America fought back America’s oligarchs twice; will we succeed this third time with an actual oligarch (Trump) running for president as a neofascist populist?
This is the most important overview of what's happening in America to the working middle class I've ever read. Kudos Thom. And it's even more reason why we need to vote FOR Biden because if we don't and we elect you-know-who, we'll only see more degradation of the middle class! I wish people would pull their heads out of the sand and realize this. Hopefully if more people read this article, they'll understand that.
Carolyn, Biden didn't "decide" anything....that's Israel's decision. And he can't "allow" anything. I understand your frustration about what's happening, and I share that, but Israel makes its own decisions. Biden has made efforts to modify their approach, but Netanyahu makes the final call, NOT Biden. You're way off base with your "war criminal" comment!
A single issue dunderhead Carolyn. Welcome then to Trump's world, because that is the only alternative. Do you think that your beloved Muslims will get a better deal from Trump?
Shy are you spouting radical islamic propaganda? Cleansing" a not to subtle code word for genocide.
And the Jews of Israel are fighting for their lives against genocidal Islamics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3UnIO-JcrI I think this is a link to reporting today that Netanyahu is "defying" Biden demands for Israel compromise. There was quite a bit of discussion on MSNBC about Netanyahu being cornered with the most extreme parties because he is going to prison otherwise. And Biden is going to make Netanyahu act differently how?
Sorry Carolyn but Biden joined the other side when he didn't have about 300 GOP insurrectionist tried immediately or fired Garland. Only a right winger what attack him about supporting Israel. In my humble opinion when Israel became a nation and I think 1948, that was the religious people of the world getting together in their Mass insanity. The Jewish people should have been allowed to migrate to any country they wanted to, they do not have to have a country of their own. Do you want America to abandon Israel? If you do not answer I will consider that a yes! I want to hear a plan from the bleeding hearts. I may agree with you but you don't ever have a plan?
Wow you covered a lot of ground there. I never understood the appointment of Garland, who would have been accused of petty revenge all the way, and so was set up to run from confronting the Jan. 6 debacle, and look where we are: now he's accused of stalling, like, wasn't that in the cards? As for 1948, I remember the propaganda: not as "religious people getting together," though. It was a combination of understandable "Western" sympathy with the Jews, but equally downplaying the territory to be taken over. Palestine was portrayed as a wasteland with a smatter of barbaric nomads the only inhabitants. As with other racist invasions, the Jews were portrayed as an industrious superior race who were going to "make the desert bloom," vs "lazy" inferiors. Me, I ponder what the heck with Native Americans, still fighting for their homeland nearly to 1900, being treated like no-count freaks if they dare to peep up about a pipeline, for instance, when "the West" rolled out the red carpet for Palestine to be "returned" to the Jews after something like 2600 years since they owned the place. Go figure.
And the Jew haters have come out of the closet in the millions. Daniel
Personally I eschew the word antisemite, it is not trademarked, and the Arabs claim to be semites, that is descendants of Noah's son Shem via Abraham's son Ismael.
Judeophobe or Israeliphobe is too vanilla, so call them what they are Jew haters.
XPistians justify their hated of Jews, by calling them Christ Killers, like Mel Gibson. does., ignoring the fact that their purported Jesus was a Jew.
Also some words get so overused they lose their punch. For instance Carolyn, above, doesn't use the word genocide, so she says Israel wants to cleanse Palestine of Arabs.
One can't even shame a MAGAt anymore by pointing out that they are racist, they now wear the label with pride.
I know hundreds of "Palestinians'" who oppose Hamas. Mostly self identify as Christian Arabs. They know that the Islamists want to kill them almost as much as Jews.
Carolyn is the same person who previously ranted about followers of the Old Testament. QAnon?
Accumulation of great wealth with no care at all for the people who get submerged because of it is the true tragedy .
it is also the reason that someone like Trump is considered a valid candidate for president of the United States.
He’s not bright. He’s not well spoken .
His product is mendacity. He’s a liar .
He’s a friend of the most menacing promoters of autocracy. Putin , Orban along with other leaders who care little for the fate of the average citizen and are constant violators of any democratic values. These are his cronies.
This and the fact that he is a major criminal and a thug who has perfected the art of the lying ‘ victim’.
He’s as dirty as they come .
When you think about it his victimhood is so self manufactured that he cant even keep his whiny stories straight.
Trump is abhorrent and he’s running strong in this country because the devaluation of morality goes with the increase in monied unprincipled acolytes of greed. Supported by the Republican Party. The Maga faction who actually believe somehow this will preserve their rights.
Not going to happen .
We who don’t want to live in this state of hate ,paranoia and fear had better be louder about it . Starting now.
It's getting more and more messianic and outright blasphemous: Trump is God's new sacrifice for us.....Never mind that wussy tolerant peacenik Jesus. So twisted, one wonders whether it's a fever that might break. But what will it take? Today Rachel Maddow juxtaposed huge demonstrations in Germany against a political party talking about mass deportations of immigrants, while here in America, Trump and the Republicans talk about mass deportations and ho-hum, so what? Scary.
America definitely flipped in the 1980s, from being the world's largest creditor nation (other countries owed money to us) to becoming the world's largest debtor nation. Some of this was probably the natural ebb and flow of empires and the rise of other economies as World War 2 receded into history. But one would think that the selling of what is left of U.S. Steel--once the powerhouse of the nation--to a Japanese company would wake people up. Or that the rise of Airbus as Boeing rapidly declines would be noticed, or the reduction in credit rating of U.S. bonds (though that is thanks to the GOP's playing games with shut-downs). However all this blows by with barely a mention in the press and never talk about a national decline. People know something is wrong but few can or will articulate it.
But the billionaires at Davos are likely thinking in terms of global economies and the fall of America's standard of living and industrial capacity means little to them. After all, they can invest in more lucrative nations and multinational corporate outputs elsewhere. They will support, or at least tolerate, Trump and his antics so long as he doesn't seriously affect their position in the world. Sadly the U.S. is becoming a bit like Bolivia in the 19th century. Three families in France owned the rich mines there. They didn't care who in a dizzying succession of presidencies was nominally in charge of the country so long as he signed their checks. As for the workers and peasants...they weren't even in the picture.
"After all, they can invest in more lucrative nations and multinational corporate outputs elsewhere. "
This is why I support arbitrage. Buy Japanese, Swiss, Swedish debt at about 1% and retire some of ours at 7+%.
OPEC/Saudi and allies have been undermining our economy since 1973 and now control our largest oil refineries and control companies like Exxon. We could recoup trillions of dollars. This is also a national security issue as it funds the Russian war against Ukraine.
doc. The US is a debtor nation, but what do we borrow? Not pounds, pesons, yen, wan, we borrow dollars and where do those dollars come from?The products and oil that we purchase abroad.
China is a superpower and a threat because America built it into one, with American dollars and manufacturing shipped abroad. The Wings and fuselage of our commercial aircraft are made in China.
China wants Taiwan, Taiwan is the manufacturer of Taiwan Semi Conductor, way ahead of Intel who is struggling to catch up now. It is also home to Foxconn which makes cell phones,and where are Foxconn plants located? Mainland China.
America produces more oil than it consumes, yet we (or rather the Saudi owned refineries in Cancer Alley, and Saudi owned Exxon, import oil, because we export oil and gas, and Biden approved off shore oil leases, and the Willow project is an oil drilling project by ConocoPhillips located on the plain of the North Slope of Alaska in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska entirely on wetlands
Oh I agree, William. Biden has serious issues--he was after all the senator from probably the most corporate-friendly state in America. But like Hilary (who made my skin crawl) the alternative was and is unspeakable. In a way America is cutting its own throat, or at least has been given the knife and room to swing it. A historical analogy might be Rome, one of whose many causes to fail was the steady flow of silver out of the empire and to India and China for luxury goods like silk. But regarding aircraft specifically, Boeing does make them in several U.S. sites including Renton, Washington--I've taken the public tour of their factory, which is fascinating--but outsources components. The recent blow out was from a company called Spirit in Malaysia, which used to be part of Boeing but was sold to foreign investors, and that may be a story in itself. I agree it has (and probably will again) make planes in China though they could be for that market. This seems like another example of multinationalization of industry.
And right too about the dollars circulating, with perhaps a quarter of them abroad.. The risk of course is if our currency stops being the world's reserve standard, which supposedly is why Gaddafi and Saddam were both deposed. But nothing lasts forever, not the Athenian drachma, the Roman aureus, the florin, the guilder or the pound.
Right, all good things come to an end and bad things too.Success is the seed of it's own demise.
Der Grosser Reich would never have lasted a thousand years, it would have disintegrated from within, as it carried the seeds of it's own destruction.. conservatism, the unwillingness and inability to change, which leads to stagnation. There were internal power dynamics with the power structure and heirarchy.
The French Revolution of 1789, met its end when it found itself besieged on all sides by the English and Hapsburg Empire, which gave an artillery captain a chance to rescue France and become an emperor.
The Bolshevik revolution quickly morphed and became the personal property of one man, we know as Stalin, and didn't last long after he died. Hitler probably saved Stalins hide,he enabled Stalin to rally Russians to a great cause.
The USSR failed because it was a failed economic experiment and Gorbachev was hired to dismantle it, and was well rewarded for doing the job.
As for the reasons Rome fell. Well it never did, the Eastern Empire, which was called Rum, in the Quran , held on by the skin of it's teeth until the Ottoman Turks took it down, and then only because of betrayal from within.
Rome didn't fall, it fell into decay. Eventually Rome became uninhabitable due to the heat, malaria mosquitos, stench of the city and the Tiber, and the Emperor moved it north to cleaner and cooler climes, Ravena In northern Italy.
Lots of books written on the fall of the Roman Empire, and each one represents the discipline or prejudices of the authors.
Some blame it on lead pipes. Others blame it on the fecklessness and jealousy of effete and insane emperors.
For distance Flavius Aetius who had been governor of Gaul, gathered an army of Gauls, German's , Slavs and stopped Attila and his horde at the battle of the Catalaunian fields, The Emperor Vaentian was fearful that Aetius was more popular than he, thus more powerful and ordered him to Ravenna where he had him murdered.
Thus killing the last great Roman General, and warning the rest., and there was no successor any count to stop The German Chiefs Ricemer, Orestes and Odoacer, who murdered Valentian and ruled Italy through puppet Emperors.
Much earlier the Roman emperors removed troops from Britain to contend with the threat from the vital Germanic tribes.
Rome pacified the lands they conquered and turned them into proper Roman Citizens, but the Romano Gauls and the Romano Brythonics were not skilled at arms, in fact were essentially defenseless, and Rome itself no longer fielded legion off Romans and Italians, but their army was comprised of , well basically, mercenaries, from the far reaches of the empire.
Even their Emperors were not Roman, they were Libyans, Spaniards and Illyrians like Constantine, what we would call a Balkan Slav.
The soft, the settled always give way to the hungry, the needy, the vital.
The legions of the Roman Republic and the early Empire were hungry, aggressive and their weapons, armor, formations, training and logistics showed it, as it became settled it shifted into defense and again their weapons, armor, formations and logistics showed that shift.
What took a thousand years , thousands of years ago, took hundreds of years as technology improved and the world got "smaller", now it takes decades, and so it appears even less
I don't have inside knowledge, but I am sure as hell that there is chaos, inside board rooms, as technology and world events are moving so fast that even mighty corporations are unbalanced.
There was lead pipes in Rome? That would explain a lot. There are toxins all over the world currently, that would explain a lot as well. Throw in phony religions and you have the perfect storm.
I suspect that, generationally, a significant percent of Mr. Hartman's subscribers are of the Baby-Boomer cohort, along with Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. Historically, we have reached the age span where maturity and selflessness are finally bringing forth levels of maturity that favors a more robust social and personal behavior model, i.e. 'us' over just 'me-me-me.' We are also hitting the 80-year horizon where young people, i.e. our children, are beginning to have a blank look on their faces when we insist on bringing up such experiences as the 1920-30 Depression, Hitler, Jewish genocides, Korea Wars and Vietnam. The experiential universe of young people born after 1970 does not include the same touch-stones. BUT, they are beginning to realize that, at least in America, their lives, dreams and aspiration no longer reflect what the Baby-Boomer generation experienced. They are also beginning to compare notes with peers who live in Canada, the EU, Australia and New Zealand. Young US parents Anno 2024 are hurting when they see the affordable childcare models in non-US Western countries, and young adults looking at $200,000 for a 4-year US college degree are becoming ex-pats. And many, many Americans, of all ages are joining and supporting with small monthly contributions groups such as Braver Angels https://braverangels.org/2024-convention/?link_id=4&can_id=554ea7a444f01dd76835e4a9c0647a59&source=email-redemption-and-reconciliation-lessons-from-mlk&email_referrer=email_2176641&email_subject=come-to-carthage-create-hope to reclaim the Commons from the current wave of destructive 'Gilded Barons.' And even a core of the very rich are advocating for extra taxes on themselves to address the bizarre tax climate in America where wage earners pay a higher percent of their income in taxes than do the millionaires.https://patrioticmillionaires.org/. In other words, in the recycled historical mess we are finding ourselves with in the West, Anno 2024, and particularly in the US, we are also witnessing incredible opportunities to re-direct the Exxon Valdez social and economic mass that the baby-Boomer generation allowed to happen with Mr. Reagan. For example, Mr. Hartman's Third Edition of The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight https://www.amazon.com/Last-Hours-Ancient-Sunlight-Revised/dp/1400051576 would be a great gift for each of us to buy for 10 younger people. Contributing to Braver Angels and attending their 2024 Convention might also be a positive action for Baby-Boomers to fund for a younger person. Finally, making a monthly contribution to Social Security Works https://socialsecurityworks.org/to make sure our children have a pension before age 70, might also be an awesome generational gift. Finally, as Mr. Hartman writes elsewhere in his excellent 3rd Edition: "When people behave like children, wanting immediate gratification for their every desire, they are the ideal consumers. Only when we turn off the messages can we begin the process of maturing - and this is rarely done ( p.340). Let's not give up on America and our dream of safe-keeping this odd political vision of a Democratic Republic - let's help our young people re-invent the visions that Robert Kennedy voiced in his Kansas speech in 1968 https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/remarks-at-the-university-of-kansas-march-18-1968. There are a gazillion small, daily actions that each of us can choose to take that aggregately may contribute to the critical mass that, eventually, may re-direct America and the global community back towards the decades where America still was really Great, and a Bright Light. Lastly, fund and encourage young people to become teachers, and encourage experienced mothers and fathers in their 40+ years to go teach our children. Let's quit talking and complaining, and being sad or angry- let's go do 10,000 Kind Things https://kindnessmatters365.org/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward. As Mr. Hartman suggests: The Davos crowd might be troubled that their narratives are not selling well any longer.
Mr. Hartman's citations:
America has experienced three brushes with oligarchy: when the oligarchs of the South rose up to end democracy here, leading to the Civil War; when the anti-trust laws were put into place and enforced during the Gilded Age around the turn of the 20th century (1890-1920); and the neoliberal Reaganomics era which began in 1981 and is still with us.
We fought back America’s oligarchs twice; will we succeed this third time with an actual oligarch (Trump) running for president as a neofascist populist?
The Davos crowd and America’s corporate media are troubled by the rise in populism because they thought the neoliberalism promoted by Thatcher and Reagan would bring greater prosperity; in fact, it has grown economies but pretty much only in ways that have benefited the oligarchs themselves
Very good Teach1, but if you would allow me to Teach2. Just a suggestion , break long run on paragraphs into smaller paragraphs,say, three to four sentences at most with each paragraph containing a single thought.
It does make it easier to read, and more importantly absorb and digest.
I agree with this 100%. I'd like to have somebody describe the way the entire legal system has been warped in favor of the rich and powerful. Things like the way trusts are only available to the rich are a travesty.
The legal system is designed to be abused ! After laws are passed, those staffers who helped write the law are hired by law firms that want to know how to exploit the law’s weaknesses! Most if not all states controlled by right wing legislators use templates for a law written by one of most notorious right wing propaganda millls ALEC. ALEC and other liked minded groups are funded by uber billionaires who abhor taxes and regulations!
This may seem off-topic. But the NAZI regime tried to produce a superior race or "supermen" by controlling pregnancies and births in their special maternity homes and orphanages. "Defective" babies were allowed to die. Hitler's Stolen Children by Ingrid Von Oelhafen & Tim Tate Also look up Butterbox Babies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterbox_Babies
Good column. Can someone define “neoliberalism” for me? I have seen it used many times, always with the assumption that readers *know* what the term means, but I do not.
Free trade, trickle down, union busting immigration, buying of elections by corporations, rich ownership of the media.... It should be called Neo conservatism in my opinion? I have always called it Reaganomics, ray gun economics.
I expect a transformation this year maybe by mid year to a unity mindset. Something that should have occurred in 2012 in Aug which will shock us out of this dark dream of disunity we have been living in. The rich advantaged have always lost and will continue their losing ways. Fight on my fellows.
Assuming the United States is a "democracy" ( I argue, saliently and cogently, that it is not) John Adams concluded that democracy “never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
Anecdotally, every time I hear the phrase "Dark Money" I find myself wincing.
Rohn, it would behoove you not to be so sensitive and always looking for offense. I recall the time you took offense because I used the term race horse.
If you are looking for offense, where ever you look you will find it. As the saying goes, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
BTW, those slave owning white men who wrote the documents called the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, eschewed the idea of a democracy. Thomas Jefferson sure did, rather they put their heads together and came up with a democratic republic, and that was the name of the party founded by Jefferson and Adams, The Democratic Republican party.
A pure democracy is rule by the people, and they made clear in the Federalist papers that they didn't trust a democracy, a Republic on the other hand is rule by "wise men", meaning property owning white men (and of course slaves were property), not women, not landless white men, but property owning white men, it it took state by state to enfranchise white men who didn't own property and three amendments the 15th, 19th and 26th to enfranchise everyone under age 18. and the 17th Amendment to make the Senate represenative of the electorate and not the legislature.
So technically we are a democracy, in actuality, since Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific, Belotti v 1st Nat'l Bank of Boston and Citizens United, a thinly veiled plutocracy.
I suspect Putin and Iran are behind Hamas's attack on Israel, in order to put the American president in a no win situation. The right wingers in America have been working towards a right wing dictatorship since Nixon normalized relations with China in 1972. IMHO That includes, buying most of the Democratic party. What would you do abandon Israel.
Two things happened on Oct 7, 2023. Putin had a birthday party and HAMAS, with the support of Iran, launched an inhuman attack on Jews, raping women, slaughtering babies. up front and personal, not impersonal collateral damage. It takes a special kind of psychopath to keep people like that, personally and then celebrate.
The Putin HAMAS connection runs through Putin-Iran-HAMAS-Hezbollah-Houthi's
Hello Bob. I don't know this for a fact so I have nothing to say to you.
To my mind which may be correct or wrong............MOST of the world are completely fed up with American hegemony.
All our countries want to live a life BUT the Americans come in with their idea of democracy....which is what? YOU have had NO democracy for years.
I watched the British Empire do the same. Never did the British help with education for the people. Yes they built schools for the rich and the Catholics BUT did nothing else.
I keep telling people to read: Leonard Woolf. He went out to Sri Lanka with all the British 'mindset' in his head. He was transferred to different districts and then realised that the British were doing nothing towards helping Sri Lanka. He was the first person who 'lobbied' Parliament for SL to become an Independent nation.
Virginia Woolf sat at home writing her terrible literature and calling all Leonard's black friends niggers.
I have watched colonialist nations all my life and I just want to say.............FU and deal with your own country.
I have read Virginia Woolf's diatribes and am left thinking.......why is she so admired in the USA.
What would I do to abandon Israel? Simple question why are the US 'joined by the hip' to Israel. America should immediately disband this relationship. I have NO time for the Jewish nation which has abandoned any form of empathy towards other nations.
In America you have allowed the Jewish lobby to dictate to you (money) and it's time to cut the 'apron strings.' The US nations culture is about money.
IF the Jewish/Zionists survive it should be because they appreciate the world and stop this nonsense about being the 'chosen' people. US backs them up in killing a whole nation of people who are not of the Jewish faith where will this end?
I lived in the US for 23yrs nd couldn't wait to get out. No-one except in my 'left wing community' wanted to discuss politics. People were happy.....endless buying things and the education was disgusting.
Well Jenny, if you are fed up with American hegemony (and there is none, you can look to Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran for hegemony. then how aboutRussian Hegemony.
You see that is where the real threat of hegemony, imperialism, colonialism is.. your boyfriend Putin.
So Jenny from what I gather, you could care less if Israel was wiped off the face of the Earth? Just say it or what you would do to prevent it! If you side with Putin,without giving an explanation, what do you expect me to think? I would never have put Israel in the Middle East but I wasn't born at that time. This nonsense about Jesus returning and there needs to be a state of Israel, is more religious insanity. Since the Jewish or very productive I would support all of them moving to America and more Asians as well.
1. Israel will do fine without the backing of the US. IF it doesn't then it is the same as what happens to other countries where the US/UK has meddled in politics. Why is Israel different? You answer my question.
A vote against Biden is a vote for Trump. So you could care less whether all the Jewish people get exterminated in Israel. If we end up with a dictatorship here and lose all of our freedoms and our standard of living, it will be because people like you could could not act humanely. Israel was attacked!
You do violence to the word genocide. In now ay is Israel's response to the HAMAS attrocities a genocide. Please resist from resorting to parroting ignorant propaganda.
Genocide requires an intention to obliterate a peoples in part or in while. ISLAM and HAMAS especially has the intention of genocide of Jews. I've posted proof many times, not need to do it again, you do not seem to want to learn, and keep parroting the propaganda of Islamist terrorists.
It is not genocide. In fact HAMAS brought this onto themselves, by using their own people and Jews as hostages. You don't start a fight then run behind momma's skirts, whining because you got their nose bloodied.
And if you want to dig back into history. It started in 1948 when Israel's neighbors saw what Israel had done to what was essentially desert, and tried to drive them into the sea and literally genocide them.
The Arabs lost that attempt, and the Jews took land for their self protection and the Arabs whine and call it a catastrophe (the Nakba), then not having learned the lesson, they tried again in 1956, then 1967,1thn 1972, then 2006 and finally Oct 7th.
Each time they failed, each time Israel took more land for self protection.
Do you know a sign of insanity? Doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results. The Arabs never learned, and don't stop, not even the young men, who keep trying to become shahids (martyrs) by attack jews and getting killed, thus giving the Israeli Right Wing justification for confiscating more land.
Maybe if everyone of them just settled down, stopped trying to get their own 72 virgins, then they would have a case for a two state solution.
But so long as the Jews have Hostile Muslims on their borders the idea of a two state solution is a fantasy.
In the novel Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson has his way with the likes of those in Davos. He locks them down and gives them a taste of what the rest of the world experiences. A flight of fantasy for sure, but I'll bet security at the event is something else especially after they published the book. It's about people across the planet trying to survive through cooperation.
Back in real life we are victims of financial and political suppression, some from the Davos crowd. Youth around the world are going to have to forge a path, invent, and push back. I strongly feel they are aware and have already started. Good example: China is offering incentives to have more children. The young Chinese women are not interested.
Images of the high-life reach almost all of the planet, that's the game-changer. Time to make sure people have the essentials, so they can work their way up to a really good life they can enjoy and pass-on. American youth may not have studied the history or learned the terminology, but they see and hear. A recent C-Span interview with three young ones showed their voting issues were democracy, dark money, and reproduction/health care.
According to Ingrid Jacques at USA Today this new guy has all of the answers? "Last week, Argentina’s newly elected President Javier Milei gave a rousing speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that blew up the internet (at least among conservatives and the business world). The libertarian economist's 20-minute lecture centered on the dangers facing the Western world if countries keep turning from the free-market system to heavy-handed government intervention."
Now that I agree with Jenny. Argentinians were frustrated, they place demands on the government, but when the government moves to fulfill those demands, they rebel because they don't like the consequences.
This would be (libertarian) dictator, will destroy Argentina, he wants to make the US Dollar the currency of the country, the only way to do that is to become an offshore branch of say, Citicorp, Panama already is, gratis the 1919 Edge Act which authorized banks to have offshore branches.
Then the Bank of Argentina will be regulated by the Federal Reserve, but it will first go through a depression for lack of money, as the US Dollar, can only be obtained by debt.
That's right, debt, no debt, no money. same with America. The US dollar is a creature of debt (public and private),.
BTW, Panama had a pretty stable economy until the 1980's when Citicorps embarked on a massive PR campaign to convince Panamanians to get credit cards, now inflation has taken off and where it was once affordable to live in Panama, it is no more
In reading Thom’s always spot on analysis of our economic/political nightmares now and then, I find myself nodding and saying, “yes, true, yup, absolutely…” from beginning to end.
There are really only a handful of “left leaning” commentators working diligently to tell us the truth in the multi-billion dollar onslaught of propaganda funded almost exclusively by far right fascist loving oligarchs and Christo-Fascists.
Almost all of them are here on substack: Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Reich, and Bandi X. Lee to name a few.
Out there in You Tube is David Feldman, and The Majority Report. Now Bob Reiner is publicizing a great new doc on “Christian Nationalism.”
A genuine gift to us all is PRRI’s ( Robert P. Jones and his team put out the best data going)
I go way back with Thom and will always support him, but more importantly I implore all of you to check out some of the others I’ve cited and more importantlyrefer your friends.
These people all are experts in not only what the hell we are facing, but what “WE” can do about it as well.
This is the most important overview of what's happening in America to the working middle class I've ever read. Kudos Thom. And it's even more reason why we need to vote FOR Biden because if we don't and we elect you-know-who, we'll only see more degradation of the middle class! I wish people would pull their heads out of the sand and realize this. Hopefully if more people read this article, they'll understand that.
Carolyn, Biden didn't "decide" anything....that's Israel's decision. And he can't "allow" anything. I understand your frustration about what's happening, and I share that, but Israel makes its own decisions. Biden has made efforts to modify their approach, but Netanyahu makes the final call, NOT Biden. You're way off base with your "war criminal" comment!
A single issue dunderhead Carolyn. Welcome then to Trump's world, because that is the only alternative. Do you think that your beloved Muslims will get a better deal from Trump?
Shy are you spouting radical islamic propaganda? Cleansing" a not to subtle code word for genocide.
And the Jews of Israel are fighting for their lives against genocidal Islamics.
I calls them as I see them. I have no shame.
Sure, why not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3UnIO-JcrI I think this is a link to reporting today that Netanyahu is "defying" Biden demands for Israel compromise. There was quite a bit of discussion on MSNBC about Netanyahu being cornered with the most extreme parties because he is going to prison otherwise. And Biden is going to make Netanyahu act differently how?
Facts are often invisible to one who has a ‘myopic minds eye!’
Thanks for the link!
Sorry Carolyn but Biden joined the other side when he didn't have about 300 GOP insurrectionist tried immediately or fired Garland. Only a right winger what attack him about supporting Israel. In my humble opinion when Israel became a nation and I think 1948, that was the religious people of the world getting together in their Mass insanity. The Jewish people should have been allowed to migrate to any country they wanted to, they do not have to have a country of their own. Do you want America to abandon Israel? If you do not answer I will consider that a yes! I want to hear a plan from the bleeding hearts. I may agree with you but you don't ever have a plan?
Wow you covered a lot of ground there. I never understood the appointment of Garland, who would have been accused of petty revenge all the way, and so was set up to run from confronting the Jan. 6 debacle, and look where we are: now he's accused of stalling, like, wasn't that in the cards? As for 1948, I remember the propaganda: not as "religious people getting together," though. It was a combination of understandable "Western" sympathy with the Jews, but equally downplaying the territory to be taken over. Palestine was portrayed as a wasteland with a smatter of barbaric nomads the only inhabitants. As with other racist invasions, the Jews were portrayed as an industrious superior race who were going to "make the desert bloom," vs "lazy" inferiors. Me, I ponder what the heck with Native Americans, still fighting for their homeland nearly to 1900, being treated like no-count freaks if they dare to peep up about a pipeline, for instance, when "the West" rolled out the red carpet for Palestine to be "returned" to the Jews after something like 2600 years since they owned the place. Go figure.
October 7 was a window of opportunity for antisemites.
And the Jew haters have come out of the closet in the millions. Daniel
Personally I eschew the word antisemite, it is not trademarked, and the Arabs claim to be semites, that is descendants of Noah's son Shem via Abraham's son Ismael.
Judeophobe or Israeliphobe is too vanilla, so call them what they are Jew haters.
XPistians justify their hated of Jews, by calling them Christ Killers, like Mel Gibson. does., ignoring the fact that their purported Jesus was a Jew.
Also some words get so overused they lose their punch. For instance Carolyn, above, doesn't use the word genocide, so she says Israel wants to cleanse Palestine of Arabs.
One can't even shame a MAGAt anymore by pointing out that they are racist, they now wear the label with pride.
More than 6MM killed in my lifetime by antisemites. No reason to be pedantic.
Meanwhile we bear the burden of proof. I get no credit for opposing ultraorthodox. Never mind that there are still American hostages. Maybe another 100 survive. That hundreds of thousands of Arabs kill each other in Syria and Yemen. That Americans have recently been killed in Syria. That Hamas has a history of killing their own brethren and blaming it on the Jews. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/05/gaza-palestinians-tortured-summarily-killed-by-hamas-forces-during-2014-conflict/
I know hundreds of "Palestinians'" who oppose Hamas. Mostly self identify as Christian Arabs. They know that the Islamists want to kill them almost as much as Jews.
Carolyn is the same person who previously ranted about followers of the Old Testament. QAnon?
Accumulation of great wealth with no care at all for the people who get submerged because of it is the true tragedy .
it is also the reason that someone like Trump is considered a valid candidate for president of the United States.
He’s not bright. He’s not well spoken .
His product is mendacity. He’s a liar .
He’s a friend of the most menacing promoters of autocracy. Putin , Orban along with other leaders who care little for the fate of the average citizen and are constant violators of any democratic values. These are his cronies.
This and the fact that he is a major criminal and a thug who has perfected the art of the lying ‘ victim’.
He’s as dirty as they come .
When you think about it his victimhood is so self manufactured that he cant even keep his whiny stories straight.
Trump is abhorrent and he’s running strong in this country because the devaluation of morality goes with the increase in monied unprincipled acolytes of greed. Supported by the Republican Party. The Maga faction who actually believe somehow this will preserve their rights.
Not going to happen .
We who don’t want to live in this state of hate ,paranoia and fear had better be louder about it . Starting now.
It's getting more and more messianic and outright blasphemous: Trump is God's new sacrifice for us.....Never mind that wussy tolerant peacenik Jesus. So twisted, one wonders whether it's a fever that might break. But what will it take? Today Rachel Maddow juxtaposed huge demonstrations in Germany against a political party talking about mass deportations of immigrants, while here in America, Trump and the Republicans talk about mass deportations and ho-hum, so what? Scary.
America definitely flipped in the 1980s, from being the world's largest creditor nation (other countries owed money to us) to becoming the world's largest debtor nation. Some of this was probably the natural ebb and flow of empires and the rise of other economies as World War 2 receded into history. But one would think that the selling of what is left of U.S. Steel--once the powerhouse of the nation--to a Japanese company would wake people up. Or that the rise of Airbus as Boeing rapidly declines would be noticed, or the reduction in credit rating of U.S. bonds (though that is thanks to the GOP's playing games with shut-downs). However all this blows by with barely a mention in the press and never talk about a national decline. People know something is wrong but few can or will articulate it.
But the billionaires at Davos are likely thinking in terms of global economies and the fall of America's standard of living and industrial capacity means little to them. After all, they can invest in more lucrative nations and multinational corporate outputs elsewhere. They will support, or at least tolerate, Trump and his antics so long as he doesn't seriously affect their position in the world. Sadly the U.S. is becoming a bit like Bolivia in the 19th century. Three families in France owned the rich mines there. They didn't care who in a dizzying succession of presidencies was nominally in charge of the country so long as he signed their checks. As for the workers and peasants...they weren't even in the picture.
"After all, they can invest in more lucrative nations and multinational corporate outputs elsewhere. "
This is why I support arbitrage. Buy Japanese, Swiss, Swedish debt at about 1% and retire some of ours at 7+%.
OPEC/Saudi and allies have been undermining our economy since 1973 and now control our largest oil refineries and control companies like Exxon. We could recoup trillions of dollars. This is also a national security issue as it funds the Russian war against Ukraine.
In addition, as Thom noted the other day, more than 250 billionaires and millionaires asked elected representatives of the world’s leading economies to introduce higher taxes on the very richest in society. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/17/mega-rich-renew-call-on-global-leaders-at-davos-to-tax-our-extreme-wealth.html
They may have ‘asked’ but no one reported the cumulative wink of the eye while asking!!
doc. The US is a debtor nation, but what do we borrow? Not pounds, pesons, yen, wan, we borrow dollars and where do those dollars come from?The products and oil that we purchase abroad.
China is a superpower and a threat because America built it into one, with American dollars and manufacturing shipped abroad. The Wings and fuselage of our commercial aircraft are made in China.
China wants Taiwan, Taiwan is the manufacturer of Taiwan Semi Conductor, way ahead of Intel who is struggling to catch up now. It is also home to Foxconn which makes cell phones,and where are Foxconn plants located? Mainland China.
America produces more oil than it consumes, yet we (or rather the Saudi owned refineries in Cancer Alley, and Saudi owned Exxon, import oil, because we export oil and gas, and Biden approved off shore oil leases, and the Willow project is an oil drilling project by ConocoPhillips located on the plain of the North Slope of Alaska in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska entirely on wetlands
Oh I agree, William. Biden has serious issues--he was after all the senator from probably the most corporate-friendly state in America. But like Hilary (who made my skin crawl) the alternative was and is unspeakable. In a way America is cutting its own throat, or at least has been given the knife and room to swing it. A historical analogy might be Rome, one of whose many causes to fail was the steady flow of silver out of the empire and to India and China for luxury goods like silk. But regarding aircraft specifically, Boeing does make them in several U.S. sites including Renton, Washington--I've taken the public tour of their factory, which is fascinating--but outsources components. The recent blow out was from a company called Spirit in Malaysia, which used to be part of Boeing but was sold to foreign investors, and that may be a story in itself. I agree it has (and probably will again) make planes in China though they could be for that market. This seems like another example of multinationalization of industry.
And right too about the dollars circulating, with perhaps a quarter of them abroad.. The risk of course is if our currency stops being the world's reserve standard, which supposedly is why Gaddafi and Saddam were both deposed. But nothing lasts forever, not the Athenian drachma, the Roman aureus, the florin, the guilder or the pound.
Right, all good things come to an end and bad things too.Success is the seed of it's own demise.
Der Grosser Reich would never have lasted a thousand years, it would have disintegrated from within, as it carried the seeds of it's own destruction.. conservatism, the unwillingness and inability to change, which leads to stagnation. There were internal power dynamics with the power structure and heirarchy.
The French Revolution of 1789, met its end when it found itself besieged on all sides by the English and Hapsburg Empire, which gave an artillery captain a chance to rescue France and become an emperor.
The Bolshevik revolution quickly morphed and became the personal property of one man, we know as Stalin, and didn't last long after he died. Hitler probably saved Stalins hide,he enabled Stalin to rally Russians to a great cause.
The USSR failed because it was a failed economic experiment and Gorbachev was hired to dismantle it, and was well rewarded for doing the job.
As for the reasons Rome fell. Well it never did, the Eastern Empire, which was called Rum, in the Quran , held on by the skin of it's teeth until the Ottoman Turks took it down, and then only because of betrayal from within.
Rome didn't fall, it fell into decay. Eventually Rome became uninhabitable due to the heat, malaria mosquitos, stench of the city and the Tiber, and the Emperor moved it north to cleaner and cooler climes, Ravena In northern Italy.
Lots of books written on the fall of the Roman Empire, and each one represents the discipline or prejudices of the authors.
Some blame it on lead pipes. Others blame it on the fecklessness and jealousy of effete and insane emperors.
For distance Flavius Aetius who had been governor of Gaul, gathered an army of Gauls, German's , Slavs and stopped Attila and his horde at the battle of the Catalaunian fields, The Emperor Vaentian was fearful that Aetius was more popular than he, thus more powerful and ordered him to Ravenna where he had him murdered.
Thus killing the last great Roman General, and warning the rest., and there was no successor any count to stop The German Chiefs Ricemer, Orestes and Odoacer, who murdered Valentian and ruled Italy through puppet Emperors.
Much earlier the Roman emperors removed troops from Britain to contend with the threat from the vital Germanic tribes.
Rome pacified the lands they conquered and turned them into proper Roman Citizens, but the Romano Gauls and the Romano Brythonics were not skilled at arms, in fact were essentially defenseless, and Rome itself no longer fielded legion off Romans and Italians, but their army was comprised of , well basically, mercenaries, from the far reaches of the empire.
Even their Emperors were not Roman, they were Libyans, Spaniards and Illyrians like Constantine, what we would call a Balkan Slav.
The soft, the settled always give way to the hungry, the needy, the vital.
The legions of the Roman Republic and the early Empire were hungry, aggressive and their weapons, armor, formations, training and logistics showed it, as it became settled it shifted into defense and again their weapons, armor, formations and logistics showed that shift.
What took a thousand years , thousands of years ago, took hundreds of years as technology improved and the world got "smaller", now it takes decades, and so it appears even less
I don't have inside knowledge, but I am sure as hell that there is chaos, inside board rooms, as technology and world events are moving so fast that even mighty corporations are unbalanced.
.
There was lead pipes in Rome? That would explain a lot. There are toxins all over the world currently, that would explain a lot as well. Throw in phony religions and you have the perfect storm.
Speculators bet the spreads between US dollars, petrodollars and Eurodollars,
I suspect that, generationally, a significant percent of Mr. Hartman's subscribers are of the Baby-Boomer cohort, along with Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. Historically, we have reached the age span where maturity and selflessness are finally bringing forth levels of maturity that favors a more robust social and personal behavior model, i.e. 'us' over just 'me-me-me.' We are also hitting the 80-year horizon where young people, i.e. our children, are beginning to have a blank look on their faces when we insist on bringing up such experiences as the 1920-30 Depression, Hitler, Jewish genocides, Korea Wars and Vietnam. The experiential universe of young people born after 1970 does not include the same touch-stones. BUT, they are beginning to realize that, at least in America, their lives, dreams and aspiration no longer reflect what the Baby-Boomer generation experienced. They are also beginning to compare notes with peers who live in Canada, the EU, Australia and New Zealand. Young US parents Anno 2024 are hurting when they see the affordable childcare models in non-US Western countries, and young adults looking at $200,000 for a 4-year US college degree are becoming ex-pats. And many, many Americans, of all ages are joining and supporting with small monthly contributions groups such as Braver Angels https://braverangels.org/2024-convention/?link_id=4&can_id=554ea7a444f01dd76835e4a9c0647a59&source=email-redemption-and-reconciliation-lessons-from-mlk&email_referrer=email_2176641&email_subject=come-to-carthage-create-hope to reclaim the Commons from the current wave of destructive 'Gilded Barons.' And even a core of the very rich are advocating for extra taxes on themselves to address the bizarre tax climate in America where wage earners pay a higher percent of their income in taxes than do the millionaires.https://patrioticmillionaires.org/. In other words, in the recycled historical mess we are finding ourselves with in the West, Anno 2024, and particularly in the US, we are also witnessing incredible opportunities to re-direct the Exxon Valdez social and economic mass that the baby-Boomer generation allowed to happen with Mr. Reagan. For example, Mr. Hartman's Third Edition of The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight https://www.amazon.com/Last-Hours-Ancient-Sunlight-Revised/dp/1400051576 would be a great gift for each of us to buy for 10 younger people. Contributing to Braver Angels and attending their 2024 Convention might also be a positive action for Baby-Boomers to fund for a younger person. Finally, making a monthly contribution to Social Security Works https://socialsecurityworks.org/to make sure our children have a pension before age 70, might also be an awesome generational gift. Finally, as Mr. Hartman writes elsewhere in his excellent 3rd Edition: "When people behave like children, wanting immediate gratification for their every desire, they are the ideal consumers. Only when we turn off the messages can we begin the process of maturing - and this is rarely done ( p.340). Let's not give up on America and our dream of safe-keeping this odd political vision of a Democratic Republic - let's help our young people re-invent the visions that Robert Kennedy voiced in his Kansas speech in 1968 https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/remarks-at-the-university-of-kansas-march-18-1968. There are a gazillion small, daily actions that each of us can choose to take that aggregately may contribute to the critical mass that, eventually, may re-direct America and the global community back towards the decades where America still was really Great, and a Bright Light. Lastly, fund and encourage young people to become teachers, and encourage experienced mothers and fathers in their 40+ years to go teach our children. Let's quit talking and complaining, and being sad or angry- let's go do 10,000 Kind Things https://kindnessmatters365.org/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward. As Mr. Hartman suggests: The Davos crowd might be troubled that their narratives are not selling well any longer.
Mr. Hartman's citations:
America has experienced three brushes with oligarchy: when the oligarchs of the South rose up to end democracy here, leading to the Civil War; when the anti-trust laws were put into place and enforced during the Gilded Age around the turn of the 20th century (1890-1920); and the neoliberal Reaganomics era which began in 1981 and is still with us.
We fought back America’s oligarchs twice; will we succeed this third time with an actual oligarch (Trump) running for president as a neofascist populist?
The Davos crowd and America’s corporate media are troubled by the rise in populism because they thought the neoliberalism promoted by Thatcher and Reagan would bring greater prosperity; in fact, it has grown economies but pretty much only in ways that have benefited the oligarchs themselves
Very good Teach1, but if you would allow me to Teach2. Just a suggestion , break long run on paragraphs into smaller paragraphs,say, three to four sentences at most with each paragraph containing a single thought.
It does make it easier to read, and more importantly absorb and digest.
I agree with this 100%. I'd like to have somebody describe the way the entire legal system has been warped in favor of the rich and powerful. Things like the way trusts are only available to the rich are a travesty.
The legal system is designed to be abused ! After laws are passed, those staffers who helped write the law are hired by law firms that want to know how to exploit the law’s weaknesses! Most if not all states controlled by right wing legislators use templates for a law written by one of most notorious right wing propaganda millls ALEC. ALEC and other liked minded groups are funded by uber billionaires who abhor taxes and regulations!
So true, should have read this in a more timely fashion but am new to substack.
Billionaires for jingoism and citizens united. Billionaires love SCOTUS and Trump.
This may seem off-topic. But the NAZI regime tried to produce a superior race or "supermen" by controlling pregnancies and births in their special maternity homes and orphanages. "Defective" babies were allowed to die. Hitler's Stolen Children by Ingrid Von Oelhafen & Tim Tate Also look up Butterbox Babies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterbox_Babies
Good column. Can someone define “neoliberalism” for me? I have seen it used many times, always with the assumption that readers *know* what the term means, but I do not.
Free trade, trickle down, union busting immigration, buying of elections by corporations, rich ownership of the media.... It should be called Neo conservatism in my opinion? I have always called it Reaganomics, ray gun economics.
The Hartman Report and comments are both informative and appreciated!
I expect a transformation this year maybe by mid year to a unity mindset. Something that should have occurred in 2012 in Aug which will shock us out of this dark dream of disunity we have been living in. The rich advantaged have always lost and will continue their losing ways. Fight on my fellows.
Assuming the United States is a "democracy" ( I argue, saliently and cogently, that it is not) John Adams concluded that democracy “never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
Anecdotally, every time I hear the phrase "Dark Money" I find myself wincing.
Funny, that.
Rohn, it would behoove you not to be so sensitive and always looking for offense. I recall the time you took offense because I used the term race horse.
If you are looking for offense, where ever you look you will find it. As the saying goes, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
BTW, those slave owning white men who wrote the documents called the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, eschewed the idea of a democracy. Thomas Jefferson sure did, rather they put their heads together and came up with a democratic republic, and that was the name of the party founded by Jefferson and Adams, The Democratic Republican party.
A pure democracy is rule by the people, and they made clear in the Federalist papers that they didn't trust a democracy, a Republic on the other hand is rule by "wise men", meaning property owning white men (and of course slaves were property), not women, not landless white men, but property owning white men, it it took state by state to enfranchise white men who didn't own property and three amendments the 15th, 19th and 26th to enfranchise everyone under age 18. and the 17th Amendment to make the Senate represenative of the electorate and not the legislature.
So technically we are a democracy, in actuality, since Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific, Belotti v 1st Nat'l Bank of Boston and Citizens United, a thinly veiled plutocracy.
Serious news cannot shy away from these truths. We need to vote like our future depends on it, because it does.
I am sorry Tom but not many people seem to want to vote for Biden especially since he has outrageously supported Israel in its genocide.
All your politicians are bought and paid for.
If I were American I could NOT vote for Biden.
I suspect Putin and Iran are behind Hamas's attack on Israel, in order to put the American president in a no win situation. The right wingers in America have been working towards a right wing dictatorship since Nixon normalized relations with China in 1972. IMHO That includes, buying most of the Democratic party. What would you do abandon Israel.
Two things happened on Oct 7, 2023. Putin had a birthday party and HAMAS, with the support of Iran, launched an inhuman attack on Jews, raping women, slaughtering babies. up front and personal, not impersonal collateral damage. It takes a special kind of psychopath to keep people like that, personally and then celebrate.
The Putin HAMAS connection runs through Putin-Iran-HAMAS-Hezbollah-Houthi's
Hello Bob. I don't know this for a fact so I have nothing to say to you.
To my mind which may be correct or wrong............MOST of the world are completely fed up with American hegemony.
All our countries want to live a life BUT the Americans come in with their idea of democracy....which is what? YOU have had NO democracy for years.
I watched the British Empire do the same. Never did the British help with education for the people. Yes they built schools for the rich and the Catholics BUT did nothing else.
I keep telling people to read: Leonard Woolf. He went out to Sri Lanka with all the British 'mindset' in his head. He was transferred to different districts and then realised that the British were doing nothing towards helping Sri Lanka. He was the first person who 'lobbied' Parliament for SL to become an Independent nation.
Virginia Woolf sat at home writing her terrible literature and calling all Leonard's black friends niggers.
I have watched colonialist nations all my life and I just want to say.............FU and deal with your own country.
I have read Virginia Woolf's diatribes and am left thinking.......why is she so admired in the USA.
What would I do to abandon Israel? Simple question why are the US 'joined by the hip' to Israel. America should immediately disband this relationship. I have NO time for the Jewish nation which has abandoned any form of empathy towards other nations.
In America you have allowed the Jewish lobby to dictate to you (money) and it's time to cut the 'apron strings.' The US nations culture is about money.
IF the Jewish/Zionists survive it should be because they appreciate the world and stop this nonsense about being the 'chosen' people. US backs them up in killing a whole nation of people who are not of the Jewish faith where will this end?
I lived in the US for 23yrs nd couldn't wait to get out. No-one except in my 'left wing community' wanted to discuss politics. People were happy.....endless buying things and the education was disgusting.
Do you want any more?
Well Jenny, if you are fed up with American hegemony (and there is none, you can look to Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran for hegemony. then how aboutRussian Hegemony.
You see that is where the real threat of hegemony, imperialism, colonialism is.. your boyfriend Putin.
So Jenny from what I gather, you could care less if Israel was wiped off the face of the Earth? Just say it or what you would do to prevent it! If you side with Putin,without giving an explanation, what do you expect me to think? I would never have put Israel in the Middle East but I wasn't born at that time. This nonsense about Jesus returning and there needs to be a state of Israel, is more religious insanity. Since the Jewish or very productive I would support all of them moving to America and more Asians as well.
Bob. I annt keep commenting if you will not hear.
1. Israel will do fine without the backing of the US. IF it doesn't then it is the same as what happens to other countries where the US/UK has meddled in politics. Why is Israel different? You answer my question.
I said nothing about Putin! Nothing.
And Jenny, why not criticism of Putin, whose activities are a thousand times worse and more dangerous than America's.?
William. Go and find someone else to abuse.
A vote against Biden is a vote for Trump. So you could care less whether all the Jewish people get exterminated in Israel. If we end up with a dictatorship here and lose all of our freedoms and our standard of living, it will be because people like you could could not act humanely. Israel was attacked!
Watch out, my space laser is ready to fire.
I am quaking in my boots!
Marvelous.
You do violence to the word genocide. In now ay is Israel's response to the HAMAS attrocities a genocide. Please resist from resorting to parroting ignorant propaganda.
Genocide requires an intention to obliterate a peoples in part or in while. ISLAM and HAMAS especially has the intention of genocide of Jews. I've posted proof many times, not need to do it again, you do not seem to want to learn, and keep parroting the propaganda of Islamist terrorists.
Well hello William.
In your opinion what would one call what is happening to the Palestinian people?
It is not genocide. In fact HAMAS brought this onto themselves, by using their own people and Jews as hostages. You don't start a fight then run behind momma's skirts, whining because you got their nose bloodied.
And if you want to dig back into history. It started in 1948 when Israel's neighbors saw what Israel had done to what was essentially desert, and tried to drive them into the sea and literally genocide them.
The Arabs lost that attempt, and the Jews took land for their self protection and the Arabs whine and call it a catastrophe (the Nakba), then not having learned the lesson, they tried again in 1956, then 1967,1thn 1972, then 2006 and finally Oct 7th.
Each time they failed, each time Israel took more land for self protection.
Do you know a sign of insanity? Doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results. The Arabs never learned, and don't stop, not even the young men, who keep trying to become shahids (martyrs) by attack jews and getting killed, thus giving the Israeli Right Wing justification for confiscating more land.
Maybe if everyone of them just settled down, stopped trying to get their own 72 virgins, then they would have a case for a two state solution.
But so long as the Jews have Hostile Muslims on their borders the idea of a two state solution is a fantasy.
Solution: stop stirring the pot.
In the novel Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson has his way with the likes of those in Davos. He locks them down and gives them a taste of what the rest of the world experiences. A flight of fantasy for sure, but I'll bet security at the event is something else especially after they published the book. It's about people across the planet trying to survive through cooperation.
Back in real life we are victims of financial and political suppression, some from the Davos crowd. Youth around the world are going to have to forge a path, invent, and push back. I strongly feel they are aware and have already started. Good example: China is offering incentives to have more children. The young Chinese women are not interested.
Images of the high-life reach almost all of the planet, that's the game-changer. Time to make sure people have the essentials, so they can work their way up to a really good life they can enjoy and pass-on. American youth may not have studied the history or learned the terminology, but they see and hear. A recent C-Span interview with three young ones showed their voting issues were democracy, dark money, and reproduction/health care.
According to Ingrid Jacques at USA Today this new guy has all of the answers? "Last week, Argentina’s newly elected President Javier Milei gave a rousing speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that blew up the internet (at least among conservatives and the business world). The libertarian economist's 20-minute lecture centered on the dangers facing the Western world if countries keep turning from the free-market system to heavy-handed government intervention."
I am laughing my socks off.
I have friends in Argentina and they do not want this man...let's wait and see.
Goodbye to health services/education/abortion/......................
I have no idea what he said, but I would love to see Thom break it down.
Now that I agree with Jenny. Argentinians were frustrated, they place demands on the government, but when the government moves to fulfill those demands, they rebel because they don't like the consequences.
This would be (libertarian) dictator, will destroy Argentina, he wants to make the US Dollar the currency of the country, the only way to do that is to become an offshore branch of say, Citicorp, Panama already is, gratis the 1919 Edge Act which authorized banks to have offshore branches.
Then the Bank of Argentina will be regulated by the Federal Reserve, but it will first go through a depression for lack of money, as the US Dollar, can only be obtained by debt.
That's right, debt, no debt, no money. same with America. The US dollar is a creature of debt (public and private),.
BTW, Panama had a pretty stable economy until the 1980's when Citicorps embarked on a massive PR campaign to convince Panamanians to get credit cards, now inflation has taken off and where it was once affordable to live in Panama, it is no more
The free market is a myth. Only in a barter system is there a free market. Markets tend towards monopoly, and control by the powerful.
Many people can give 'rousing' speeches but what does this mean?
Davos is a nothingburger of twisted/infantile/moneyed elitists. Best to ignore them.
If you say ignore them, that signals look out! Pay attention to the overlords! They will soon trample you while you ignore them!
What have you learned about this latest meeting in Davos?
They only allow selected Journalists in anyway.
In reading Thom’s always spot on analysis of our economic/political nightmares now and then, I find myself nodding and saying, “yes, true, yup, absolutely…” from beginning to end.
There are really only a handful of “left leaning” commentators working diligently to tell us the truth in the multi-billion dollar onslaught of propaganda funded almost exclusively by far right fascist loving oligarchs and Christo-Fascists.
Almost all of them are here on substack: Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Reich, and Bandi X. Lee to name a few.
Out there in You Tube is David Feldman, and The Majority Report. Now Bob Reiner is publicizing a great new doc on “Christian Nationalism.”
A genuine gift to us all is PRRI’s ( Robert P. Jones and his team put out the best data going)
I go way back with Thom and will always support him, but more importantly I implore all of you to check out some of the others I’ve cited and more importantlyrefer your friends.
These people all are experts in not only what the hell we are facing, but what “WE” can do about it as well.