Young Master Smeet
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What they also miss is that the returns on capital are equalised through finance, , as noted before, these billionaires, to avoid having any taxable income live on a sea of debt, their entire wealth goes through financialisation, which in turn distributes profit back in the form of interest which is generalised among savers; likewise, their companies are mostly financed by public issuance of shares, and the market price of shares also does the work, actual genuine monopolies are vanishingly rare, firms like Vollkswagen and Ikea, tetrapack, etc. that remain family owned, perhaps, but even they rely on financing.
There is no guarantee that Operation Prosperity Guardian (fucking really?) will succeed, yesterday we got full bore propaganda that all the drones were shot down, “The naval response, meanwhile, is costly for participating nations. Given the cost of surface-to-air missiles used by western navies to destroy much cheaper Houthi drones, the cost-benefit ratio is negative, although this does not account for the cost of a ship and its cargo.” At the minimum, the insurance rates will go up, inflating all prices of goods going through that route. “Interestingly, instability in the Red Sea is neither in China’s interest nor in the interests of any other non-western large trading nations because their economies are strongly and undeniably dependent on the global maritime supply chain.” I suspect that ‘national self reliance’ may well become the trend, and more regionalised economies.
Also, today marks the beginning to South Africa’s court case against Israel: I don’t hold much hope, but it could be make or break for international law, if the ruling is against Israel, Britain and the US would have to make some tough choices. There may already be some effect, as apparently Netanyahu has made a public statement that Israel does not intend to fully occupy Gaza, nor displace the Palestinians.
Milei rules by decree, interestingly, he doesn’t have a legislative majority: in some ways this is more like Allende than some would admit, but he will have the backing of some powerful people (apparently, including the US).
This will turn into a test of strength for the Unions, but as the article notes, Pinochet won out in the 70’s – I don’t know if our anarcho-capitalist will resort to wholesale slaughter, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
This analysis suggests the Chinese posturing is about bolstering the CCP’s nationalist credentials, but that it may have reached its limits (note, though, the slowed growth rate of 3%, an actual contraction in China could be catastrophic).
I don’t think China wants war in the area, at best America could use Taiwan to try and provoke one: according to this article at least…
As the Ukraine war has shown, missiles can down a fleet, so naval empires don’t have it as easy as they did.
On a similar theme: Giant solar farms may be an issue
“Beyond a certain size, solar farms become large enough to affect the weather around them and ultimately the climate as a whole. In our new research we have looked at the effect such climate-altering solar farms might have on solar power production elsewhere in the world.”What this means is that solar projects need to be co-ordinated, yes, central Australia and the Sahara will always be a good place for solar farms and Scotland less so: but it continues making the case that we need worldwide co-operation to survive the climate crisis.
“The General Confederation of Labour (CGT), Argentina’s main trade union federation, brought the legal challenge. The federation, which has called for a general nationwide strike on 24 January, is a major thorn in the side of the newly elected president, who argues that Argentina’s economy is hampered by regulations such as those he proposed to scrap.”
Important to note the role of unions in resisting and defending workers rights here, however, Milei had 55% of the vote, so he must have some popular support, but we’ll need to see if it survives triple digit inflation. Doubtless he’ll start on about ‘the enemy within’ and resort to more oppressive tactics.
I found her through Occam Oceans, and the only other piece of hers I’ve listened too much is Trilogie de la morte, but I’m sure anything she does is interesting.
Possible a hint at their political bankruptcy, this blog post on the centenary of first Labour government makes some interesting points about how MacDonald emphasised confidence and stability over radicalism and scientific government: and in so many ways it seems to presage the coming government of Mr Starmer (we should normalise calling him Mr Starmer), and it looks like it could be a re-run, which means it will go the same way.
As expected, his book is quite clear sighted:
“Whether or not there is more discontent in the world than was formerly the case, there is no doubt whatsoever that the means of fanning it and exploiting it are infinitely greater than they used to be, because of the increase in literacy and the introduction of wireless and television sets in large numbers.
“Although the same channels of communication are available to those involved in protecting the existing order, they seldom manipulate them as skillfully as their opponents.”
This is from 1972, the lesson has been learned, and propaganda control has been learned very ferociously, up to and including Israel’s apparent targeting of journalists as a war strategy.
“Countries are obliged to fight where their interests demand they should, and this is not necessarily along their geographical frontiers.”
This is a killer quote, Britain has worldwide interests, and it will use force to protect and advance them.
Ukraine Increasing conscription and raising taxes The article alleges the burden will fall on the poor:
“The two complementary bills regarding on mobilisation which were submitted by the government to parliament on December 30 2023, indicate that Zelensky and his inner circle are serious about this. At the same time, if adopted and implemented, the new approach to mobilisation will also add significant strain for already stretched the Ukrainian state institutions and society.”
“The planned mobilisation will be accompanied by a new economic strategy to increase the tax burden on individual citizens and small and medium-sized businesses, while social spending will be radically reduced.”
Given Ukraine is practically bankrupt, with donor states paying its civil service wage bill, this is an ugly sign: the demographics are not good, and the economy is crashed (and taxing people while calling up more workers is death spiral territory).
Indeed, as this blog post notes: “In late November, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed off on the 2024 Ukrainian state budget, which earlier had been passed by the Verkhovna Rada. It goes without saying that the war is the key factor affecting the structure of revenues and expenditures. The state budget anticipates revenues of UAH 1.78 trillion ($43.7 billion), while expenditures almost doubled, to an anticipated UAH 3.35 trillion ($82.3 billion). The expectation is that the difference will be covered by international loans and grants.” (For comparison the UK will spend £1,189 billion ($15,128 billion).
This is stark: “If sufficient external funding is not available, the government and the National Bank may resort to money printing and use the liquidity reserves of the national banking system, which are about $20 billion. But this would lead to running inflation, with devaluation of the national currency and higher national debt. Ultimately, these factors jointly would be expected to cause a national default between 2025 and 2027.”
Divisions in the Israeli government
“Weiss’s position – and the aspirations of the settler movement – appear to have been dealt a setback by Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, who has presented his plans for Gaza after the destruction of Hamas.
“On January 5, he said: “Gaza residents are Palestinian, therefore Palestinian bodies will be in charge, with the condition that there will be no hostile actions or threats against the State of Israel.” Gallant further proposed that there should be no Israeli civil presence in Gaza.”
Likud wants the status quo pre-war, Palestinian day to day administration of a reservation/Bantustan. The issue is if the genocidal faction can bring the government down.
Looks like we’ve reached the filtration camp stage[/url] (Wikipedia doesn’t use that term, it seems Internment is preferred, although there is, curiously, a redirect on Filtration camp entirely referring to Russian Activities, interesting.
Anyway, “More than 660 Palestinians from Gaza are currently known to be detained in Israeli prisons — most of them in Ketziot Prison in the Naqab/Negev desert. An additional number, which the army refuses to reveal but could be as high as several thousand, are being held at the Sde Teyman military base near Be’er Sheva, where much of the abuse of detainees is alleged to be taking place.”
Then there’s things like: “According to testimonies, the most common punishment was being tied to a fence and having to raise their arms for several hours. Whoever lowered them was taken away by the soldiers and beaten.” The British routinely used ‘stress positions’ like this in Ireland, and the infamous ‘Hooded Men‘ case that allowed ‘enhanced interrogation’ under international law.
The opening lines of his book tell a story that you don’t often hear: “During the 25 years which elapsed between 1945-70 the British Army took part in a large number of operations of one sort or another. Julian Paget mentions 34 in a book which he wrote on this subject, and now there are one or two more to add to this list which only goes up to 1966, Anguilla and Northern Ireland being cases in point. Of all the operations he quotes, only four could be described as Limited War, i.e. Korea, Suez, the move into Kuwait in 1961 and the Indonesian confrontation. All the rest were concerned with countering subversion or insurgency, or with peace-keeping operations.” How many more ‘operations’ since he wrote those words?
This reminds me of the recent spate of the ‘In defence of Scrooge’ style articles that have been popping up.
But, this has been bugging me all day: “an economic system based on private ownership and competition, in which companies themselves are free to determine what and how much they produce, aided in their decisions by the prices set by the market” This is not a definition of capitalism: it is possible to have all of these characteristics on an economic system, and for it not to be capitalist (as Kevin Carson, the free-market anti-capitalist would doubtless readily say) – incidentally, he critiques those firms from that definition above against Mises/Hayek’s own theories, and apparently modern industrial bureaucratic capitalism fails the economic calculation argument.
