The Economics of Clown World

Michael Hudson explains the basic operation of what passes for Clown World’s economic system in an interview:

MEGA Radio: In your new book The Destiny of Civilization: Finance Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism, or Socialism you state that the world economy is now fracturing between two parts, the United States and Europe is the dollarized part. And this Western neoliberal unit is driving Eurasia and most of the Global South into a separate group. You just stated this in an interview from November. Could you explain this for our outlet?

Michael Hudson: The split is not only geographic but above all reflects the conflict between Western neoliberalism and the traditional logic of industrial capitalism. The West has deindustrialized its economies by replacing industrial capitalism with finance capitalism, initially in an attempt to keep its wages down by moving abroad to employ foreign labor, and then to try and establish monopoly privileges and captive markets or arms (and now oil) and high-technology essentials, becoming rentier economies.

A century ago, industrial capitalism was expected to evolve into industrial socialism, with governments providing subsidized basic infrastructure services (such as health care, education, communication, research and development) to minimize their cost of living and doing business. That is how the United States, Germany and other countries built up their industrial power, and it also is how China and other Eurasian countries have done so more recently.

But the West’s choice to privatize and financialize its basic infrastructure, dismantling the role of government and shifting planning to Wall Street, London and other financial centers, has left it with little to offer other countries – except or the promise not to bomb them or treat them as enemies if they seek to keep their wealth in their own hands instead of transferring it to U.S. investors and corporations.

The result is that when China and other countries build up their economies in the same way that the United States did from the end of its Civil War to World War II, they are treated as enemies. It is as if U.S. diplomats see that the game is lost, and that their economy has become so debt-ridden, privatized and high-cost that it cannot compete, that it simply hopes to keep making other countries dependent tributaries for as long as it can until the game finally is over.

If the U.S. succeeds in imposing financial neoliberalism on the world, then other countries will end up with the same problems that the United States is experiencing.

Read the whole thing. It’s really good and it even references Crusader Kings. And Hudson points out that the cruelest thing Russia can do to Europe is not to invade it, but rather, to abandon it to the rapacious rule of the US financial elite.

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A Ticket-Taker’s Holiday

If you take the ticket, you’re not going to be celebrating Christmas much longer.

Harry and Meghan’s ‘paper free’ ‘holiday season’ card features a glitzy black-and-white photo from the night they received an award for opposing ‘structural racism’ in the Royal Family but fails to include any mention of Christmas.

It’s very telling that the most staunch opponents of “racism” are just as opposed to Christmas. And it’s not a coincidence. Never trust anyone or any organization that makes a point of evading the celebration of the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

None of this sort of thing is accidental. It is always purposeful signaling, and if you pay attention to it, you will seldom be surprised when the bad actors eventually reveal themselves.

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Why Russia Will Defeat Clown World

Much can be usefully learned from this excerpt from a book published in 1989 concerning a brief conversation that took place forty years prior between a German Army officer and a Soviet political officer.

Much to my surprise, the NKVD officer expressed a wish to speak to me alone in the presence of the interpreter.

“Polkovnik,” he said, “a question: how many convinced Communists do you think there are in this and the other German POW camps?” Was it a catch question? It was hard to answer, and it also seemed to me dangerous to give my own views. So I said, “About ten percent, I should think.”

“Oh, no; at most six to seven percent,” he replied. “And Polkovnik, how many do you think there are in East Germany?”

“Since you have been in East Germany now for nearly five years, it might be some eight to ten percent.”

“At most three to four percent. And what about West Germany?” Surprised by his figures, I suggested, “Less, about two to three percent.” To which he gave an even more astonishing reply, “Nil. You see, we are realists in Moscow. And because we are, we see no chance of being able to convince the German people of communism.” His conclusion, “Neither the Italian nor the French Communists can be numbered among us. They are first and foremost Italians and Frenchmen. Britain is on the other side of the Channel, the Americans are far away. But we do have to reckon with you.”

And then his words held doubt and fear again, “One day you will want to have an army again, with which you will invade us again. There lies our whole interest in keeping Germany ‘neutral.“ With a neutral Germany danger for us is banished. We can convince Europe of our desire, but also of our intention, never again to allow a war on our territory. That’s how things look, Polkovnik.”

This was one of the most interesting and instructive conversations I had as a prisoner of war. The view was in keeping with that of ordinary soldiers, Russian convicts, and civilians, who had already said to me previously, “Although it will be hard for us, we shall one day forget what has happened. But you will go back to your country. Then you will build up a new army and march into Russia, destroy our villages and kill or carry off our people.” How can this fear ever be removed from the people or from the “realists” in Moscow? All the noisy reactions to the rebuilding of the Bundeswehr, the federal army, and to the alliance with the American superpower are to be seen against this background.

PANZER COMMANDER by Col Hans von Luck

The Russians trusted, briefly, in the promises made to them in the early days of the post-Soviet era. After seeing their economy raped and their boundaries methodically encroached upon by the very Satanic clowns who previously ruled over them, they will never again give the benefit of any doubt to Clown World’s servants in Germany, the UK, or the USA.

And they have very good reason to place absolutely no trust in them.

British general admits UK deployed troops to Ukraine

British Royal Marines conducted high-risk operations in Ukraine in April, Lieutenant General Robert Magowan has admitted, according to a report in The Times on Tuesday. Russia has consistently warned that NATO troops have been active in the conflict, but these statements have been dismissed by Western analysts and media.

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Free Trade is Dead

In amidst the economic pain and disruption incumbent in the fall of Clown World, there are some significant silver linings:

The founder of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, Morris Chang, says geopolitics is having profound effects on the semiconductor industry.

Speaking at an event in Phoenix Arizona, where his firm was debuting an ambitious $40 billion upgrade and expansion of its new manufacturing facility in the state, he explained the new constraints being placed on the sector by the changing geopolitical scene.

Speaking of the new facility, which is TSMC’s first advanced chip plant built in the United States in over two decades, Chang said there remained a lot of hard work ahead, if it was to be a success.

The upgrades for the facility will enable the phoenix plant to manufacture the chips for Apple’s iPhone, which can perform almost 17 trillion specialized calculations per second. TMSC is planning an even newer facility in the state which will house even more advanced production technology, capable of producing the microchips for future smartphones, computers, and other smart electronics.

In an interview with Nikkei Asia at the event, Chang likened the plant to the first plant TSMC ever built in the US, in 1995 in Carnas, Washington.

Chang said, “Twenty-seven years have passed and [the semiconductor industry] witnessed a big change in the world, a big geopolitical situation change in the world. Globalization is almost dead and free trade is almost dead. A lot of people still wish they would come back, but I don’t think they will be back.”

The death of globalization and free trade is not only a good thing, it is absolutely necessary if Mankind is going to survive, and eventually, thrive. We’ve seen the best that globalism has to offer, and it is nothing more than idiocracy, debt slavery, and a relentlessly ugly monoculture.

It only took 30 years for 300 years of economic theory to be conclusively disproven by reality. But it was always false and totally incompatible with the existence of nations, as my critique of free trade on mathematical grounds demonstrated.

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We Will Raise Wolves

Among the many Boomer philosophical concepts that Generation X rejects, the so-called social contract is prominent. We have no social contract with Clown World. We didn’t choose it, we aren’t part of it, and we reject it entirely.

Some people out there believe we can vote our way out of this. These optimistic folks have been under a rock for the past few years or haven’t noticed clown world.

If you are one of those people who keeps on voting, that’s your business. I am not going to convince you voting is pointless anymore than you’re going to convince me that I should get off my ass and vote for a different douchebag this time.

The happy-fun reason we aren’t voting our way out of this is because a self-perpetuating failure cycle has already been established. I’m not sure if this was deliberately achieved by earthly powers, or whether they took advantage of it.

I struggled articulating my thoughts about the self-perpetuating cycle into something coherent and finally gave up because it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter for a very chilling reason. After thinking through the implications, dread about immigration, rising crime, and more inflation took a backseat to the insight. Yes, a self-destructive country that slowly decays is the optimistic alternative.

The problems we face now, and they are real and considerable, will be taken care of. Of that I have no doubt. We will not like the solution at all.

The reason we aren’t voting our way out of this hit me in a flash, like all the best (and worst) ideas do. After it did, I sat and thought for a long while. Then I closed this draft and didn’t open it for 10 days.

The old American social contract has been completely and utterly broken….

Among Gen Xers, a huge percentage are ready to burn this mother fucker to the ground. We’re not happy about it, it just seems inevitable. As much as we’d like to save our beautiful country for our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I don’t see it happening.

But we honor the old social contract: we sacrifice ourselves so younger generations have a better life, and have a chance to be born.

We have to destroy clown world so those still capable of having children can build back better. Not political posturing bullshit better, but a fundamental change in the way we all live.

Preach, preacher. This comment, in particular, sums up my generation: Our first authorities betrayed us and it colors our view of all authority.

Especially our view of illegitimate, self-appointed, predatory foreign authorities.

They tried to make us sheep. But we will raise wolves.

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Brazil Wins

The military appears to be rolling into action:

In an unusual step for the military, the Army has invaded favelas of Rio de Janeiro and killed top leaders of the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) drug cartel, which supports the Communist criminal Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Observers take this to indicate the beginning of a federal military intervention. The drug gangs were the only ones to celebrate the alleged election victory by criminal Lula Oct. 30, firing automatic weapons in the air in the favelas. President Bolsonaro cracked down hard on the Brazilian drug gangs.

Also, the national team steamrolled South Korea 4-1, and could have easily made it 10-1.

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Educating the Spiritually Blind

Archbishop Vigano addresses those whose hearts are in the right place, whose spirits are justly offended by the wickedness and evil of Clown World, but fail to grasp the fundamentally spiritual nature of the conflict they are observing:

In this series of events that we are witnessing and will continue to witness, your commitment could risk being thwarted or limited by the fact of not being able to see its essentially spiritual nature. I know that two centuries of Enlightenment thought, revolutions, atheistic materialism and anticlerical liberalism have accustomed us to thinking of Faith as a personal matter, or that there is not an objective Truth to which we all must conform. But this is the fruit of a propaedeutic indoctrination, one that happened long before what is happening today, and it would be foolish to believe that the anti-Christian ideology that drove the secret sects and Masonic groups of the eighteenth century had nothing to do with the anti-Christian ideology that today drives people like Klaus Schwab, George Soros, and Bill Gates. The driving principles are the same: rebellion against God, hatred for the Church and humanity, and destructive fury aimed against Creation and especially against man because he is created in the image and likeness of God.

If you start from this evidence, you will understand that it is not possible to pretend that what is happening before our eyes is solely the result of profit-seeking or the desire for power. Certainly, the economic part cannot be disregarded, considering how many people have collaborated with the World Economic Forum. And yet, beyond profit, there are unstated purposes that stem from a “theological” vision – one that is turned upside-down, it’s true, but still theological – a vision that sees two opposing sides: the side of Christ and the side of the Antichrist.

On the one hand, there is the City of God – the one Saint Augustine writes about – and on the other hand there is the city of the devil. We can say that in this era the city of the devil is clearly identifiable in neo-Malthusian globalism, the New World Order, the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, the European Union, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and in all those so called “philanthropical foundations” that follow an ideology of death, disease, destruction, and tyranny. And also in those forces that have infiltrated the institutions, which we call the deep state and the deep church.

The archbishop is absolutely correct. How many times have I warned you of the dangers of propaedeutic indoctrination! Well, none, actually, since that’s a new one on me.

Propaedeutics (from Ancient Greek προπαίδευσις, propaídeusis ‘preparatory education’) is a historical term for an introductory course into an art or science.

But if the words are new, the point is clear. Too many people who are on our side don’t even know what our side truly is because they have been spiritually lobotomized and forced to perceive the world through the false and illogical lens of the rational materialist. The Good, the Beautiful, and the True sings out to them, but they can only hear the faintest echoes of it, they do not hear the music itself.

And yet, they can smell the stink of sulfur that permeates Clown World, and their very being revolts against it. What the archbishop is telling these people is that they will be forced to make a choice, and it’s not our side that will force them to make it. Submit to God or submit to the world, those are the only two options available to every man.

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