 44 critical technologies.

The other option in the American casino is the real estate, which also goes through boom-and-bust cycles. When the market collapses, giant private equity firms like Blackstone swoop in and buy homes at a great discount. By 2030, corporate landlords will be owning 40% of the rental homes in the US.

As the World Economic Forum said, “You will own nothing and be happy.” Although, they are wrong about the second part – Americans are very depressed and rank #1 in global statistics for consumption of antidepressants and other psychotropic medications. The market for illegal drugs in the US is $150 billion a year. The suicide rate in the US has also skyrocketed to the highest level since the Great Depression.

Sociologists have a special term for what’s happening in the US: Deaths of Despair. In terms of life expectancy, communist China has now surpassed capitalist USA.

Financialize Everything

Financialization is the cancer that is eating away at the US economy. Interestingly, the great economists in America have not really analyzed this fatal phenomenon. I have thought a lot about it and have come up with four different ways that the economy gets financialized.

1. Eliminating industries that are less profitable
2. Transforming normal economic sectors into speculative ones
3. Transforming normal economic sectors into extractive ones
4. Creating destructive industries

Let’s dive in.

Eliminating industries that are less profitable:

This is the foundation of outsourcing and deindustrialization that really took off in the 1980s as American corporations became extremely greedy and forgot their duties to the country. “Greed is good” became the mantra. The first target was manufacturing, which is very capital-intensive and labor-intensive. Why build massive factories and deal with the headache of managing workers? Moreover, why pay high wages and provide all sorts of benefits to blue-collar workers when people in developing nations could do the same work for fraction of the cost?

Many Americans would be astonished to learn that a century ago, the US’ share of global steel production was 40%. It is now merely 4%, while China accounts for 54%. Similar American decline can be observed in every category of manufacturing, thanks to the warped ideology of financialization.

The same calamitous philosophy is also applied towards infrastructure, which has very low profit margins. What is the return on investment (ROI) on bridges, railways, subways etc. compared to stock market manipulation? Insignificant. That is why the US infrastructure has been crumbling for years. In New York City, the cradle of Wall Street, the metro system looks like a fourth-world country with decades-old trains, decaying subway stations with trash and rats, and homeless people sleeping in the trains. There are more than 40,000 structurally deficient bridges in the US… 1000+ train accidents every year… one-third of Americans are exposed to arsenic, lead and toxic chemicals in the tap water… but the US would rather waste billions of dollars in wars in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Starting in the 1980s, US corporations started shipping jobs abroad, especially to Asia, which had plenty of diligent and cheap workers. Initially, US firms employed sweatshops to make the likes of Nike shoes, Gap shirts and Gucci bags. However, Asian countries were quick learners – especially China – and were able to climb up the value chain and manufacture more complex goods. Then, as the wages rose, those countries also became more efficient and productive, thus maintaining high profits for Western firms.

This exploitation scheme was working well until 2010 when China became the world’s largest manufacturing nation, displacing the US, which had held that title for the previous century! Then a decade later, China’s manufacturing value added was 75% larger than that of the US. More importantly, China was making its own intermediary goods and hi-tech products. Now, China’s industrial capacity is much larger than the US in virtually every manufacturing sector -- 10x larger in steel production, 250x larger in shipbuilding capacity and so on.

Now, when Boeing needs to build a plane, they need to rely on Russia or China for special titanium; when Raytheon and Lockheed Martin make missiles and fighter jets, they depend on thousands of Chinese suppliers; American pharmaceutical firms and hospitals need raw materials and medicines – including antibiotics - from China; and America’s largest corporations such as Walmart, Apple and Tesla will not survive without Chinese labor, goods and market. For example, half of Tesla cars globally are made in Shanghai and a third of Teslas are sold in China.

The US is in a terrible predicament. Since Trump’s election in 2016, Americans have found out how hard it is to fix the manufacturing gap. They have not been able to bring back the jobs; and they have not been to find any other country as skilled and efficient like China. Thus, US politicians and think tanks have been playing with creative phrases such as re-shoring, friend-shoring, China plus one, and de-risking. However, all these have remained empty slogans for the most part. Last year, the US imported $430 billion of goods from China – almost the same as in 2016, when Trump got elected.

Transforming normal economic sectors into speculative ones

In a real economy, the society would focus on production of tangible and beneficial goods in abundance. There would be emphasis on manufacturing, infrastructure and development. However, in an economy consumed by financial capitalism, speculation reigns as the driving force.

For example, rather than building more homes and making them affordable, the financial overlords prefer to keep the supply of homes low. Scarcity means higher value. Then, the entire real estate can be turned into a game of betting. For example, someone can buy a home and sell it the next year to make $100,000 of profit. While get-rich-quick gimmicks are tempting, they result in a hollowed-out economy and a delusional society that create “nothingburgers.”

Transforming normal economic sectors into extractive ones

The third and more pernicious form of financial capitalism involves fostering extractive or predatory sectors.

Take, for example, higher education. Young Americans now owe a whopping $1.8 trillion is student debt. College education in the US costs 4 times more today than 40 years ago — even after adjusted for inflation. Is education 4 times better now than before? Are kids learning 4 times more? Do college graduates earn 4 times more? No, no, no.

Similarly, healthcare cost in the US has risen from 6% of GDP in 1970 to 18% of GDP now. But Americans are much fatter and much sicker today than fifty years ago. Numerous chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity, autism, allergies, immune disorders, and cancer have skyrocketed over the decades. Obesity rate tripled from 15% to 45% over the last 40 years. Also, heart disease has been the #1 killer for a century but the great scientific minds cannot figure out a solution. In a financialized economy, sickness is a wonderful opportunity. As a Goldman Sachs analyst pondered in a biotech research report, “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?”

In predatory capitalism, providing affordable college education is a terrible idea; and preventive healthcare – especially using food, natural cures and holistic medicine – is an unforgivable financial sin.

Creating destructive industries

This is the most heinous consequence of financial capitalism, which creates disease, death and destruction for profit.

The military industrial complex is the prime example. Rather than focusing on peace, diplomacy and development, the “defense” contractors lobby politicians and bribe the media to promote perpetual wars. We can see how the US uses NATO to wage war against Russia, rather than seeking diplomatic solutions to end the conflict in Ukraine. Now, NATO has started demonizing China, laying the groundwork for a future catastrophic war in Asia.

The food industry and Big Pharma are two other notable criminals. The junk food industry is a colossal industry that makes billions of people sick; and Big Pharma sells numerous multibillion-dollar drugs based on exaggerated claims from rigged clinical trials. Once you realize how food corporations and pharmaceutical corporations are owned by the same financial masters – like Blackrock and Vanguard – you can see the racket – i.e., making people sick and then hooking them on lifelong medications.

In the 1960s, the sugar industry bribed researchers at Harvard University to blame saturated fat for heart disease; and companies like Coca Cola still fund scientists to “debunk” links between sugar and obesity. One of the scientists paid by the sugar industry went on to become the head of nutrition at the United States Department of Agriculture, where he helped write the dietary guidelines. The entire nutrition science is corrupted by Big Agri, Big Food and Big Pharma.

America’s mainstream corporate media has also forgotten journalism and truth. Instead, it embraces propaganda to protect its cronies in the government and other giant corporations; and the media spreads fake news and sensationalism to generate revenue from clicks.

Finally, even American politics has been financialized, resulting in every politician being on sale for various lobbying groups. US politicians represent the oligarchs, interest groups and corporations… not the American public. If you are an American and want to meet with your congressman or Senator, it is impossible, unless you write a check for, say, $10,000. Then you can get a 10-min meeting with him or her. If you want to have a personal 1-1 dinner with the politician, give him $100,000.

Conclusion

Driven by greed, hubris and an inflated sense of exceptionalism, the financial overlords of the United States of America forgot the fundamentals of economics, politics and statecraft.

Once upon a time, the political and business leaders of the US understood the importance of industries, production, infrastructure and, more importantly, the contract between the rulers and the masses. However, with financialization of the US economy, the oligarchs created a predatory capitalist system that has been devouring the American society for the past few decades. Unfortunately, there is no easy path for the US to revert back to an industrial economy now.

Rather than building a sustainable and resilient system, US elites have created an Empire that depends on the exploitation of the rest of the world. However, this parasitic model has reached its expiry date, as the Global South is architecting a new paradigm for a multipolar world order. The implosion of the American economic and political system will be not only painful but also dangerous to itself and the rest of humanity. Managing the collapse of the US empire will be a monumental challenge for Russia, China, India and others in BRICS+ over the next decade.

--- S.L. Kanthan

Follow me on Twitter: @Kanthan2030 and YouTube: Geopolitics Demystified
India and Geopolitics is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell India and Geopolitics that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.

©️ 2024 S.L. Kanthan
Whitefield, Bangalore, Karnataka 560066
India
 

superpower

Alfrescian
Loyal
Investigative reporter Kit Klarenberg dissected an AP news piece about US naval personnel returning from Red Sea duties. The AP reported that the aircraft-carrier Eisenhower and its accompanying ships had been bombarded relentlessly by Ansar Allah drones, and ballistic and cruise missiles. These attacks sometimes penetrated multiple layers of on-ship defenses, totally unprecedented in modern history. Most sailors were not used to dealing with an enemy that fought back.
This is only Yemen and the Houthis; one can only imagine the havoc China's drones can wreak. Aircraft carriers are fast becoming dinosaurs.



Collapsing Empire: Yemen Defeats US Navy

  • Kit Klarenberg
  • Source: Al Mayadeen English
  • 19 Jul 2024 14:49
Undefeated and indefatigable, God’s Partisans are not backing down, and are going nowhere. The Resistance fights to win.

b3845040-8bf5-48f2-96ca-b15db5b33859.png.jpeg


On July 12th, the Associated Press (AP) published an astonishing report, on the return of US Navy fighter pilots to Virginia after nine months of failing to thwart the righteous anti-genocide blockade of Red Sea shipping by Yemen’s Ansar Allah. The article was at pains to portray the pilots’ arrival Stateside as a heroic homecoming for courageous American flying aces. In reality, the Empire’s terminal weaknesses, and drastically ever-reducing power, were amply exposed.

AP described the pilots as “feeling relieved…after months of shooting down Houthi-launched missiles and drones off Yemen’s coast in the most intense running sea battle the Navy has faced since World War II.” Accompanying photos depicted them embracing their wives, and children waving the Star Spangled Banner. One pilot, “clearing the emotion from his voice,” boasted that he “couldn’t be prouder of his team” - the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group - and “everything that the last nine months have entailed.”

The pilot looked ahead to spending time with his family, and trying to “make up for nine months of lost time.” The wife of a Navy lieutenant commander and pilot lamented that she “initially thought this deployment would be relatively easy” - “it was going to be, if you could call it, a fun deployment where he’s going to get lots of ports to visit.” As it was, the USS Eisenhower became embroiled in a brutal, unwinnable quagmire, and “plans continued to change.”

The drastic prolongation of her husband’s deployment “was exacerbated” due to knowing “people” - in other words, Ansar Allah - “[wanted] to harm the ship.” She was forced to consult “counselors provided by the Navy,” and was not alone. AP records “months of fighting and extensions placed extra stress on roughly 7,000 sailors and their families.” Pentagon officials are now investigating how to care for pilots and sailors “when they return home, including counseling and treatment for possible post-traumatic stress.”

It’s been a hellacious nine months for the US Navy in the Red Sea, courtesy of God’s Partisans [literal translation of Ansar Allah]. AP notes the Eisenhower and its accompanying ships have been bombarded relentlessly by Ansar Allah drones, and ballistic and cruise missiles. Frequently, these attacks have penetrated multiple layers of on-ship defenses, which is totally unprecedented in modern history. AP reports many sailors “have seen incoming Houthi-launched missiles seconds before they are destroyed by their ship’s defensive systems.”


Battling an enemy that can actually fight back has been a deeply ravaging experience for the US Navy. One pilot remarked, “most of the sailors…weren’t used to being fired on given the nation’s previous military engagements in recent decades.” He described the experience as “incredibly different”, “traumatizing for the group”, and “something that we don’t think about a lot.” A new experience it may be - but it’s one the US military will need to promptly and permanently adapt to.

https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/collapsing-empire--yemen-defeats-us-navy
 

laksaboy

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
More like the end of CHINA, you brainwashed buffoon. :cool:

Chinese subtitles included for your monolingual Tiong comrades. :sneaky:

 

superpower

Alfrescian
Loyal
Behind the reprint
of a short message from "Xinwen Lianbo" is a turbulent situation.

At 7 p.m. on July 9, CCTV's "News Network" broadcast a short message to the people across the country: Chairman of the Central Military Commission Xi Jinping had signed an order to give first-class merit to the 92950 unit of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.

A short message of just a few seconds; because this short message neither explained the ins and outs of the matter nor why it was commended, it naturally did not attract the attention of the Chinese people. But afterwards, it caused an uproar in the international community.

Foreign media with a keen sense of smell immediately found out that the People's Liberation Army Unit 92950 is a special unit, affiliated to the Chinese Naval Aviation. This unit is mainly equipped with carrier-based aircraft, high-tech-6 Special operations aircraft, the Y-9 communication jammer, as well as high-tech weapons such as the Type 815 naval electronic intelligence ship, the only new strategic force in the world that can rival the US military.

Foreign media immediately thought of the previous June 30 message, when the People's Liberation Army's Southern Theater Command suddenly and quietly posted a picture late at night with the text: "There is thick smoke deep in the blue sea. Good night."

Until then, only military observers realized the reason why the top leader signed an order to record first-class merit for the People's Liberation Army Unit 92950.

It turns out that before this, the Chinese and American militaries launched an unprecedented face-to-face and intense electronic warfare contest in the South China Sea. In this military struggle, the People's Liberation Army was victorious.

Looking back at the incident, the Chinese people were all taken aback by the fact that "Hunan Dongting Lake burst its banks and suffered heavy losses, and the central and local governments went all out for rescue and disaster relief."

At the same time, China and the United States were also launching a secret war in the South China Sea during this period. Most people did not pay attention to it at all. What they did not expect was that three strange phenomena that had never been seen before appeared in the South China Sea.

The first strange sight: the dispute between China and the Philippines over Ren'ai Reef and Xianbin Reef had reached a point of tension. The USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, which was not far away, actually turned around and sailed away from the waters surrounding the Philippines. I remember that eight Philippine special operations team members surrendered, and one special operations team member broke a finger. The weapons were seized by the Chinese side and the ship was driven away.

The second strange image: the Philippines announced that the "Typhon" intermediate-range missile system deployed by the United States in the Philippines would be withdrawn before September.

This is a missile base that the United States and the Philippines had just built in the northernmost part of the Philippines in a conspiracy to deal with China in the past few months. The range can directly reach Wuhan, China.

The third weird image: Philippine President Marcos Jr., who was talking tough just a few days ago, made a rare statement, emphasizing that he did not want to resolve disputes through conflict, but hoped to have dialogue with China through diplomatic channels. Immediately afterwards, the deputy foreign ministers of China and the Philippines sat down for negotiations in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

How could this series of events occur in just ten days? How could there be such a big reversal?

Behind these so-called "weird appearances" are actually the thrilling military struggles between China and the United States, a gripping modern high-tech "electronic warfare."

Foreign media reported that China and the United States engaged in electronic warfare for nearly 12 hours in the South China Sea. Not only did China dominate the electromagnetic control of the South China Sea, the US military's navigation system was extremely unstable, causing all GPS signals in the northern Philippines to be interrupted, including communications and radars. The facility also experienced numerous breakdowns.

At that time, in cooperation with the Philippines, the US military sent P-8A anti-submarine patrol aircraft to drop a large number of sonobuoys in the airspace of Ren'ai Reef in the South China Sea, hoping to obtain Chinese military information. The Chinese Coast Guard discovered them immediately.

When the United States saw that its high-tech treasure was about to be scooped up by the Chinese Coast Guard and fishermen, it quickly attempted to stop it and launched fighter jets from the nearby USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier to provide support.

China's aircraft carrier Shandong was in the nearby waters, and the U.S. military felt it would suffer a loss. An RC-135 electronic reconnaissance aircraft and an EA-18G Growler, which the most powerful electronic jammers in the West today, were dispatched to provide electronic support in an attempt to suppress China's sea and air communications and blind Chinese fighter planes and warships.

When the People's Liberation Army saw that the United States was serious, it also dispatched Y-9 electronic warfare aircraft to the relevant waters to support the Shandong fleet. So a high-intensity electronic war between China and the United States ensued.

In the end, China and the United States engaged in an electronic war in the South China Sea for nearly 12 hours. China suppressed the United States. The navigation system of the "Roosevelt" aircraft carrier experienced a "failure". The United States, unable to get any benefits, had to evacuate the South China Sea. However, both China and the United States kept it secret. Neither China nor the United States announced victory or defeat. What everyone saw was that the US aircraft carrier battle group quietly withdrew.

The country that suffered the most damage turned out to be the Philippines. According to the Philippines' own reports, the intense electronic warfare between China and the United States in northern Luzon caused network disconnection. Even mobile phones could not be used, and electronic communications have completely failed. 25 targets were locked by Chinese hypersonic missiles.

The living reality is before our eyes: the Philippines is being led into a ditch. Can the top leaders of the Philippines not see that the "Mutual Defense Treaty” between the United States and the Philippines is a blank piece of paper. If the Philippines continues to act as a villain, the consequences will be disastrous.

Sure enough, shortly after the incident, the United States withdrew its "Typhon" intermediate-range missile system deployed in the Philippines. Clearly, if the US military did not take the initiative to call for the withdrawal, would the Philippines unilaterally announce it?

As a result, Philippine President Marcos took the initiative to invite China to Manila for negotiations.

China has not talked about this matter, and neither has the United States. However, the rumors of electronic warfare between China and the United States show that the People's Liberation Army is already a powerful opponent of the US military, and the US military has taken a loss this time.

It is precisely because the U.S. military suffered a heavy loss that China paid low-key commendations. This is politics.
 
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