Good Points From Larry. Michael Hudson On Reindustrialization.

Larry also talks about Cold War 1.0. 

I anticipate that Russia will intensify its attacks on Ukrainian positions at key locations along the 800 mile line of contact in the next two weeks. While NATO is scrambling to provide Ukraine with actionable intelligence to try to damage the Russian capabilities, Zelensky and his Generals confront a harsh reality that first class intelligence is useless if you do not have the manpower or equipment to make a major dent in Russian defenses. Ukraine’s military grows weaker with each fruitless attack.

I agree with Andrei that the promised escalation by France and the U.K. is likely to provoke a Russian response. It is one thing to covertly provide more sophisticated lethal weaponry to Ukraine. Recall that the Soviets did it to the Americans in Vietnam and that the United States did it to the Soviets in Afghanistan. Both the Americans and the Russians quietly agreed to live with those actions without risking escalation into a direct conflict. They continued to have normal diplomatic contacts and negotiated arms control agreements in spite of the covert proxy wars. Each side knew what the other was doing but each side also took steps to try to hide their actions.

And here is the key: during the Cold War 1.0 there was an EXPLICIT understanding on both sides of consequences of nuclear exchange. Today, meaning the post-Cold War 1.0 period, both Washington and Brussels convinced themselves that that they are super-pooper powers with Russia's economy being (depending on the time period and imbeciles who have been spewing this BS) "smaller" than that of Portugal, Netherlands, Spain, Italy etc. In Cold War 1.0 the superpower club was a very exclusive one. Well, in Warm War 1.0 some chihuahuas decided that they may pretend to be in it. No, this club is still very exclusive, but now has three members: China, US and Russia. There is a pecking order in military balance and it is being enforced as I type this. Plus, neocons and Pentagon caretakers on their payroll do not know how to fight a real war. 

That brings us to Michael Hudson's brilliant summary of the combined West "economy". In his excellent interview with the ominous title Why the U.S. Economy cannot Re-Industrialize, he explains in detail this ever present real industrial factor, which IS in the foundation of the military might:

But there’s one problem, when they graduated with their PhD, there’s really only two jobs for economists in the economy: one is to drive a cab and the other is to teach. But in order to teach, you have to be hired according to how many journal articles you write for the most prestigious journals. And almost all the journal articles are controlled by the economics departments of colleges like the University of Chicago, or Berkeley, that are funded by the banks, and the large foundations. And so if you don’t publish in these journals, by saying what the neoliberals, the monetarists, the junk economists say, then you’re not going to get hired. So of course our students did get hired, but not by Harvard, or the University of Chicago, or Princeton, or Columbia. They could get hired by the New School here in New York, and by others, but there is a almost total censorship. And some students came from Asia, and they’ve gone back to Asia. Some were my colleagues in China, and Hong Kong, folks studied at UMKC. But you have the control imposing junk economics in the United States, by the media, such as The New York Times, is almost as strong as their control over reporting about the Ukraine war, as if Ukraine’s winning, and not losing.

They’re saying as if deindustrialization is helping us move into the post-industrial society of mass unemployment and homelessness, as if that’s a good thing. Well, it is a good thing for the 1%, because they get to feel, we’re really it. We’re really the new lords, the financial lords, not landlords, who are also in debt to us, to borrow. So that’s really the situation. Ultimately, if people don’t have a mental model in their mind of how the world works, and how it should work, to promote prosperity, they believe with Margaret Thatcher, as you said, that “there is no alternative.” And the function of economic education is to try to brainwash students into thinking there is no alternative.

This is precisely why I do not treat West's "economic" statistics seriously and do not read propaganda outlets such as WSJ or Economist, among many others, only on rare occasions, because those who write and are published there are not real academicians, despite numerous Ph.Ds. Neither does SVR, General Staff, FSB and other serious Russian government analytical outlets who made a precise forecast of West's "capabilities" or, rather lack thereof, on the eve of issuing ultimatum in December 2021 by both clandestine and open deconstruction of the US economic "data". Hudson also makes a superb observation of the role of anti-labor policies which effectively destroyed American industry. And here is a control shot to the head by Hudson:

The other day I was asked, how are you going to get China, and Saudi Arabia, and African, and South American countries all to work together? They all have such different religions, and ethnicities, and social status. Well, the common denominator is, they’re all wage earners. And they all have a common objective in making enough money, by working for a living, so that they can increase their living standards, have a home of their own, and have a shorter working day, and a less intensive, less exploitative, working conditions. That’s all the common denominator that you need for these countries to work together, and it should be all the common denominator that you need in the United States, but as long as people think there are only two alternatives, the Republicans or the Democrats, well, that’s the same thing as saying there’s no alternative to the 1%, the FIRE sector, ruling society.

Exactly.  Now think why Comrade Xi received Valentina Matvienko. She is a big parliamentary honcho--a Chair of the Federation Council (Senate), but still. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted a top Russian senator, Valentina Matvienko, for talks in Beijing on Monday. The high-profile negotiations revolved around strengthening ties between the two nations, as well as their joint multinational projects. “China is ready to continue to work with Russia to develop a new era of comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership that is mutually supportive, deeply integrated, pioneering and innovative, and mutually beneficial to help rejuvenate the two countries and promote a prosperous, stable, fair and just world,” Xi said during the meeting, which involved multiple senior officials from the two countries. Moscow and Beijing should “lead the correct direction of global governance reform,” Xi stressed, underlining that the development of the bilateral ties has become “a strategic choice made by both countries based on their own national and people’s fundamental interests.” Xi added that the importance of developing ties within such multinational groups as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS.

You all know now that Iran is a full member of SCO, right?