A Chronic Illness.

It seems incurable in the US. I was reading Kunstler's predictions (I don't make "predictions"--it is a silly business) today and bang, here it was: 

Russia is not our economic rival. Vast as its land-mass is, Russia’s economy is not much bigger than the economy of Texas. 

Ahh, no.  In one phrase, immediately, two major mistakes which are so symptomatic of the America's mental health this very same James Kunstler writes about:

Of course, this matter has even greater significance for correcting the meta-problem of America chronically lying to itself. RussiaGate and its spinoffs was such a gargantuan edifice of malicious dishonesty that it must be deconstructed in the courts, or the mental health of the nation may not recover.

Getting their numbers straight could be a good start. In fact, let's take a look at numbers. 

1. Will start with this tired thesis of Texas' economy being either larger or the size of Russia's economy. The brief look at the size of the Texas economy reveals, based on US government data, that its GDP was in 2018 $1.803 trillion.  Mind you, with Texas (as is the case with the US), does NOT have PPP index because it doesn't exist for the US or, rather, equals its nominal GDP which is denominated in US Dollars for global economy--a travesty of unimaginable scale. But still. This is not to mention the fact that out of those 1.8 trillion, huge chunk is "contained" in well known to us "industries" such as FIRE and other unspecified services. 

Go figure. Of course, Kunstler forgets another teeny-weeny fact, that Texas is an organic part of the US economy at large, and no matter how large Texan egos are, Texas without the United States will be immediately reduced, if viewed as a separate nation (well, they think themselves there in Texas), to a rather economically insignificant entity whose economy will immediately lose core industries required for the United States as a nation--how about aerospace? You get my drift. 

Now, we, of course, have to get to this damn Russia which not only produces practically everything on her own, but has an economy which ranked 5th ( I propose, and I have the argument, that it is 4th) globally and its actual size in accordance to IMF--another belch of a dysfunctional American financial voodoo system, well, judge for yourself, for 2019:

So, Russian actual economy dwarfs that of Texas, plus, which comes as an insult to injury for Texas, Russia produces things which Texas doesn't, and if taken as a separate "economy" will never be able to produce. Texas will never be able to produce within, let alone without, the United States nuclear icebreakers, space vehicles, whole spectrum of aviation from combat to commercial, to...Ah, here comes this second thesis by Kunstler:

2. Russia is "not economic rival" for the US. It is NOT black and white, because there are few critical fields in which Russia is not only a full fledged rival for the US, but actually THE ONLY competitor. I, of course, may start with this trivial puny hydrocarbons issue, which is also partially in the foundation of US non-stop economic sanctions on Russia, because Russia is clear and present danger to only one resource the United States needs desperately to export to EU and this is natural gas. In fact, what we observe currently is America's full blown economic warfare against Russia (and EU) precisely because Russia's massive hydrocarbons industry which is not only immensely competitive with the American one, but, actually, threatens US "plan" for EU. 

Then, of course, comes nuclear energy field, but here US nuclear energy is simply not competitor to a monster of Rosatom and its gigantic portfolio (from Rosatom 2018 report). 

And then come weapons... Here, not only Russia is not just "economic rival", she is a clear and present danger for the US. For a simple reason, she produces a spectrum of weapons systems Texas (even integrated into the US economy) will not be able to produce, especially from concept to R&D to a full manufacturing cycle. And then, of course, Russia offers weapon systems which the United States (let alone Texas) simply do not have. I do not like SIPRI (they are very questionable source of data) but even this dated (2017 chart) shows who real bosses in the global arms trade are. 

I omit here, of course, quality of weapon systems and in terms of cruise missiles, air-defense systems and combat aircraft, to name a few segments, US is losing ground pretty fast. 

So, is Russia economic rival to the United States? Oh, yes, she is. Especially when one peels off layer after layer of the American financial BS which passes as a GDP and faces a rather not that huge (large still) actual GDP, or, let's put it this way, value US real economy produces. In the end, this significant piece of news shouldn't have escaped Kunstler's attention, because it is yet another confirmation of upcoming Discretionary Spending crunch in the US of which so many people warned for years.

WASHINGTON – The Department of Defense has sent a plan to the White House that would cut the construction of more than 40 percent of its planed Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyers in in fiscal years 2021 through 2025.In total, the proposal would cut five of the 12 DDGs planned through the so-called future years defense program, or FYDP. In total, the plan would cut about $9.4 billion, or 8 percent, out of the total shipbuilding budget, according to a memo from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to the Defense Department obtained by Defense News. The memo also outlined plans to accelerate the decommissioning cruisers, cutting the total number of Ticonderoga-class cruisers in the fleet down to nine by 2025, from a planned 13 in last year’s budget.The Pentagon’s plan would actually shrink the size of the fleet from today’s fleet of 293 ships to 287 ships

All this is not just the realization of the dramatic change in the warfare, which I termed a Real Revolution in Military Affairs, with massive tactical, operational and strategic ramifications, but also the fact that current military spending by the US is NOT sustainable, especially for a minuscule amount of bang for a buck US military was getting in the last couple of decades.  

These points which I outlined in this post are the main reasons for the United States initiating a Cold War 2.0 with Russia, which American elites always viewed in XX and XXI centuries as a threat and the only viable and capable impediment for their plans on global domination. Hence mental breakdown. Russians are keenly aware of what is going on with America and, as I pointed out earlier this year Russians can relate, as Irina Alksnis so brilliantly encapsulated:

However, to hear this simple advice--not to mention  following it--the United States need to stop, at least for an instance, and silence themselves. To stop shaking air with statements, declarations, demands, and threats, which come across as either strange, or outright silly because of their obvious inability to ever become a reality. But it is precisely, it seems, what the US is not capable of doing. As a result--the continuation of never-ending declaratory carousel: Moscow, Assad must go! Russians, we will provide for freedom of navigation in Kerch Strait! Russians, we will punish you for support of Maduro. But the most insulting for Americans is that only Russia can understand them. Because we remember the pain behind those words.  

While Your Attention...

May be focused on this:

More than 20 deals have been signed on Monday between Moscow and Riyadh during President Vladimir Putin’s state visit to Saudi Arabia.Agreements include the charter for long-term cooperation between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-cartel oil producers. Along with the charter, the two countries have signed a protocol on energy cooperation.The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), and ESN Group agreed to invest in designing, building, and operating a methanol plant in Russia’s Far East, in the Amur region. The plant is expected to have an annual capacity of up to 2 million tons, according to RDIF.

And more along the same lines of direct Saudi investments and even leasing planes in Russia. The real wowser is, actually, this: 

Egypt will substitute its large tank park of old Soviet T-55 and T-62 tanks with T-90MC (in Russian). 

Recall also that Iraqi 35th Mechanized Brigade preferred T-90 to US made Abrams tanks. Egypt, meanwhile, altogether produces pre-kitted Abrams tanks in Egypt. I guess Syria answered a lot of questions regarding combat performance of the military hardware. So, as you can see, things are getting extremely interesting in the world. Now, we have to see where this whole anti-Constitutional coup will lead all of us; but if Trump's bold moves and bold anti-interventionist and anti-neocon statements are any indication, we may yet see a long-overdue cleansing of the treasonous camp, as James Kunstler thinks it will happen:

An eerie silence cloaked the political landscape this lovely fall weekend as the soldiers in this (so far) administrative civil war scrambled for position in the next round of skirmishes. Rep. Adam Schiff fell back on the preposterous idea that he might not produce his “whistleblower” witness at all in the (so far) hypothetical impeachment proceeding. He put that one out after running a similarly absurd idea up the flagpole: that his “whistleblower” might just testify by answering written questions. I was waiting for him to offer up testimony by Morse code, carrier pigeon, or smoke signals. 

Read the whole thing and keep an eye on Syria. That's Monday for ya.

So, Michael Hudson Calls It.

Hudson, who, by my primitive criteria, is one of the best (true) economics and economic history brains of our time doesn't mince the words and calls it as he sees it (correctly): Trump’s Trade Threats Are Really Cold War 2.0. Hudson correctly identifies the issue:

He opens negotiations with a threat. That costs nothing, and you never know (or at least, he never knows) whether he can get a freebee. His threat is that the U.S. can hurt its adversary unless that country agrees to abide by America’s wish-list. But in this case the list is so unrealistic that the media are embarrassed to talk about it. The US is making impossible demands for economic surrender – that no country could accept. What appears on the surface to be only a trade war is really a full-fledged Cold War 2.0.

Let's see: by now Trump and his gang of misfits and chicken-hawks headed by knightly Bolton and sophisticated Pompeo threatened pretty much most of the economically viable world. The issue here (for Trump and, by implication, the United States) is that nobody really is quaking, as Pat Buchanan put it, in their boots. Here, Hudson gives some really good rationale for this lack of quaking:

Trump’s trade tantrum is that other countries are simply following the same economic strategy that once made America great, but which neoliberals have destroyed here and in much of Europe. U.S. negotiators are unwilling to acknowledge that the United States has lost its competitive industrial advantage and become a high-cost rentier economy. Its GDP is “empty,” consisting mainly of the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) rents, profits and capital gains while the nation’s infrastructure decays and its labor is reduced to a part-time “gig” economy. Under these conditions the effect of trade threats can only be to speed up the drive by other countries to become economically self-reliant.  

I am sincerely happy that my diagnosis of the United States, of which I am writing  for years now, follows so closely  Michael Hudson's. In fact, we still do not know the true scale of the loss of the key enclosed technological cycles in the US. We all know it is bad, as this terrifying report to this very same Donald Trump testifies to. Did Trump even read it? Did he get the gist of it? I am beginning to believe he didn't. Someone in his Administration did, but not him. With each passing day I only reinforce my opinion on him as one trick pony fed on a steady diet of American exceptionalism and values of New York's shady real estate business--this is not enough for trying to save such country as the United States, let alone declare and win Cold War 2.0. One really has to know the real battlefield, be that economic or, which is a whole other story in the US, military one. 

The trick, however, is to explain it to the cabal of "political scientists", sociologists and other foreign relations "experts" infesting fat remuneration greased  corridors of Establishment, that they know shit about either battlefields. Those who know, or understood  finally, however few of them, they are out of ideas precisely for being those proverbial one trick ponies--US establishment can not produce anymore someone different. Delusion still abounds, though, with professors in basically nothing continuing to wax strategic and military when having zero qualifications for that. The world is complex, it is getting even more complex with astonishing acceleration and new ideas are needed to preserve it peaceful, even if relatively, and with some hope for the future. Current American political class cannot do it and will increasingly find itself at the curb of the humanity's highway. So, it will be left with only one thing to do, as one trick ponies know, to threaten until, as Hudson points out, they self-destruct and take the country with them. I have no problem with this cabal going down, the country? We may need to discuss that separately--I know some prescriptions are out there, the main question--WHO is going to implement them. 

P.S. In a wonderful news: sue their asses into utter financial destruction! Somebody started doing this. Read excellent piece by real left-wing American:

Campus Wokesters with boundary problems got “woke” for real on Thursday when an Ohio jury laid an additional $33-million for punitive damages on top of $11-million in compensatory damages already awarded against Oberlin College for running a “social justice” campaign to ruin the business of a four-generation small-town bakery that followed the shoplifting arrest of three black Oberlin College students there in 2016.

About fvcking time.