A Theory.

Late Soviet-Russian philosopher and social scientist Richard Kosolapov quotes, in his 2002 book "Let's Stalin Speak", his friend a former member of the Presidium of the Central Committee, a philosopher and a professor of Moscow State University, Dmitri Chesnokov who had a conversation with Stalin shortly before Stalin's death in March of 1953. In this conversation, Stalin, speaking about formalism and bureaucratization of the Party, almost pleaded with Chesnokov, when stated:

«Вы вошли в Президиум ЦК. Ваша задача – оживить теоретическую работу в партии, дать анализ новых процессов и явлений в стране и мире. Без теории нам смерть, смерть, смерть!»

Translation: You are now a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee. Your task is a revitalization of the theoretical work in Party, to provide the analysis of new processes and phenomena in our country and in the world. Without theory, for us it is death, death, death!  

These are some of the most powerful and dramatic words from a man known for always keeping his cool and not yielding to panic even under the most pressing circumstances of the early stages of the Great Patriotic War. Yet, here it is--stressing an utter urgency. Why so? The answer, is quite obvious--classic Marxism of the 19th-early 20th Century simply ran its course and stopped being adequate and Stalin knew it, even if to assume some theoretical probability that Stalin's formulation to Chesnokov is somewhat exaggerated, albeit I doubt it--in many respects, events of 1940s-1950s and Stalin's character leave no doubts that such a conversation, with such emphasis, did take place. His no less dramatic statement to Shepilov, a famous economist and chief editor of "Pravda", in which Stalin warns about lack of scientific approach to preparation of economic and political elite in USSR and where he also uses hyperbole of historic urgency and of death for the country, only confirms Chesnokov's episode. 

Stalin recognized that times changed, he also recognized a profound effect of the scientific revolution on the society, not just Soviet, but global and that no matter how useful Marxist analytical apparatus was, the theory was increasingly becoming outdated. It was difficult to apply economic views formed in the times of belt transmissions and steam to economic and industrial reality which already in early 1950s saw a revolutionary spread of radio-electronics, mass means of communications and early computers with increase automation of production. Some Russian Marxists today even dare to assume--the view I happen to share with them--that Stalin didn't have a theory of Socialism (in Russian). Not only I share such a view, but seeing where the Soviet Union was going in 1970s and 1980s I dare to state that nobody had. It is of course, a matter for debate and "what if" scenarios when trying to predict if Stalin could have saved the USSR, or could a working theory be realistically developed, but there is no doubt whatsoever, that market relations were already emerging in the USSR as early as 1940s even within the framework of an extremely strained by war mobilizational economy. Such a theory should have accounted for the human nature which, even with the most sophisticated and effective ideological education and upbringing, couldn't be changed, especially against the background of a country which, on Stalin's watch, was becoming the most educated country in the world. One is forced to recall a famous sociological truism, about marriage and family, which emerged early in 20th Century: the higher is the educational level of a woman, the higher is her professional qualification, the wider her circle of personal and public connections, the more self-reliant and independent such a woman is, the higher will be her requirements for marriage.   

This truism is fully applicable to a nation as a whole and could be reduced to a simple formula--the more educated is a nation, the higher will be its requirements for economic well-being. Humans are many things, and they are not exclusively Homo Economicus, but they ARE Homo Economicus among many other things and that is one of the factors which Marxists decided "to solve" by means of creating  "a new man"--highly educated and highly tempered in his (her) economic demands. What they forgot, of course, were the sources of wisdom which for millennia spoke about human sin, ambition, jealousy, envy and, generally, what came to be known as an individual "pursuit of happiness". They forgot that human nature is hard to change and that to find this "golden path" to both high living standard and sensible consumption is a hell of a task. The ideas were sound, the execution, as is always the case with most ambitious undertakings, left a lot to be desired. Those details which contained those proverbial devils interfered. Marxism was and is well suited to use as an analytical tool, but as a stand alone economic theory--it doesn't work, or, works as not intended. It either leads to a dead-end or stops being Marxism in its original meaning. And here we can draw--and you know that I am extremely uncomfortable with this drawing--parallels with modern severest crisis of the capitalism unfolding in a front of our eyes and which is being prevented from unleashing a global war to resolve its gigantic insurmountable contradictions largely due to Russia's massive nuclear and conventional fire power. 

Remarkably, it is also Russia which, yet again, is playing with a fascinating mix of some Marxist, free enterprise and economic nationalism ideas, trying to create a new model which will lead out of the dead-end neoliberalism led humanity into. Stalin may not have had theory of "socialism", but modern Western "thinkers" do not have the theory of "capitalism" either. Same as Soviet communists, or rather, party "thinkers", who got caught in the peculiarities of the ideology and could not see the way out, modern Western thinkers are in no position to criticize--these were they who justified and helped to implement the economic ruin of the West in general, and the United States in particular, by means of creating an alternative socioeconomic universe, or wonderland, which turned out to be even more bizarre than the most outrageous visions by Marxist fundamentalists. So, here we are today facing the existential crisis of the combined West and de facto disintegration of the United States which cannot produce both effective national idea and save its economy from a complete implosion. Make no mistake, Wall Street will do just fine, for a little while longer. But with the US Dollar being stripped of its hegemony as a main reserve currency and inability of the United States to enforce its parasitic lifestyle which such status of US Dollar provided it for decades, the issue of the real wealth-creation in the United States remains unsolved. It will stay as such for a foreseeable future because not only America doesn't have an economy which can overcome such a challenge without a massive social upheaval, but because American, so called, intellectual class has no theory and is not capable of developing it. In the end, it is not that intellectual to start with. 

As Dmitry Orlov sarcastically noted, while illustrating his thoughts with one of the most ridiculously funny and... accurate memes I ever encountered:

But perhaps most importantly, it must be understood that repatriating production to the US and redeveloping the industrial base will not be a profitable venture, at least not initially. At the outset, and for at least the duration of the first Five-Year Plan, it will definitely lose money. Borrowing it is a bad idea; the federal government is already $21 trillion in debt. Instead, this money needs to be confiscated from the top 1% of the population which owns close to 40% of the country’s wealth. Doing so will yield roughly $50 trillion—more than enough to fund this project. This is best done as part of a Cultural Revolution: round up the one-percenters, make them wear dunce caps and march them through the streets while pelting them with fruits and vegetables and heaping verbal abuse on them. Oh, and take away all of their money and sentence them to a lifetime of free public service.  

American social and political structure is not designed to deal with this issue. No, sure, there are many voices which shame and even accuse America's 1%, but they only are capable to implement the consumption restrictions for the overwhelming majority of deplorables, who do not have that much to start with. One-percenters will remain impervious to any economic and social changes and will continue to buy US one-party Congress, which will do as told while American intellectual class, which is incapable of learning, will continue to create all kinds of garbage such as Critical Race Theory or Gender Studies, on one hand, while trying to debunk those on the other hand, and nearly no one (with some minor exceptions), as empirical evidence shows, will start developing some practical view on the state of the affairs, which is based on the economic realities and the way wealth is distributed. It is a very hard intellectual and scholarly work. I know 99% of present crop of what passes in the United States as intellectuals are utterly unqualified and incapable of developing sound theories. Pseudo-scientific BS and sophistry they produce aplenty, sensible solutions--a number of thinkers who could be counted on fingers of one hand. 

Soviet Union failed to develop the theory of socialism and because of that it failed. The United States failed to develop a theory of capitalism, bar some monetarist BS, and because of that the US is failing and is in at the end of the historically unprecedented de-industrialization. It is difficult to argue with this: 

A new report by EPI Senior Economist and Director of Trade and Manufacturing Research Robert E. Scott finds that President Trump’s trade policies have failed to curb offshoring—and they have not addressed the root causes of America’s growing trade deficits and the decline of American manufacturing... “The Trump administration has taken credit for ‘reshoring’ manufacturing jobs, but the data show that isn’t true. Nearly 1,800 factories have disappeared under Trump between 2016 and 2018,” said Scott. “Additionally, the U.S. trade deficit in manufactured goods rose significantly between 2016 and 2019. In fact, the real U.S. trade deficit has increased in every year since 2016, reducing GDP growth by roughly 0.25% annually over the past three years. Compounded with the devastation left by the coronavirus pandemic, the blue collar manufacturing workers need serious help from policymakers.”

Even if to "adjust" data for anti-Trump sentiment in media and all kinds of think-tanks, there is absolutely no doubt about continuing offshoring of American jobs. Trump promised a lot, as does every US politician when it is the time to (re)elect oneself. Usually, nothing is done or if done--achieves often an opposite to intended result. It is a systemic flaw. It is not some combination of some factors here and there, which is always the case, but it is an indication of system simply not working as intended, or not working at all. It surely works in terms of profit for very few who own companies but it is not going to change, even when some traditional monetary and trade remedies are applied: taxes, tariffs, political pressure etc. They are increasingly useless and, in fact, often--detrimental to survival of the remaining true economic capacity. And there is no theory which is capable to balance out healthy profits, competition and national interest which is the interest of the majority of people in the nation. It is especially difficult to do in the country where nationhood is a cuss word and has a whole "intellectual" class being busy, both on nominal "left" (which is not left) and nominal "right", hard at work inventing essences (many a Ph.D theses and books are written on that) which will allow to keep the people who populate the country of the United States of America from formulating their true national interest. The only way to do so is to prevent them from coalescing into a true nation. 

Let's harken to 1977, so called Brezhnev Constitution:

Это — общество зрелых социалистических общественных отношений, в котором на основе сближения всех классов и социальных слоев, юридического и фактического равенства всех наций и народностей, их братского сотрудничества сложилась новая историческая общность людей — советский народ. 

Translation: This society--society of mature socialist public relations, in which, based on convergence of all classes and social strata, judicial and de facto equality of all nations and peoples, their brotherly cooperation a new historic community of people  has formed--Soviet people. 

Boy, talk about delusions. 11 years later this whole "new historic community of people" started to kill each-other based on racial, ethnic, religious and other grounds. Believe me, I was there when shit hit the fan. Boy, I thought to myself, when the first tanks started to roll in Baku supporting us, already stretched thin Baku garrison, desperately trying to stop chaos and violence, the theory sucks. It doesn't work. It worked neither socially nor economically, Stalin was right when stated that "without theory it is death, death, death." He was prescient. So, in the world of Critical Race Theory, and Facebook and Twitter being considered an economy, ask yourself a question: does the United States need a theory or will it go down in flames of economic and social chaos. Don't look at me, I am no theoretician, I just call shit as I see it.     

Lavrov, Help!!!!

I am now so unoriginal, so stale, so predictable in mocking those cretins from Wall Street and their accompanying media that my only response to this:  

The Dow crashes more than 1,700 points out of nowhere — here's one reason why

Out of "nowhere",  "nowhere", seriously? Is this:

I will remind what Lavrov says this moment: Imbeciles, Fuck. I can give you many reasons why it is NOT from "nowhere", from complete fraud that Wall Street and US financial system are, to a sheer, utter incompetence of US "elites" across the board. But, of course, this doesn't look good either, because it is a death knell for a US "energy" sector which was blown into bubble by cheap credit and financial and geopolitical manipulations.

 As per "second wave" of Covid-19, as I said it before--I do not buy any "statistics" originating from WHO or, for that matter, any American "org" because most of it will be fraud. I am still waiting for a reliable data in this seasonal flu with a clear distinction of causes of death and then, maybe, I will make up my own mind once I have data--for now it is primarily statistical masturbation. What is clear already today that Covid-19 is NOT what it was presented to be, plus, against the background of the US being flushed down the toilet, this whole "pandemic" cannot be taken as merely a public health event. US economy, meanwhile, follows in the wake of US Constitution--into oblivion. 

I stumbled today on Duran's discussion of the fate of the West in general and US in particular. Guys make some mistakes of geopolitical nature there but in general they are correct, especially when talking about rational thought--the most important brick in the foundation of Western culture.

Well, it is gone, it was gone for a long time, because Western "education" is a joke starting from school, that is why West is not agreement-capable and that is why its "elites" are mostly morons, even if they have doctorate degrees in some useless shit like political science or journalism. It is a complex problem and it is not solvable through some "tweaking"--it is generational, it is cultural. It is profound. I wrote about this for years. So, this "nowhere" thing has a set of very particular addresses and most of them are in the open. It is just that this crop of Western "elites" is incapable of seeing it--they do not have vision.

Why I Am Not Surprised-2.0.

You gotta love these headlines.

 Stocks up slightly amid dismal economic data

And why shouldn't they be? Greed has no relation to reality, economic or human, for that matter. All this Wall Street gobbledygook was never designed to give clear sharp definitions of real things or processes. Just take a load of this:

That rotation from high-growth tech to value names also came alongside states reopening their economies and helping catalyze an uptick in activity, bringing investors back into a broader basket of equities.

Oh, what a load of pretentious contrived shit which serves only to cover for this data and it is horrifying, because it affects lives of millions of people who are not "into a broader basket of equities". 

The S&P 500 has crossed the 3,000 level again and investors are clearly riding high on hope for a second half economic recovery post the worst of COVID-19. But that doesn’t mean the market is immune to a pullback this summer primarily because the economic data will likely continue to be horrible. Remember bulls, the U.S. economy has been kicked in the face by the pandemic, and a rebound won’t happen overnight simply because states are reopening. Corporate sales and profits remain under severe strain, sending many off to explore bankruptcy or cut thousands of workers even with quarantines being lifted. “We think that the reported unemployment rate may be around as high as 20% in May,” Barclays chief U.S. economist Michael Gapen warned on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade. The unemployment rate in April increased by 10.3 percentage points to 14.7%. Gapen believes the U.S. economy may contract a whopping 40% annualized in the second quarter, then surprisingly grow by 25% in the third quarter and 8% in the fourth quarter.

Yes, yes, it will "surprisingly" grow, never mind unsurprising 20% unemployment rate. And let's not talk, like absolutely not, about what was going on before the seasonal flu...I mean COVID-19 struck its blow at impressionable universe of social networks' slaves. The question is not about if the recovery is in cards--it is, at some point of time, at least--but about what will the country do once the full (real--I underscore it, real) scale of unemployment hits home. If there ever was a better way to demonstrate how a huge chunk of "white collar" jobs is not only useless but a burden on real economy, the COVID-19 was it.  

A new video, few days ago, caught my attention. Remember this?

I knew from the get go that this whole thing was nothing more than a "sell" for a bunch of uncultured nouveau riche class which spawned on the ponzi scheme of easy virtual money. "Respectable" people with real money usually reside in their castles and mansions in Europe, closer to actual, however degenerate today, culture and landscapes.  Middle Eastern shitholes covered with the glitz of oil money are for plebes, even if with money, virtual ones, that is. This is one of the suites on the "middle" floor of Burj Khalifa--a symbol of human post-modernist imbecility and ambition--during the storm, which are frequent guests in the region. 

Anyone who thinks that this "experience"of satisfying own ego in this building is so great--let them. No normal person, that is the person who has own two feet on the ground and values real things in life, be them emotionally, aesthetically or materially, would ever want to spend a day (or night) in this pretentious tower looking out at the desert, sea and ugly concrete jungles of Dubai, or any other location in the area. If I need to experience a desert (but it is just me), I know how to get to Nevada (driving through some of the most wonderful landscapes in the world), check into decent Holiday Inn or (all right, all right) Bellagio, and still be within easy driving distance to everything I really value in life--wonderful nature's sights, few hours of drive away lake Tahoe, being among (mostly) people of the same culture and good ol' Black Bear Diner or IHOP, for that matter. Excellent experiences and they cost order of magnitude less than any "vacations" in Dubai or whatever other radically un-touristy locations in backward Middle East. But, as I said, it is just me, many still think that if they could (not anymore, evidently) afford some, never materialized, mansion on one of the Dubai's "islands" that would set them apart, I agree. One has to be a complete moron to "invest" into the "real estate" in the place which goes (not will, but IS going) kaboom in the new economic reality where things of real value only matter.

What is this real "value"? Very simple, our families, our loved ones, friends, colleagues, our real skills in building, repairing, growing, harvesting things, maintaining the safety of our communities, leading truly healthy, in every sense of this word, lifestyles (not you, vegans and pot-smokers), reading, listening to good music, contemplating, creating, being human--these are real values. This is the way to contentment, in being satisfied with smaller but important things. Of course jobs matter, of course our houses matter, but normal person doesn't need Bentley or $4,000 a night suite, or $3 million mansion at the sandy isles in the midst of stinky water, in the area which goes bust, as was predicted, to be happy. As I say all the time, the economy is a consumer pattern. Yes, we all got screwed over by moneyed and subservient political class, nothing new here, it happened before (and was predicted), it is happening now and may happen yet again in the future--such is the nature of capital. But while being condescending (justifiably) towards this class' consumerism, much of it drowning in consumption of useless, wealth-signalling, luxuries, which is always a sign of a lack of true culture and real refinment, there is nothing wrong with us taking a look in the mirror at our own selves and asking the question if continuous consumer pattern is sustainable? I don't think so. But what is the normal pattern? How can it be defined, in what material and moral terms? We all will have to answer this question at some point of time. I, personally, do not need Bentley to be content, as long as my air conditioner and stereo in the car work, as long as it is clean and tidy, I should be fine, in material sense. I also can live without single cask Scotch $500 a bottle. 

In fact, even today, when looking at consumer patterns of modern "elites", one cannot fail to notice how much those "luxuries" are kitsch and tasteless in their attempt to emulate glorious antiquity and royal opulence of Renaissance while in reality most of those in the possession of that opulence have nothing more than a psyche of the small shop keepers. They may yet, many of them, experience a rude awakening. In the end, how can we balance out the need and the want, how does this proverbial "enough" in material sense look like? It is a known fact that Marx considered the United States to be the first country where socialist revolution will succeed. Marx may yet turn out to be correct but what we all, without exception, need to prevent is revolution in a sense of an outright physical conflict, however difficult this may seem now. But it is in everyone's interest to see evolution towards maybe, just maybe, more sane economically and, as a consequence, morally future. For everything else there is a new generation of weapons to help keep this all under control for now.

Friday On Thursday.

My Friday started today due to me being a bit under the weather and taking part of today and all tomorrow away from work. In the end, who knows--better safe than sorry for my colleagues. While sitting home I stumbled upon this headline, just get this: 

Is Boeing Done For? What Charts Say After 64% Fall.Boeing shares have become a disaster.

After that, this "analytical" piece goes into all kinds of Wall Street BS about shares and indices and "volatility" crap which exposes exactly what a complete pile of steaming shit this whole "economics" pseudo-science is. The reason being that the question isn't even stated correctly because people who state this question in this way are either morons (which is highly likely) or "free market" fanatics  (which is also likely), or people who have neither stake nor faith in what's left of American Republic. Putting it even in simpler terms: the nation which, despite Boeing's many well-known problems, doesn't want to preserve its industrial and scientific crown jewel, shares' prices and "capitalization" notwithstanding, and continues to judge it only in financial terms--such a nation doesn't have much to live for. That is how the issue of Boeing should be framed. In this case, such ANALysis like this:

If Boeing can get going back over $180, it puts $200 and $220 on the table. However, if it can’t find buyers and the stock takes out the recent low near $155, the $135 to $140 breakout zone may be the next downside target.

Should be discarded as yet another fluffy mambo-jumbo and psychobabble and one has to consider a possibility of the state taking over this American icon to preserve it. Recall what I wrote 4 years ago: 

In other words, Boeing is a combination of a massive national symbolism and of a damn serious scientific and manufacturing substance. Boeing long ago transcended traditional meaning of private company since it is, unlike fraudulent US investment banking system, is too big and way too important to fail. That is why Boeing exists within, however not-advertised, system of US government contracts and support. Is Boeing perfect? No, not even close, but if Bank Of America fails tomorrow, yes, there will be serious consequences, some economic disruptions, some CEOs may go to jail and some Wall Street a-holes may get heart attacks or may even commit suicide. But within fairly short time this failure will be addressed and the life will go on. Now, imagine if Boeing fails. Depending on what this failure may be, but Boeing's "failure", which may stop such a company in its tracks implies immediately that if Boeing fails, the US also does. It means only that something in the United States went so wrong that it changed its economic and social fabric and relegated the US to the ranks of not so great powers. Boeing is one of the pillars of the United States' superpowerdom. Merrill Lynch and its owner BOA are not.

As you  may have guessed it already "something did go wrong", or, rather, continued to go wrong and this "wrong" is the fact that the United States is run by bookkeepers and MBAs who do not know shit from shinola. That is why they are ready to discuss scenarios of Boeing being "done" based on "valuation" when in reality, Boeing transcends some BS monetary theory and is one of those very few things which is left as real American pride which will be back. Unless, of course, well read my whole post from 2016. As for Dow "plunging 10%" and Fed pouring $1.5 trillion of worthless paper into the pockets of very same people and structures which bankrupted the United States, what can I say--I am writing about incompetence (and corruption) of the American elites across the board for many years. You all, of course, recall Einstein's definition of insanity--observe it in real time. But since it is MY Friday on Thursday, let's recall the times when music was simply incredible and people had a better grasp on things. 

Enjoy.   

Any Silver Linings?

Everyone knows what is going on, but behind this coronavirus hysteria one should not forget that oil "wars", coronavirus, wide-spread chronic constipation or Joe Biden being a senile imbecile, there is a much larger reality of what I (and many people who are much smarter than me) write about for years--a systemic severe crisis of the so called liberalism.  Those factors listed above are just primers, the needles which help to puncture the bubble. The so called liberal, a euphemism for wholesale financial speculation, economic model doesn't work. It never, actually, did. Here is a small reminder: Glass-Steagall Act, aka 1933 Banking Act which separated commercial and investment (euphemism for speculation and robbing people) banks. It was a good idea, to leave commercial banks to customers, both individual and corporate, to make deposits, take out loans, what have you. So called "investment" banks were left to those who had too much money and time on their hands to play. And then came 1999. 

Gramm-Leach-Biley Act (GLBA) which removed Glass-Steagall, was this nail in the coffin of the American market and industry. Bill Clinton signed it into law. Make no mistake, when 2008 hit--there were many US "economists" who argued that this crisis (driven by the subprime mortgage fraud by banks) had nothing to do with all the removal Glass-Steagall. Oh, well, maybe it didn't, may be it did but GLBA had a metaphysical influence on the US and global economy by helping to shift the meaning of "economic growth" squarely to the simulacra of "earnings". You see, "earnings" do not necessarily mean actual economic growth, in fact, as you all can observe "earnings" in the United States were doing just fine in the last 12 years, because in 2008 American "elites" bailed out people (and their banks) which were the MAIN reason for 2008 crisis. They gave them even more money and told them to keep the "earnings" gravy train rolling. They did. It resulted in further de-industrialization of the United States which, inevitably, brought about this:

This year, as part of the Spring 2017 edition of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Professors Case and Deaton are following up on that research to further investigate the rise and its causes, examining midlife mortality rates of white non-Hispanics in the U.S. by geography, education, birth cohort, and more. Dividing the country into 1,000-plus regions, the authors find that the rate of “deaths of despair” (deaths by drugs, alcohol, and suicide) in midlife for white non-Hispanics rose in nearly every part of the country and at every level of urbanization—from deep rural areas to large central cities—hitting men and women similarly. In 2000, the epidemic was centered in the southwest. By the mid-2000s it had spread to Appalachia, Florida, and the west coast. Today, it’s country-wide.

And this: 

Take this one telling statistic: About 46 percent of Americans said they did not have enough money to cover a $400 emergency expense. Instead, they would have to put it on a credit card and pay it off over time, borrow from friends or family, or simply not cover it at all.

So, how can one reconcile these startling facts with constantly declared "recovery" from 2008 and "earnings" going up, and up, and up? Very simple: remove actual economy from considerations, you know, the economy where people go to work, earn money by producing things and providing necessary services, and completely substitute it with false equivalency of the so called "banking" which deals with things, for the most part, which have no relation to reality. Recall this? Moreover, there were even cretins who wrote a truckload of books on "investing" (another simulacra for covering for speculation) promising Dow Jones hitting 40,000. There was only one problem--the "earnings" providing good ROI (Return of "Investment") could be achieved only in the world of virtual money and virtual speculation with the so called "financial instruments" which are nothing more than pseudo-financial snake oil packaged into the shiny vessel of promises and BS about more, more, more--an institutionalized and praised, and encouraged, greed and failure of human decency. One couldn't make "earnings" of this scale if one was involved in actual productive labor and business. Things work differently in those fields where one, actually, has to consider actual costs and care about people and main capital. In general, margins are lower there. In "finances" one has to have a degree in some self-contained fraudulent field known today as "economics" and be able to devise ways to defraud everything that is still capable to produce value. Wall Street won, America lost. 

Now we observe a collapse of this whole house of cards based on virtual reality, but it was going to happen ANYWAY, no matter the factors accelerating this bubble's demise. Once the whole ocean of bankruptcies, misery, political turmoil and possibly violence recedes, we will be able to see the actual US economy, or whatever is left of it, assessed not in fraudulent petrodollar but in terms of its actual worth and I can predict confidently--the picture will be ugly. But enough with gloom and doom. What are those possible silver linings. I think the first, most important one, could be a complete bankruptcy of current US "elites" who are responsible for this chaos and a chance (just a chance) of new people coming to remove them. It is a chance, but a good chance since current US "elites" are not capable to fix something that cannot be fixed and they will fvck it up one way or another, no matter a number of political and media demagogues they will release on population, or number of genders they will discover, or number of woke imbeciles they will recruit to support the status-quo, because objective reality as was stated long time ago by none other than Lenin today IS reducible to a major signs of revolution  which is in progress, two of them are already in place:

(a) A crisis in the upper classes, a crisis in the policy of the ruling classes, when it is impossible to maintain their rule without any change,
(b) The suffering of the oppressed classes and their wants has grown more acute. That is, suffering would be intolerable,

No, there will be no "socialist revolution" in the United States, plus American population and especially millennials are brainwashed and were made addicted to drugs and wokeness to such a degree that it is impossible, and that is for the better, but election of Donald Trump and undeniable prominence (despite sabotage from DNC) of such a fraud as Bernie, designed to let the steam off the actual left economic aspirations of the American youth, which will have to pay for the greed and insanity of baby boomers, are very important signs of the above mentioned points (a) and (b). So, the coming of new people is not only possible, but it is inevitable. That is, of course, if the United States preserves itself as a country. And let's hope that those new people will bewith the instinct of self-preservation, everything else may follow.

The United States, if it emerges from this intact and without unleashing a global war, will be a much poorer nation (it already is) than it is being perceived by many, but  it will be forced to live within its means and that means no more wars. Neither China nor Russia, let alone Iran plan to attack the United States. The United States itself is a very resources rich country and it can fully support itself, especially if there will be desire to convert (Russia is already doing this) large parts of the US military-industrial complex from making mediocre but extremely expensive weapons, which are not really needed, to production of things people really need for living--from kitchen combines to sophisticated medical and manufacturing technology. In the end, I am sick and tired of buying Chinese-made socks, or hauling a load of those 100% cotton ones from Russia.  In the long run that means a return of at least some industries to the United States and that gives me some hope to be buried in a goddamn US-made coffin instead of one made in China or wherever COSTCO buys those nowadays. So, you see, there are some benefits in the long run for the United States. So, do not despair. Reality is not only wrought with suffering but with opportunity, but learning from mistakes is a must. This current American political class is not capable of learning but the next very well may be. Voices of reasons are heard from many quarters today. Like this:

We thought the Cold War vindicated our political system. Instead it only began an age of illusions.

It is, in the end, time to learn something valuable from American experiences and real (I underscore it--real) history and this learning is in itself a silver lining. We all may yet be all right in the long run.

Reality Check.

John Bolton, apart from being unqualified to be in his current position, is also not a very bright fellow in anything related to actual weapons and technologies. You would expect this from an aggressive coward with degree in...law. Yet, John Bolton outdid even himself yesterday in his interview to Voice of America when stated at 19:57  that Russian hypersonic technologies were "largely stolen from the United States".(c) Before that he repeated ol' tired bromides about Russian economy being the size of the economy of Netherlands, but statement on hypersonic technology being "stolen" by Russia from the United States is a very peculiar one. 

Let's start with the simple fact that Bolton lies, always, this is what US degenerate so called "elites" do, in breaks between their pedophilia urges and being cuckolds at group sex parties. So, it is expected from these creeps to live in the world of their own, with their own "morals", "facts" and "reality". In their "reality", patent, into your face, lies is a given and are accepted as normal behavior. Bolton's BS, apart from laughter from many corners in Russia, including from the State Duma, is being laughed at for a simple reason that the United States simply doesn't have any. There is simply nothing to steal. One "teeny-weeny" fact of the United States lacking any dedicated true SUPERsonic strike  (anti-shipping) missile is a first clue in all that. US efforts to produce such a missile were met constantly with a variety of technological and fiscal failures, in the end all attempts to build one were abandoned. The continuous propaganda, designed for the consumption of the fanboys, that aircraft carriers firepower was more than enough to compensate for the lack of powerful strike weapons is just that, same as Bolton's statement, a BS.  Feeble attempts to base a super-sonic strike missile on the SM-6 anti-missile missile design are a typical desperate stop-gap measures which inevitably resulted in failure.  

So, the United States simply lacks any record of producing viable super-sonic missiles, unlike USSR/Russia who crossed into genuine supersonic territory already in 1959 with venerable, M=1.3 capable, P-6/35 anti-shipping missiles. P-500 Bazalt and P-700 Granit, M=2.5 capable weapons,  followed in 1960s and 1970s respectively, resulting, eventually, in a plethora of Russian genuinely super-sonic strike missiles ranging from P-270 Moskit, 3M54 Kalibr family, to P-800 Onyx, capable of roughly M=3, to a terrifying weapon, M=4.8 capable Kh-32. Mr. Bolton should know (he is the National Security Adviser, after all) that the United States has nothing even remotely comparable to this class of weapons and doesn't have technologies to produce one. That means only one thing--the United States never reached a crucial stepping stone of workable supersonic technologies, ranging from materials, fuels and control and targeting systems, among many others, to get into the hypersonic realm. 

It is, of course, also evident, judging by the rather mediocre, politely speaking, results obtained in PGS (Prompt Global Strike) program that US is not capable to control hypersonic vehicles, which, for some reason, continued to explode on tests (hint: material science). So, the statement by Bolton that Russia, who already deploys a whole class of hyper-sonic weapons, ranging from strategic Avangard to Kinzhal and upcoming 3M22 Zircon, stole something is not just preposterous, it is also very indicative of a massive butt-hurt and realization that the United States lost the arms race. I think, for all his feeble "intellectual" capabilities, Bolton knows that, and he is hurting, badly. That is why he creates ridiculous stories in desperate attempts to hide a reality from public and there is no better way to do it than in interview to am exhibit A of US propaganda and lies than Voice of America. It is a long and tedious process of sorting out who is genuinely clueless or who is simply lying among US "elites". I am not interested anymore in sorting sorts of shit out. But I tell you what, which this Bolton's interview served as impetus to note this: global markets' volatility, apart from all those "inverted curves" and other Wall Street mambo-jumbo, is just a symptom of a much deeper "illness".

I am on record with this: once world begins to understand REAL, very much exaggerated, US military capability, which is in the foundation of US-driven and owned global financial order, things will begin to collapse economically in the US. US Dollar hegemony rests not with the crooks from the Wall Street and investment banks, it rests SOLELY on the ability of the United States to enforce dollar-dominated world order. That means military, everything else is derivative. Wall Street indices can go down, or up, or stay the same--this changes nothing. The fight always was to overthrow US Dollar monopoly. In 2008, in August, first message was sent--Russia refused status-quo. Today, in 2019, Russia not only refuses status-quo, she builds her own and she can do it because she initiated Real Revolution in military affairs with technological and operational concepts which completely shifted the global balance of power in what in historic terms can be defined as an instant. Once the US ability to enforce militarily US Dollar-driven global order was lost, the game was over. Now, with all this full-scale economic warfare US is waging on China, Russia and the rest of the world, with US markets being shaky, with real American economy being a pale shadow of itself of 20 years ago, with a degeneracy of the US ruling class, with crime shooting through the roof, with opioid and drugs crisis never seen before--all those are the signs of an Empire in decline which knows that she lost control and now it is just the matter of time before she either surrenders or takes down the world with itself. To avoid this catastrophe, these are what precisely the weapons Russia created for. Not to wage the war, but to avoid one. This is the reality check Mr. Bolton MUST perform but he never will--he is a flesh and blood of US ruling class nobody of rudimentary self-respect and integrity is going to negotiate anything with and not just because this class is non-agreement capable, but because there is no strong enough soap to wash one's hands after shaking them with these people.  

Monopoly Crisis?

An interesting piece from  Matt Stoller and Lucas Kunce at TAC with symptomatic title: America’s Monopoly Crisis Hits the Military. It is a fairly long and substantive piece--I mean it makes the case, certainly. Even I somewhere here discussed China's penetration of the US semi-conductor market, including in military field. The authors make this observation:

Who are these stockholders that CEOs are so compelled to answer to? Oftentimes, China. Jennifer M. Harris, an expert in global markets with experience at the U.S. State Department and the U.S. National Intelligence Council, researched a recent explosion of Chinese strategic investment in American technology companies. She found that China has systematically targeted U.S. greenfield investments, “technology goods (especially semiconductors), R&D networks, and advanced manufacturing.” The trend accelerated, until the recent flare-up of tensions between the United States and China. “China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in the U.S. increased some 800% between 2009 and 2015,” she wrote. Then, from 2015 to 2017, “Chinese FDI in the U.S. …climbed nearly four-fold, reaching roughly $45.6 billion in 2016, up from just $12.8 billion in 2014.” This investment runs right through Wall Street, the key lobbying group trying to ratchet down Trump’s tough negotiating posture with the Chinese. Rather than showing concern about the increasing influence of a foreign power in our commerce and industry, Wall Street banks have repeatedly followed Archie Cox down the path of easy returns.

And while I agree to a degree that monopolies are not necessarily good in many respects, the focus should be on what is highlighted in yellow. Yes, one may create and then tweak all kinds of legislative and financial instruments in order to decrease "the influence of a foreign power"--enough to take a look at Russia's program of import substitution. But in the American case we immediately encounter a purely, not just economic capitalist sense with US selling to China the rope by which she is being hanged, to rephrase Marx. The issue is the culture--the United States simply lacks all required cultural pressures to make the whole thing work. Yes, yes, monopolies--I get it. Try now to explain to most US "elites" what the real war is. Good luck doing this--there is no culture of grasping it. Only US military people, and even then, not all of them, can and do contemplate what is going to happen to them, to their families, property, things they love in case of real serious war. US collective memory has no recollection of massive bombing of Chicago, of the rape of women near Boston, concentration camps, and other manifestations of real war. 

That's the problem--nobody realistically believes that China or Russia will conduct massive amphibious landings at the Pacific Northwest Coast or around Tampa to kill, rape, pillage Americans. There is no land invasion threat to the United States--there never realistically was and that is the factor which plays huge disjointing role in both American mentality and the way business is conducted in military-technological field. In other words, the United States is not really under ANY serious pressure to produce top-notch defensive weapons. Of course, whipping oneself into constant paranoid frenzy of seeing military threat everywhere can work, but only so far, in the end--one has to grow up with shared historic memory of Chicago burning in Japanese bombing raids and Wehrmacht landing on the beaches of South Carolina to really FEEL THE NEED to give it a proper attitude beyond the limits of financial enrichment and bragging. I will quote myself from my first book:

War, a bloody and gory midwife of a nation’s cohesion, largely spared the United States and the American obsession with weapons can be viewed in part as a longing for a missing formative factor of most modern nations. It is in this field of weapons design and manufacturing that the United States ultimately sees the extension of its own self and needs a constant validation of itself as a global superpower. 

So, while piece on monopolies is worth reading and contemplating, the answer lies, to a very large degree, in a cultural field and there is no escaping it. And then, of course, Russia's military does it all through monopolies--Rostec anyone? It does it all and, let's face it, some of the military technologies they produce are amazing and they work because they are produced within militarily totally different cultural environment. Again, quoting myself:

For a nation with such a military history as Russia’s the issue of military technology is an issue of survival. As such, weapons in Russia are sacralized because behind them are generations of Russians who shed blood to make those weapons what they are. They have become a part of the culture to such a degree that commercial considerations take a very distant second place to a main purpose of these weapons—to actually defend the nation. This is absolutely not the case in the United States, with some exception for its Navy, with Americans having no knowledge or recollection of what real war is and what instruments for fighting and winning it are needed. Those things cannot be paid for in money, they are paid for in blood.

Guess what, no nation ever survived the war without state monopolizing it. And that means.... ahem.... monopoly.

"Real" Economy?

I write about it all the time--the virtual world of Wall Street "Economy" and of bizarre and detached from reality world of indexes. Well, it turned out that this year the number of the so called "indices" surpassed the number of... stocks themselves. Talk about living in a parallel universe. 

Here is Bloomberg's graph, LOL:

    

But don't worry, Wall Street "analysts" will find a completely rational explanation to this absurdity. Do you smell fraud? I do.