We used a DIME (Diplomatic / Information / Military / Economic) actions in a PMESII environment (Political / Military / Economic / Social / Intelligence / Information) when I was writing scenarios for "Joint Experimentation" (a now banned term). It provides a decent framework to examine the admittedly complex interactions of variables and impacts (first, second, third order, etc) for high level wargames and training events. Back then, humans were the "AI" as we executed the events. I'm sure today you can constructively (automatic with no human involvement at high speed) run "lots" of scenario runs changing variables to get the model's "best guess" on outcomes. Economic modeling appears to be closer to weather / climate modeling than military hardware / combat interaction / force modeling...but...how good would a model have to be than have better predictive outcomes than the current batch of economic "experts" running the IMF, WEF, etc? Of course, perhaps they are right, and just have a different desired outcome for economic modeling than "the rest of us"? OBTW, if someone says they will punch you in 15 minutes, do you believe them, and trust they won't do it sooner?
J. P. Morgan once said gold is money all else is credit and you don’t have to be an enemy to prefer physical gold to paper money or securities given our fiscal and monetary mismanagement.
We got away with this mismanagement for a long time because the dollar is or was the reserve currency.
No longer thanks to our policy of antagonizing Russia by pushing NATO eastward and weaponizing the dollar.
We stole Russia’s assets and wonder why no one trusts our securities. We banned Russia from SWIFT and were surprised that they were able to trade anyway. We armed the grifter in Ukraine and can’t understand why Russia is now closely allied with China.
Russia has been closely allied with the PRC for decades. This is something Mark Steyn pointed out decades ago in his “America Alone” and he is no uncritical Ukraine/Zelenskyy fan. The late, great Vladimir Bukhovsky pointed out how starting in late stage Brezhnev Soviet and Russian leaders began to make considerable efforts to salve up the relations with Mao and the CCP, reaching its first big apogee under the supposedly “good” Soviet Gorbachev, who laughed when he heard the CCP massacred protectors in 1989 and who diplomatically covered for them. I loathe Biden, Harris, Blinken, and co but the idea that they fundamentally caused the pro-Red China drift of the Russian security state’s “organs” when said drift is older than about half of them are and manifested in ways such as the pointless, immediately falsifiable, and stupid provocation of blaming us for the Kursk disaster is folly.
If anything we spent a lot of time trying to appease Russia and get it on side over the last few decades at the direct expense of people like the Moldovans and Georgians, have Obama and CO’s “reset” after abandoning Georgia (“the 80s called”) in spite of them being valiant allies that fought alongside us in Iraq.
And the USD remains the world reserve currency less because of any great insights in management and far more because it is vastly less mismanaged and more trustworthy than basically any would be competitor in terms of instruments of credit. That’s damning with faint praise but the fact that the USD is - by historical metrics - still one of the most successful and least mismanaged finances on earth says a lot, and the markets for the Ruble and the RMB are extremely limited because nobody trusts the Kremlin or CCP to not do funny business with the finances.
Also the dollar has always been usable as a weapon. Always. Whether it was Washington using Spanish silver to pay mercenaries or Amerindian allies during the Revolution or Lincoln’s bribery campaigns in many European governments to impede the Confederacy. The idea that the SWIFT cutoff was a drastically new concept does not wash when you study some of the things my Dutch and Italian ancestors were doing back in the Renaissance.
Yes, that other currencies are worse, and that frankly that’s the main thing at play. I can rant all day long about the many problems with the USD, both as emblematic of wider crises caused largely by Keynesian and Post-Keynesian follies worsens by them ignoring some of the little good advice Keynes gave like running surpluses in times of plenty or stability, and in its own special screwed up ways. But that’s in many ways less important than the ability to put up even longer and more cutting lists of all the problems with its leading competitors, including those I had figured as more serious competitors like the Euro and Pound Sterling. In many ways I feel the Indian Rupee might be a bigger longer term problem for the USD as reserve currency if Bharat does not screw anything up too seriously, but that’s well on the horizon.
In many ways currency success is less about being fundamentally sound in and of itself (though that HELPS to put it mildly) than about being the Sound-EST or most successful of the games in town. Classic "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you" stuff, which is why even as currencies broke down or went into freefall like happened to Roman currencies several times over you still had wide circulation (in part due to there not being anything better in town save barter). And as bad as the USD is it is still more trustworthy and sounder than essentially all of its major competitors, ESPECIALLY the Ruble and Yuan.
Also that the Russian security services and military and bureaucratic apparatuses that basically took over the country after Yeltsin have a strong anti-American and anti-Western bent that can’t be explained away by some kind of “we wronged them” story from the 80s or 90s and that saw them steadfastly refuse our entreaties for partnership against the likes of Iran and the PRC in favor of ties with them, even after things like Obama’s reset.
I'd be honored. But basically, people know the USD has farqed up and has farqed up, and is being inflated to the moon and back. And can even make guesses on how much. Which is bad for long term stability and to be honest I feel we are overdue for some correcting deflation. Political pressures like the mortgage overinvestment makes this worse.
But at least people can assess more or less how farqed up it is and have a decently accurate grasp of its value. This is one reason why the USD's value at home and its value abroad are far closer to each other than most others. It is "honest" or at least more honest than most currencies historically have been. And this is ultimately a positive because it lets people make rational (or not so rational) informed calculations on its value when trading or accepting it, helped by its widespread spread. I'd argue the global markets probably trust the USD More than they should, but even that's relative to the other options.
The likes of the Ruble, the Yuan, and so on are in a worse boat because not only are they inflating to the moon (and probably at least as aggressively) but they are much more nakedly manipulated due to lacking even many of the US's flawed safeguards, and putting out data that is relatively sparse or doctored when it is put out at all. This is why the people that know the Ruble and Yuan best do not want to hold much of it ,hence the large scale attempts by Russian and Chinese VIPs (even those in favor of the regime or against us) to diversify holdings into USD, Euros, real estate, and others. Which benefits them but undercuts the long term favorability of the currencies in question, hence why China has had relatively few takers even from serious pushes to get people to sell things in the Yuan more prominently. Because people know that it's one of the worst kinds of fiat currency and cannot be trusted even compared to other fiats.
As for Russia, the long term leaning of the elites that matter there (mostly the "Organs" and other military and bureaucratic elites that helped produce Putin) and the aforementioned Bukhovsky, this helps go a bit into more detail, as well as a host of other things.
Moreover, NATO expansion Eastwards happened in large part independent of the wishes of a lot of the core NATO leadership (HW Bush spent much of his career lukewarm to it) in part due to the genuine desire of a lot of the countries on Russia's borders to have an international, multinational safeguard against Russia, made worse by real or feared scares like those from the Yugoslav, Moldovan,, Georgian, and Chechen wars of the 1980s and 1990s. In a lot of ways I kind of feel NATO was kept alive due ot the sheer popular momentum of Eastern and Central Euro countries trying to get into it (helped by some of the hanger ons or die hards in NATO who may have been looking for a vantage point).
As for "stole Russia's assets", that's harder to do. Russia, the UK, the US, and Ukraine all signed on the dotted line at the Budapest Memorandum swearing to safeguard Ukraine's territorial integrity in exchange for things like denuclearization and to bring support to bear on that. That Russia broke the terms of those agreements violently and fraudulently doesn't exempt us from them or prevent us from applying them to it, and the Kremlin not spending time decoupling between 2014 and 2022 points to a major failure of it.
That'll hurt foreign investment by countries that fear we might do similar to them if irked, but considering we waited nearly a decade after 2014 to do them to Russian assets and still have not done so to PRC ones even after multiple judgements about their nonsense in the South China Sea lets us and other investors raise the question of "Kay, why are you so concerned about triggering that? What are you planning to do?"
If anything I'd argue the failure of the Kremlin to decouple even to that degree in spite of around a decade of lead time (whether you start like I might around 2008 with the Georgia war or in 2014 with the Crimeaschluss and the invasion by stealth in the Donbas) I think points to how the US is still probably the best and most prominent game in town, especially since nobody but nobody is going to believe the PRC or Russia will not be even more shameless or blunt in stealing foreign assets. Considering they already have done so multiple times.
Oh my lord! The sky has fallen. A conservative railing against Keynesian and Post-Keynesian economics acknowledged the truth. John Maynard was right.
True Keynesian economists recognise collecting from surpluses in times of plenty is the balance to spending richly in times of privation. Keynes' work has been perverted, and his reputation sullied, by those who let ideology blind them to the truth. Policymakers who spend in times of trouble should not be blasted for their spending, they should be blasted for not getting it back when the economy is on the upswing.
RIP sorry for killing Chicken Little. I am honored.
Still, as for “John Maynard Keynes was right”, I would respond with “about that” and the “whoa hold on there” meme. It certainly is true that Keynes had been misunderstood, perverted, and strawmanned, including by his own proclaimed disciples. But he was still wrong about plenty. It still irrrtates me that he became a global superstar largely due to his book “I got conned by the German government cooking its books and flattering my ego and preconceived biases in order to scam its war victims”, and to be fair while he did realize on some level that he had been had after the fact and worked to remedy it the damage was already done. But on more fundamental levels I think he badly undervalues creative destruction and the benefits of deflation, and also did not understand the issues of how many of his policy prognostications - even if right in theory (and I think many of them were not even that) - would fail due to ignoring the human facto, such as that if stimulus spending was good for the economy to recover in an upturn wouldn’t more of it to accentuate growth be ‘better’ for it? And that this would prove addictive or even terminal.
He deserves serious and honest consideration for what he wrote and did rather than what others say he wrote or did, but I would still say I am not a fan.
You need to read the book. First, it’s well written, some of his stuff is pretty difficult, this one ain’t. But, more importantly, he was correct. The economic situation imposed on Germany was why we suffered WWII. He practically wrote, “. . . and then Hitler will shuffle 6,000,000 humans off to the gas chamber.”
Many major US corporations are run by people for whom Asia (in particular, China and India) is "home," literally and/or culturally. Or, companies are run by self-defined "citizens of the world." Demographically, we're sunk.
Maybe so. But generally profit and continued profit is the main motive.
I've dealt with both Indian and Chinese offshore businesses as a vendor to the US branch of a European company. Don't know what the actual savings were for the final customer, but it sure wasn't worth the hassle IMO. And certainly a potential single point failure for a significant product line.
Say what you like about tariffs, but they certainly encourage onshoring of production.
LT NEMO: Yes, profit motive is the key driver, as demanded by Wall Street, where the Masters of the Universe could care less about national security issues and patriotism and have never spent any time dealing with manufacturing, logistics and other operational concerns. Also, I agree about tariffs. If that's what it takes to get manufacturers' attention, so be it.
The debt is required to have the economic advantage of having the world's reserve currency. Brent Johnson of the excellent Milkshakes, Markets, and Madness podcast/YouTube channel points this out.
And for any goldholes here, consider this your annual reminder that the Constitution requires silver to be used for currency.
I take it as an expression of MMT idea that trade deficits are good and surpluses bad. Trade deficits imply fiat currency is exported. Net trade surplus countries have to figure out how to manage their foreign currency holdings so bonds denominated in those currencies are a way to do that. Note that for MMTers, there's no limit to the amount of bonds that can be issued in a fiat currency; money supply is controlled by taxes which have nothing to do with government spending.
As far as the idea that the Constitution "requires" silver currency, the only thing I am aware of is the power of Congress to coin money and fix its value.
“ … it’s a pretty strong I&W that the PRC is preparing for war with the United States.”
That doesn’t mean the ChiComs plant to start it, or, even if they do, that they plan to carry the battle to “The Homeland.” Dollars to donuts, the USA will use Taiwan as an excuse to trigger the conflict there.
That assumes, of course, that the US doesn’t decide to reprise the 413 BC Athenian experience in Sicily by striking Iran.
The ChiComs have been pretty loud at planning to start it and the demographic pyramid bears that out. The regime basically faces a prospect of having its “bare stick” surplus, unmarriable-due-to-no-women males fight a war against itself internally, or throwing them abroad to fight wars externally.
As for the USA using Taiwan as an excuse… how and why? Maybe if there was serious prospect of complete unification under CCP terms peacefully, but there is almost no market for that in Taiwan and the Taiwanese public is getting less thrilled with that every year that passes the US has no incentive to start a war unless the CCP does.
And as a former reenactor and history nerd the comparison between Iran and Sicily is glaringly dumb. Iran’s been in a declared state of war with us for decades, and is a key part of the wider coalition against us. Syracuse at worst was giving financial support to a Corinth and Sparta and even that is iffy. Moreover at the time Athens invaded it Sparta had showed it was capable of marching across Attica and scorching the earth almost to the Long Walls of Piraeus and Athens. So the equivalent of the Sicilian Expedition would’ve something like the US invading Iran or Indonesia even when a CCP army based in Mexico regularly ravaged Texas. And even that is probably iffier.
I agree. But if anything that would hurt The Alarmist more. Athens met ruin outside the walls of Syracuse because the Iranian Empire of the day could partner with Corinth and Sparta and other Athenian enemies to basically spam out triremes and quinqueremes on par with or comparable to what Athens could muster, while also fielding a superior land army. This also played a role in the later Athenian defeats like the long, bloody, futile-for-Athens fighting over the Cyclades and the Hellespont to try and secure the Black Sea cereal convoys.
There is absolutely no REDFOR force with this capability. The closest would be the PRC and MAAAYBE a hostile Indonesia, and even those fall well short of the US"s cutting edge CVNs.
Also Athens intervened in Sicily as a result of a petty war between Syracuse and minor Greek city states there, not some internal revolution or rebellion against Syracuse's regime.
If Iran has been in a state of war with the US for decades, it is because it is US provoked. We’re screwing with them in their neighborhoood and have done so for decades. 1979 was not the beginning of this.
As for Taiwan, you can pretty much count on enough of the Taiwanese not really caring one way or another about joining the PRC. Aside from the TFNG, it would largely be the okigarchs that are vehemently opposed.
Your analogy about Sicily is alsomflawed. Maybe Sparta could march across Attica, but the poimt is that Athens went looking for trouble and had its ass handed to it.
"If Iran has been in a state of war with the US for decades, it is because it is US provoked."
Farqing how? Do you even understand Twelver Theology?
And how did Argentina "provoke" the Mullahcracy?
"We’re screwing with them in their neighborhoood and have done so for decades. 1979 was not the beginning of this."
Correct to the point it is said, though this ignores the fact that up to and including 1979 the US generally intervened in ways that benefited Iran and the religious establishment that Khomenei etc al emerged from, whether it was stepping in to avoid a partition of Iran between Britain and the USSR in 1943 (something I see most of the Mullah apologists ignore), preventing the USSR from creating communist aligned Kurdish and Azeri Bantustans in 1945-6, helping to stop Mossadegh's coup of the Shah and the Communist attempt to coup him in 1953 by supporting the Royalist/Religious counter-coup (something that is generally utterly misunderstood by the cult of Mossadegh mythologists), and helping ease the Shah out of power.
Up until the embassy hijacking US officialdom looked forward to warm and welcome relations with the US.
"As for Taiwan, you can pretty much count on enough of the Taiwanese not really caring one way or another about joining the PRC. Aside from the TFNG, it would largely be the okigarchs that are vehemently opposed."
This is monumentally stupid. At no point in Taiwanese history have "enough of the Taiwanese not really cared one way or another about joining the PRC', even back in 1947-9 when the KMT was the most apparent problem. And the fates of Hong Kong and Macao have made responsiveness to the CCP and possible reunion by force even LESS open.
"Your analogy about Sicily is alsomflawed."
Not compared to yours Alarmist, not compared to yours. I do not take history lessons or lectures on my analogies from historical illiterates, which you are showing yourself to be.
"Maybe Sparta could march across Attica, but the point is that Athens went looking for trouble and had its ass handed to it."
This is misunderstanding it and why the Sicilian Expedition happened and turned out the way it did. It's true that Athens had been looking for trouble, that's the entire point of the Melian Dialogue (propagandized and likely inaccurate as it is). What was different about Sicily is that it was not only another neutral that had done little to nothing to offend Athens being targeted, it was on the limits of Athens's abilities to intervene (but not its enemies), AND it was epically mishandled and mismanaged both in greater strategy and in how Sicily happened.
That's why Sicily happened and why it ended with Athens getting its ass handed to it.
You have failed to explain how this would result in similar in Iran, probably because you can't. Probably because you're a historical illiterate acting as a whitewasher for the Mullahcracy and the CCP in order to blame America first.
You really do your arguments no favor with the ad hominems.
Just sayin’.
But you do a wonderful job of showing a US-centric view of the world, complete with flawed analysis. Yeah, it was really in Iran’s best interest to pick up the mantle of plunder on behalf of the City of London.
1"You really do your arguments no favor with the ad hominems.
Just sayin’."
So you're another fucking midwit who either does not know the meaning of the term ad hominem, or does but is happy to misuse it if they think (and I use that term loosely) it will give them a leg up in an internet debate. Absolutely spectacular.
Because apparently you've apparently decided to treat me like the instructor in a remedial course, let's get one thing straight:
The Ad Hominem fallacy is NOT merely calling someone bad names or disparaging them. The Ad Hominem is using such things TO THE EXCLUSION OF supporting evidence and proof, ergo Ad Hominem, Against the Person (rather than the argument), thus leaving the argument unaddressed.
That is not something I have done. i have acknowledged your claims and what you probably think passes for evidence or supporting argumentation. I have addressed and refuted it, because frankly you don't have much. Most of what you have amounts to unsupported assertions, such as claiming that a US attack on Iran would be akin to the Sicilian Expedition (why? You never bother to specify) or that if the Ayatollah declared war on the US and waged it for decades it was because we provoked him (Ok, how when and where? You do fuck all to explain except for referring to allusions to US meddling in Iran for decades, which while true ignores the fact that said meddling was generally favorable to the future Ayatollah and the priestly sects he arose from).
You have no arguments. Having misplayed your hand and your arguments badly, you now insult the intelligence of whoever bothers to read this far in by misusing ad hominem.
As such, I conclude you to be a midwit sophist, and one that has an unhealthy tendency to shill for totalitarian fools.
Secondly: Judging from this exchange, my arguments are doing just peachy keen on their own merits, whether or not my calling you out helps them. You have not been able to lay a finger on them in all of your responses to this whatsoever.
For the sake of it, let's go through your arguments, shall we?
"That doesn’t mean the ChiComs plant to start it, or, even if they do, that they plan to carry the battle to “The Homeland.”"
It's sad that this is the logically soundest argument you have on offer. Yes, it is true that the ChiComs planning war with the US does not mean they plan (not PLANT, SIC), to start it, or that they plan to carry the battle to "The Homeland." But this is rendered moot because of the very loud and vocal declarations that the CCP does indeed intend to start it, their pattern of aggression against other nations in the South China Sea and of supporting narcoterrorism in the Western Hemisphere (most notably in Mexico but most visibly in Cuba and Venezuela), and so forth.
"Dollars to donuts, the USA will use Taiwan as an excuse to trigger the conflict there."
Conveniently unmentioned: how the US would "use Taiwan as an excuse to trigger the conflict there" and how this would come about without the ChiComs starting the war or planning to do so. Now to be fair, I imagine there would be ways that could happen (I could probably think of some reasons how, even if they would be extremely unlikely). But that's never been likely to be how. The Taiwan Strait Crises that have happened have consistently seen the PRC be the aggressor in the past, even when leadership in Taiwan was expressly dedicated to reinvading and conquering the mainland under Jiang/Chang and the KMT dictatorship (something that is not the case for current Taiwanese leadership). There's little reason to believe that would change in a future conflict, even before we factor in the PLAN and Peoples' Armed Police maritime forces engaging in large scale theft and aggression against other nations' sovereign territory in the South China Sea after being expressly told the Cow Tongue Line map is meritless and a violation of the agreements the PRC said.
The onus is on you to try and explain how the USA would "use Taiwan as an excuse to trigger the conflict there" and how this would not amount to the ChiComs starting the war.
You have failed to do so.
"That assumes, of course, that the US doesn’t decide to reprise the 413 BC Athenian experience in Sicily by striking Iran."
Note that you were the one that was drawing the analogy to the "413 BC Athenian experience in Sicily" by "striking Iran." In spite of the fact that the US already struck Iran with Operation Midnight Hammer and there was no comparable case.
(My only regret beyond wasting so much time dealing with your dishonest asshole is that I did not bring this point up earlier to show how overheated, irrational, and historically illiterate this hyperbole from you is, by pointing out that the US already has a demonstrated capacity to strike Iran and win.)
This is where I came in. And it is only downhill for you from here.
"If Iran has been in a state of war with the US for decades, it is because it is US provoked."
One would think if this apologist bullshit for one of the most remorseless and apocalyptic terrorist regimes on Earth - and one that sanctioned violations of some of the more or less solid taboos in international affairs by holding embassy staff hostage in the hands of a paramilitary - it would be easy enough to point to how the US Provoked such a thing. No not in abstract "we've been screwing with them in their neighborhood and done so for decades", but in terms of dates and times.
Again, you fail to do so.
"We’re screwing with them in their neighborhoood and have done so for decades. 1979 was not the beginning of this."
Conveniently not mentioned: Almost every single one of those "screwing arounds" were to the benefit of not just Iran, but specifically to the Iranian clergy that the Ayatollah arose from, and even the Ayatollah himself.
This is not proof that the Iranian declaration of holy war from the Ayatollah was a result of US provocation, especially when you realize that this does not explain things like the attacks on other countries like Argentina.
"As for Taiwan, you can pretty much count on enough of the Taiwanese not really caring one way or another about joining the PRC."
Citation: Dude Trust Me. Polling data? Past history? The lack of communist support even during things like the 2-28 Crisis? Who needs any of that? The Alarmist Knows! They read it in their magic 8 ball!
Shame that nobody can see that Magic 8 Ball of yours or has any reason to take it seriously.
"Aside from the TFNG, it would largely be the okigarchs that are vehemently opposed."
Translation: you know farq all about Taiwanese politics or demographics, and probably can't tell the difference between the Pan-Blue or Pan-Green Coalitions without looking them up. Contra you, the "oligarchs" (not "okigarchs, another SIC) probably have a more per capita approval of reunion with the PRC than the public at large. That's not to say you don't have several Taiwanese oligarchs fervently opposed to it - equivalents of Jimmy Lai such as Frank Hsieh - but the KMT and its leaders have come around to support the One China Policy (even if they disagree with union under the PRC's dictates and would e expected to resist). While what evidence we have from the grassroots indicates Taiwanese support for not just repudiation of the One China Policy but outright independence is -- while still a minority - steadily growing.
So it's actually the oligarchs that are less vehemently opposed to reunion with the mainland and would be less likely, per capita, to resist the PRC than the general public. Which actually dovetails well with what we could observe with prior cases like the "Republic of Formosa" and the Japanese invasion in 1895 and the crises era from 1945 to 1960, where those that had more to lose and had wider contacts abroad tended to be more open to accommodation with would-be invaders (The Japanese in 1895, and the CCP in the Crisis Era, even if they never made conventional landfall on Taiwan itself and had limited contacts the CCP had on the island itself).
Note the bullshit shifting of the goal posts. "Your analogy about Sicily-" It wasn't MY analogy. It was yours.
You specifically cited the "413 BC Athenian experience in Sicily" as what would happen if the US struck Iran, blissfully ignorant of the fact that the US already struck Iran. To those not quite so versed in ancient history, this was a reference to the final, catastrophic end of the Athenian invasion of Sicily and attempt to conquer Syracuse, culminating in the complete surrender of all remaining forces in Sicily to a Syracusan/Spartan/Corinthian force, utterly devastating the Athenian population as a whole and requiring the reconstruction of most of the Athenian Navy at a time when the Spartans and Thebans had been regularly harrowing Attica with land troops for years. And crucially, had any of several variables changed (such as a decision to withdraw during the second expedition's arrival), the results would have been much different, possibly an Athenian victory or a draw but certainly less of a defeat.
To say that this was a dumb comparison for you to make to the potential of a "US strike on Iran" or even a full US invasion of Iran is utterly stupid. 413 BC Sicily was not merely a frustration or quagmire for Athens. It was note even "just' a defeat, even a major one. It was a catastrophic, demogrpahically-so-large-you-can-see-it-on-the-population-pyramid defeat that would've been the equivalent to at least a third of the US Navy "Fleets" being utterly destroyed and about a third of the US's Military Age population (at least 25 million or so). either dying or being enslaved.
You offer absolutely no reasons for why this would result from a US strike on Iran, probably because you not only did not think through your hyperbole that far, but also are not aware of the depths of your folly in making that. You simply assert that is what would happen. In spite of ignoring prior US military conflicts with the Iranian Mullahcracy and how none came anything close to that result, and more often than not saw the US prevail like we saw with Midnight Hammer.
Literal. Clown. Behavior on your part. This was your analogy, I was just taking you to the woodshed over how stupid and historically illiterate it was.
"Maybe Sparta could march across Attica, but the poimt is that Athens went looking for trouble and had its ass handed to it."
Apparently you are missing the point. Probably intentionally. I was pointing out how the presence of Spartan forces in Attica made this even dumber, and would be on par with regular PRC/Mexican invasions of the American Southwest. And a crucial reason why Athens could not simply drop everything to try and save the expeditions on Sicily, and why it would ultimately be defeated.
This point goes well over your head. Probably because you're not capable of intelligently arguing this point and want to desperately save face even if it involves trying to shift the burden of proof by claiming it was MY analogy rather than YOURS.
So in short, you provide absolutely no proof for any of your claims whatsoever and rely upon others to externally verify. The only attempt at logical argument you made beyond unsupported assertions and "Dude Trust Me" claims is an analogy comparing a US strike on Iran to the 413 BC disaster of Athens in Sicily while providing absolutely no material, strategic, or logical reasons for why those results would be in any way comparable (and again, 413 BC isn't merely a DEFEAT or a case of getting one's ass handed, it was a case of catastrophe causing a multiple percentage point DEATH OR ENSLAVERY impact on the national population).
You are illogical, historically illiterate, and apparently have a vastly greater faith in the abilities of the Iranian Mullahcracy and the PRC than they themselves do, as well as a love for carrying water for them.
"But you do a wonderful job of showing a US-centric view of the world, "
This is hilarious considering your post is far more indicative of US-centric views of the world than mine have. Most Americans have no idea of Iranian history, and certainly do not know the actual history behind Operation Ajax (such as Mossadegh's involvement in paramilitary violence and vote rigging, and how it was triggered by Mossadegh responding to lawful dismissal by arresting the officers that told him that), or US support for Iran during and after WWII. They also generally do not have any comprehension of the Iranian Shiite Clergy as their own independent actors with history, traditions, and agendas that led them to first support the Shah against the Communists like the Tudeh Party or the Left Wing Republicans/Constitutionalists like Mossadegh, and then to oppose the Shah alongside a largely left wing or constitutional opposition during the Shah's so called "White Reformation."
Moreover, they probably do not understand Taiwanese history or demographic trends and how the KMT has ironically been forced to make common cause with the CCP - albeit in limited fashion - against the Pan-Greens and Taiwanese Independence advocates to preserve the dream of eventual reunion of the island with China. And even they aren't prepared to accept unconditional reunion on the CCP's terms or even something like hte "One Nation, Two Systems" deal that the PRC had with Hong Kong and Macau before it broke the terms of that deal.
And that's before we get into the discussion of the Peloponnesian War and the Sicilian Epedition.
That my analysis is more pro-American than yours is not indicative of my analysis being more American-centric. Yours is, since it regurgitates much of the cliches of the knee jerk, blame-America-first trends on both the American right and left by trendy pseudo-intellectuals who will name drop stuff without bothering to check the details. Indeed, I actually have much more respect for other factions- the Iranian clergy and their regime, as well as the Iranian opposition, the PRC, the various Taiwanese coalitions - than you do. Which is why I do not have to resort to asserting things like articles of faith.
"complete with flawed analysis."
Ok. How is my analysis flawed?
And in particular, how is it flawed COMPARED TO YOUR OWN, The "I was stupid enough to claim a US strike on Iran would result in a 413 BC catastrophe for the US" Alarmist?
It isn't.
"Yeah, it was really in Iran’s best interest to pick up the mantle of plunder on behalf of the City of London."
Compared to what happened to Afghanistan and Azerbaijan under Soviet rule, yeah it was. Iranians hate the City of London like few others do and that was one reason why Mossadegh had the popular support he did until he overreached, made alliances with the Stalinist Tudeh, and tried to coup the Shah. But they had even more reason to hate and fear "Russia" and the Soviet Union, as the Soviet conduct in their country before, during, and after WWII showed.
But I'm guessing you don't know much about that in the same way you don't know much about the proper definition of ad hominem or how and why the Athenian expeditions to Sicily ended like they did.
Now stop gaslighting, stop huffing totalitarian apologist fumes, learn some history worth a damn, and apologize.
Iran has been in a state of war not just with the US, but with the entire non-Islamic world since 1979. Their goal is a world wide Islamic caliphate. It's in their Constitution and their god commands it in his instruction manual.
Good Morning CDR, I’m standing and applauding you!
Thank you for sharing the graph about the rise in the price of Gold!
Thank you for sharing your valid thought about the serious USA National Debt!
Thank you for acknowledging the “Unpredictable CCP”.
China is the Five Claw Dragon who will appear suddenly from the sky, grab what she ( The Dragon is a “She” ) wants and just as quickly fly away!
The Banking Industry … the guarantee of funds… guards its own Business Interest.
The American Dollar “Cash” is King in my opinion. Therefore I recommend FDIC $250,000 pert titled holder… keep some cash in “Money Market” Keep Cash! Keep Gold!
I recommend guard against bad actors with AI capabilities, which can and will grab your personal data!
I recommend knowing exactly where you use your Credit Card and… twice per month monitor your account and, if possible pay credit card bills in full monthly.
Last, use caution with Asian RealEstate investors or other Asian run businesses which you may frequent or which may target you. Cleaning services as an example.
Communism is practiced in Vietnam. Socialism is practiced in New York City and in Minnesota. Shipmates, be very vigilant. Stay safe! God Bless America! Nurse Jane
My point was that people who have gone through communism never want to go through it again (even if they keep the name) and are amazed by anyone who still believes in it.
A system that has never worked at any time or place because it cannot work.
China is building out its military so it will never be bullied again. And its using all that American Walmart cash to do it (which constitutes the bulk of all those US Treasuries they accumulated). But there's a historical context. Remember when they were forced (by American navy guns) to open trade to the West. England and the Netherlands were world trading powers. They bought all the silk, tea, and chinaware and paid for it in SILVER. It basically bankrupted England. And how did the British, Dutch and Americans get it back? They bought opium from India and addicted the Chinese population, using all that silver to pay for it. Many famous (infamous) British, Dutch and American family fortunes were made that way. The Chinese remember.
But China is geographically large and has a lot of critical minerals. Tungsten is one. By paying attention and political smartness, they focused on and invested in vertical integration in all the key industrial areas and now dominate production and refining. The rest of the "modern" world moved away from that under the economic theory of comparative advantage and globalization. Well, we're finding out in real time how that worked out. China isn't so much preparing for war with the United States as protecting themselves from us attacking them. That's been the historical pattern. Big countries with militaries attacking small countries to take their resources.
Study the charts showing who owns all the critical minerals and industrial supply chains and it isn't the United States or Europe. We voluntarily gave all those up when American graduate business schools told corporate boards of directors to move that capacity to Japan, Taiwan, China and other southeast Asian countries because it was more economic and increased profits. Well, globalization is NOT politically neutral. China and the BRICS (but not so much Russia) have accelerated their move away from the dollar and SWIFT. And as they convert their surpluses from US Treasuries and into mineral and other hard assets (real estate), the US economy will only get worse, and our standard-of-living will drop significantly.
Gold is nice but silver is the real commodity of monetary exchange and industrial use. Same for copper. China's internal requirements for their critical minerals, including very critical tungsten, is maxing out their supplies. It only appears they are restricting sales to us because of politics. When I was in college 50 years ago, the United States was 4 percent of the world's population consuming 25 percent of the world's resources. That equation has changed. The American Empire is over and bad policies like tariffs are only accelerating that decline.
He--, as I recently learned, we don't even make our own French fries! While the US grows large quantities of Idaho and Maine potatoes, Canada produces 97 percent of the world's frozen French fry supply. Combines that with their critical potash and aluminum markets. And with the current administration's move away from NATO and other critical alliances, the US has become an unreliable trading partner and pariah. Now leverage that with $39 trillion in debt - and rapidly increasing under the current administration as taxes on the wealthy are reduced - and you can understand how we can't even guarantee French fries to McDonald's let alone maintain our ships or build them in bulk anymore!
John King, what is your specific strategy and plan for reestablishing the larger American industrial base which has been off-shored over the last forty years, and which is a necessary prerequisite for building a larger US Navy which can compete with China's navy?
The strategy has been around for decades. It's called a national industrial policy. And it should be what's meant by the Federal Reserve's second charter to "manage employment." That CAN'T be done through its tool kit of "managing the money supply" (its first charter). But in a "capitalist" society national industrial policies are anathema. And that has cost us. Less employment (which we intentionally exported) and eventual lower lifestyle. The plan is something similar to the current tariff regimen, but more refined and targeted. First, define the level needed to maintain American capacity in ALL specific key industries at 75 percent of our current internal U.S. usage/consumption levels (defined as production to support American use; not including export). If we are not currently meeting that 75 percent and rely on foreign imports, institute a progressive additive tariff on imports at the rate of 25 percent a year over four years. That's 25% for year 1, 50% for year 2, 75% for year 3, and 100% for year 4 and after. That provides a sufficient lead time for U.S. companies and foreign companies to build new capacity in the U.S. Allocate the progressive tariff receipts to back-stop new capacity construction as U.S. loans guarantees for only a 10-year period. Sounds punitive to importers but that's the point. We should participate in a global market, but NOT beyond the point at which internal U.S. employment needs are supported to some minimal and critical level. Make sense?
My plan, which would require Congressional approval and include a sunset date, would target certain identified key national industries, tariff them now at 25% and give those industries (US and foreign reshoring) time to build up in the US (to say 75% of customer demand) before a large punitive tax hits them. But there's lots of products that would be excluded from tariffs (1) like things we will never produce - coffee, cocoa beans, bananas - or (2) are NOT key industries. Trump's tariffs are pure shotgun financial penalties (taxes on American consumers) across almost everything. And from which he backs off (TACO) when he's lobbied by his billionaire buddies. Canada, the EU, the BRICS are quickly realigning their trade and using non-U.S. dollars and financial markets, which reduces the base on which Trump calculates his tariffs. That's an inverted cash death spiral. I'd also us a different rationale, one which equates the tariff tax as a direct labor surcharge to compensate for displacing a U.S. employee (which otherwise has to be subsidized with taxpayer monies (which we can't afford)).
The way forward is to declare these efforts critical to national security and defense and build the facilities on federal reserves for the military. Under the Defense Production Act and 15 U.S.C. § 2621, the President can waive compliance with environmental or other regulations if necessary for national defense, provided a written record is maintained. Also, the Department of Defense allows waivers for complying with restrictions on sourcing specialty metals if it's in the national security interest, as outlined in 10 U.S.C. § 2533b.
And I see us doing that WHERE and how much? One company. MP Materials. That's like NADA from a production perspective. Like the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government needs to directly BE that catalyst to get this going (and hiring the best scientist and engineers like we did during the Cold War), subcontracting out to existing companies (not start-ups) with real industrial capacity to pull everything together. We can't just say we need to do something and wait for the private sector to get to it. They have no incentive. We need to give them a very high bonus-per-production credit or it all just talk. Plus, you're talking years, not tomorrow, so the exposure and national security risk is very high until we get there.
I'm actually working with three private sector companies on REE mining and processing in Wyoming, Montana and Texas in my professional practice...navigating all the hurdles, but progressing.
And we agree on the government leading the effort so we can speed all of this up.
In the 1970's and early 1980's, I worked in the US mineral industry in gold and silver, copper, coal, uranium, industrial minerals, and oil shale.
I worked mining & milling operations at active mines. I did mine planning, equipment evaluation and purchasing, project estimating, project scheduling, and environmental compliance.
After the US mineral industry suffered a general collapse in the mid-1980's, friends who were already there brought me into the federal government's nuclear weapons complex. Where I worked doing a variety of odd technical and administrative activities until my retirement in 2018.
OK, I admit I am pessimistic.
Why? Because the Democrats have said unequivocally that as soon as they take back control of the federal government, they will quickly reverse any and all decisions the Trump administration made between January 20th, 2025 and January 20th, 2029.
The way they put it, the state of the nation will be quickly returned to what it was in the summer of 2024.
It will be as if the Trump 47 presidency never happened. Except that Trump himself will be prosecuted and jailed just as soon as he leaves office, and that some number of his cabinet members and his senior political appointees will also be prosecuted and jailed.
This is not an idle threat on their part. The Democrats mean every word of it.
No doubt a part of them mean it, maybe a large part. The key is just to get people out to vote to keep it from happening. There are electoral realities, still, that will become more favorable with the SC ruling on the 14th Amendment and fixing the last (erroneous) census. That will change Congressional seats and electoral college votes. The SAVE Act wouldn't hurt, of course, but won't come into play until 2028 after court challenges.
So, the key to it NOT happening is just to work to get our people to the polls and keep the momentum going.
Initially extracting these minerals from the ground requires years of geological exploration, mine & mill planning, and mine & mill development activity before the very first ton of ore goes to the mill and the mineral processing operations can begin.
The critical minerals problem has a basic issue which cannot be easily resolved. If it even can be resolved.
Before Donald Trump was president, the US as a nation, and the federal government and the state governments together, had already made a firm decision to throttle most mineral development activity which carries any substantial degree of environmental risk.
Developing a new ore body takes fifteen to twenty years of diligent work. Environmental permits granted in each phase of the mine development process can be quickly revoked by a succeeding state or federal government administration.
Sooner or later, the Democrats will be back in full control of the federal government. One of the first things they will do when they regain power will be to revoke any and all environmental permits which were granted to the mining industry in the years immediately before the Democrats were back in charge.
No mining company in its right mind will commit to a mineral development project in the United States knowing that sooner or later, their investment will be lost when a new anti-mining administration revokes their environmental permits.
No, it takes about 29 years in the US due to regulations, not technical impediments. For processing, you could set up a facility in 18 to 36 months using pre-existing plans (cutting development and design time).
The question of keeping the momentum going from Congress to Congress is, as always, to make sure Dem districts are involved in the production and they get some credit. So, it should be - for anyone with a brain - bipartisan and it should be presented that way. Perhaps a way to unify around one of those things that should be a consensus above all others - national defense. We need that kind of continuity across all industries, from energy and tanks to shipbuilding and aerospace, on long term funding so they can invest in serial production.
CDR, appreciate you walking through the economic flank here.
I’ve seen reporting (Politico and others) suggesting Russia has also continued increasing gold reserves while reducing exposure to Western financial instruments. When viewed in isolation, any one of these moves can be explained as diversification or sanctions resilience.
But when multiple revisionist powers simultaneously harden their financial positions, reduce dollar exposure, and build parallel systems — that deserves attention.
Whether this signals war preparation or simply long-term insulation from U.S. leverage, the implication is the same: economic resilience is now a core element of national power.
For Americans, the larger issue may not be whether 2027 becomes kinetic. It’s whether we’re strengthening our industrial base, shipbuilding capacity, and fiscal stability in time to compete in a world where economic statecraft is already weaponized.
Debt, supply chains, maritime logistics, energy — they’re all connected.
Appreciate you raising the economic dimension of DIME. It’s often the least discussed — until it matters most.
CDR … C-SPAN Federal Office Banking Systems…on line as I write this…
CDR, please encourage our shipmates to understand “Banking”.
What I want to share with you and our shipmates, please confirm the Bank backing your credit card transactions when you leave CONUS!
If you travel far and wide, please confirm your Banking needs will be met.
Russia, for example, double check a VISA accepted by Russian banks.
In no way, do I recommend any shipmate going to a CCP controlled area.
Please understand BRICS countries doing business in South and Central America, Africa, Indonesia, Eastern Europe, Belarus, Russia etc. trade in their own “Currency” maybe not backed by either Gold nor the American Dollar. Yes, do care and do understand!
I explained to my precious son to find a jerker who can assess a single bracelet worth more than $100,000. Not every jeweler is licensed to value a piece of jewelry greater than $100,000.
Please remember, I’m keeper of “Holocaust Memories”, I have the photos and the jewels saved from Nazi acquisition! Too much information for my young son. He did share appreciation his lessons on precious, cultured and natural pearls. Yes! I went deep into Mainland China about 1988, I brought out merchandise I paid for, valuable objects. Pearls were something I learned about in Hong Kong and the USA.
As Defense Attache to Jakarta, Indonesia, 1994, I was laughed at by the U.S. Embassy Pay Master! No worries then… my priority was to survive my Jungle mission and report “Facts”. I
was blessed to be “Frugal”! Sometimes Intelligence Officers are given monies to use generously at their discretion. Usually, that purpose is to learn “Information”.
I smile recalling 1994, boots on the ground inside Jarkata, Indonesia.
The Indonesian military men stayed clear of me because they knew why I was there. Only recently did I learn about Indonesian Wealth! Phew! I was taken to nice private homes with gates and gardens. Nothing resembling the “Wealth” accumulated by some Indonesians. Banking was/is their source of money transfers!
CDR said it perfectly in his Number 35. Our Naval Ships on 11 month deployments are in serious need of maintenance and repair. I made it my “Business” to go to Indonesian Boating facilities… where the strong men operated the oars of their boats! I was humble, observant… taking it all in! I relied 100% on the U.S. Embassy staff; I signed papers to protect our Embassy Interests.
So yes, please understand “Banking”!
One day, I’ll pay for “Glamour Photographs” wearing CHANEL makeup and Clothing. Until then, I don’t permit my photograph to be taken. Please understand you media legal rights! Stay safe! God Bless America! Nurse Jane
If they are a significant reason for the run-up of the price of gold they will face significant losses when they have to sell. Given the downturn in exports and domestic demand, the ongoing success of the India agreements and further isolation they may be using that gold reserve before they are prepared to initiate war.
IMO, the number to keep an eye on is not the level of U.S. debt, but rather the percentage that interest payments are of government revenue. And since 2015 that percentage is rising. As with most Big Picture concerns the solution, again IMO, lies in politics. So, if we keep voting for politicians who favor private gain at public cost, then . . . As always, YMMV.
If you believe the national debt is the biggest risk to the country, where do you put the Government that created it and the Legislature that refuses to fix it?
Even if it doesn't mean war. It means a stable currency and ensuing economic power. If and when the Yuan replaces the dollar and it's backed by gold? The dollar will become worthless.......and we import lots of stuff.
It doesn’t mean a stable currency. The Yuan is suffering hideous instability even in internal Chinese markets, because while being a pawn of a corrupt and opaque totalitarian dictatorship that could change the rules and stated value on a whim is something anyone holding the Yuan has had to deal with from the start, now they have to deal wit the CCP clamping down on releasing much of the economic data it used to while starting to go into demographic and credit crunches. Which is one reason why rather heavy pushes by the PRC to push the Yuan for deals like Saudi oil purchases have been rebuffed. The interest in large scale use of it is minimal.
And gold purchases alone would not change that too much precisely because a system that can lie to you about everything from national population to economic growth can lie to you about how much gold it has access to (lying about how much it bought is harder though still doable, but the bigger issue is market uncertainty about party leaders stealing the occasional bit of bullion from the vaults) and the lack of convertibility. Anybody saying that gold or precious metal backing alone makes a strong and stable currency needs to do primers on the fall of the Ming Dynasty even as its ministers pushed silver to the hilt, or to Habsburg Spain’s sucking chest wounds. I’m not hostile to gold backing and it is obviously something the CCP and many others view as a useful investment but the idea it is a magic bullet needs to die and be buried in the same ditches as the chronically underpaid Habsburg troops killed at Rocroi. You can make a fiscal system work - or “work” - with cowrie shells or even credit and wishes if there is enough buy in, support, faith, and convertibility/use while you can have a fiscal system that collapses even as it hauls precious metals around by the literal ton of you mismanage it hard enough and cannot convert it to usable goods and services.
I understand what you're saying. And while prognosticators like Gordon Chang have been forecasting the end of the Chinese economic miracle for decades, China has survived numerous economic debacles since that time to the appearance of little damage.
England pretty much expended all of her gold reserves by 1945 and watched her economy slowly collapse and the Pound Sterling replaced by the USD.
Chang's become a bad meme in a lot of ways precisely because he keeps jumping the gun, but he keeps doing so and isn't immediately laughed out of the room in part because he can point to a lot of the same fundamentals as myself, the CDR, and others. The PRC's demographically hollowed out and running a totalitarian, inefficient system and all else flows from there.
Also while I agree China has survived numerous economic debacles, I would hazard that Xi and much of the leadership in the CCP care at least as much about whether they and their party regime will survive. Which is a bigger issue. I doubt China will cease surviving for much short of major WMD deployment across the major rivers and the North China Plain, but the CCP "Dynasty" is a lot more fragile and while it's survived a lot since Mr. Chang's old post, it still struggles with major internal unrest and that.
And the "economic miracle" isn't as miraculous when you start auditing the figures.
England's economy was breaking down well before 1945, and the gold reserves were only part of the problem. The reason why the British Government even under arch imperial champions like Churchill agreed to things like Lend Lease that so depleted the good stockpiles was because that they knew the Empire and perhaps Britain herself could not survive without them due to lacking the metropolitan demographic heft or the production capacity. The collapse of Britain's gold reserves as well as Attlee replacing Churchill and trying to build a "New Jerusalem" made things worse but did not cause the underlying problems.
And the Pound Sterling was gradually being replaced by the USD over the course of the long 19th century and especially the early 20th. 1945 was a watershed but in a lot of ways it confirmed the way the winds had already been blowing.
In a word, it didn't. The British Empire didn't even withdraw "East of Aden" until 1967, a full decade and change after Suez and 20 years after 1945, after fighting and mostly winning a host of conflicts from the Mau Mau War to the Malayan "Emergency." And even the "withdrawal East of Aden" needs asterisks given some British posts like the now-famous Chagos. And arguably a form of the British Empire is still around.
But that wordplay aside, the British Empire slowly collapsed from its height after 1945 for a host of reasons. It was already dealing with major solvency issues that required peace and quiet in the 1920s and 1930s, which it didn't get. WWII showed that holding onto India was untenable, and that meant that going broke even without Attlee's ill fated spending was crucial. So it gradually contracted over the next 40 years, and even saw limited resurgences in the 1950s (cut short at Suez) and 1960s but was largely kneecapped domestically.
"whereas Russia which had suffered far worse in both world wars emerge as a superpower?"
Russia was already one of the great powers and had been for centuries, since at least 1721 if not the 1500s, and even the Communists could only bugger that up. But couple that with Stalin and his successors not giving many farqs about costs or casualties and being able to impose a domestic living standard indefinitely comparable to what the British griped over Attlee doing in the 1940s and 1950s during the heights of post-war scarcity, as well as the global reach of Soviet influence, and you see a lot.
Also it was the Soviet Union, not just "Russia." Russia was the core and a shorthand of it, but it incorporated a host of other regions it inherited from the Russian Empire (which had generally annexed them directly) and which the Soviets tacitly recognized as "SRs", so while that benefitted Russia heavily in a way almost comparable to England within the UK and the wider British Empire it was still dependent on it in a way comparable to it. And even then the Soviets were unable to completely outshine the British in all ways, hence the naval and air power struggle.
The British Empire didn’t collapse after 1945. Its command structure in the City of London transferred their flag into a number of global institutions and the created the State of Israel, through which, to this day, they exert undue influence to use the US as muscle to do their bidding.
Somehow I missed this. But the idea you think the City of London supported the creation of Israel - in spite of the Haganah and Lehi fighting guerilla wars against the British and British officers overseeing the extermination of the oldest continuous Jewish settlement on Earth when the Transjordanians wiped out the Old City of East Jerusalem - is utterly daft.
In reality the British Empire didn’t collapse after 1945, but it slowly broke down or diminished over the following decades.
The CCP has certainly outlasted it's Soviet inspiration. It will be interesting to see what happens if the internal rot becomes too big to continue sustaining.
Agreed, which is one reason why I mention. We might be coming CLOSE to doing comparable things to it, especially when asteroid mining gets underway, but we're not there yet. Not by a long shot. Which is also why I am not hostile to gold backing.
The issue is, you can print false reports about how much gold your stockpile has like you can print paper dollars, and you can print dumb economic malinvestment like you can. So gold backing would only ever be part of any wider solution.
Agreed, and that's why this system is not infinitely sustainable. But there's a gulf between "infinitely sustainable" and "can go on for quite a while." And if you take the COMEX folks down a suspiciously long route where they get to see members of the Chengguan playing trampoline bounce with the heads of a few merchants, I'm guessing they might be "persuadable" to modify their contract somewhat. Certainly people have treated the CCP with greater kid gloves for far less reason, like the IP theft.
But gold backing or lack thereof isn't the biggest problem for the PRC so much as the demographic rot and the socialist calculation problem. Even corruption bad enough to have princelings walk away with gold bars is less of an issue compared to there being so much Chinese Whispers going around people cannot rationally plan in the system beyond trying to get out of it.
CDR Salamander, kindly take a deep dive into the Crypto Currency as it relates to “World Liberty Financial”.
Please bring us up to speed. The UAE Minister made a $500 Million investment into World Liberty. That UAE Minister encouraged another very wealthy investor out $2Billion into this World Liberty Financial.
Why, I ask you CDR to lead this “Chart Room Talk” is because I learned in about 1995-2007, the Saudi Government was investing in Commercial Tourism and Commercial Air Travel for people and Cargo!
Oh, yes, I was a “Fashion Model” on the U.S. Saudi Embassy stage, recognized by A.J. and Arlen Dominek.
CDR and shipmates, an Intelligence Officer grabs opportunities as presented.
CDR Salamander, only you can do this “Chartroom Talk” a “Market Analyses for Crypto”, to protect our substack and our fellow shipmates. Thank you very much ! Very respectfully yours, Nurse Jane
We used a DIME (Diplomatic / Information / Military / Economic) actions in a PMESII environment (Political / Military / Economic / Social / Intelligence / Information) when I was writing scenarios for "Joint Experimentation" (a now banned term). It provides a decent framework to examine the admittedly complex interactions of variables and impacts (first, second, third order, etc) for high level wargames and training events. Back then, humans were the "AI" as we executed the events. I'm sure today you can constructively (automatic with no human involvement at high speed) run "lots" of scenario runs changing variables to get the model's "best guess" on outcomes. Economic modeling appears to be closer to weather / climate modeling than military hardware / combat interaction / force modeling...but...how good would a model have to be than have better predictive outcomes than the current batch of economic "experts" running the IMF, WEF, etc? Of course, perhaps they are right, and just have a different desired outcome for economic modeling than "the rest of us"? OBTW, if someone says they will punch you in 15 minutes, do you believe them, and trust they won't do it sooner?
J. P. Morgan once said gold is money all else is credit and you don’t have to be an enemy to prefer physical gold to paper money or securities given our fiscal and monetary mismanagement.
We got away with this mismanagement for a long time because the dollar is or was the reserve currency.
No longer thanks to our policy of antagonizing Russia by pushing NATO eastward and weaponizing the dollar.
We stole Russia’s assets and wonder why no one trusts our securities. We banned Russia from SWIFT and were surprised that they were able to trade anyway. We armed the grifter in Ukraine and can’t understand why Russia is now closely allied with China.
Thank you Biden, Harris, Blinken, Boris, etc.
Russia has been closely allied with the PRC for decades. This is something Mark Steyn pointed out decades ago in his “America Alone” and he is no uncritical Ukraine/Zelenskyy fan. The late, great Vladimir Bukhovsky pointed out how starting in late stage Brezhnev Soviet and Russian leaders began to make considerable efforts to salve up the relations with Mao and the CCP, reaching its first big apogee under the supposedly “good” Soviet Gorbachev, who laughed when he heard the CCP massacred protectors in 1989 and who diplomatically covered for them. I loathe Biden, Harris, Blinken, and co but the idea that they fundamentally caused the pro-Red China drift of the Russian security state’s “organs” when said drift is older than about half of them are and manifested in ways such as the pointless, immediately falsifiable, and stupid provocation of blaming us for the Kursk disaster is folly.
If anything we spent a lot of time trying to appease Russia and get it on side over the last few decades at the direct expense of people like the Moldovans and Georgians, have Obama and CO’s “reset” after abandoning Georgia (“the 80s called”) in spite of them being valiant allies that fought alongside us in Iraq.
And the USD remains the world reserve currency less because of any great insights in management and far more because it is vastly less mismanaged and more trustworthy than basically any would be competitor in terms of instruments of credit. That’s damning with faint praise but the fact that the USD is - by historical metrics - still one of the most successful and least mismanaged finances on earth says a lot, and the markets for the Ruble and the RMB are extremely limited because nobody trusts the Kremlin or CCP to not do funny business with the finances.
Also the dollar has always been usable as a weapon. Always. Whether it was Washington using Spanish silver to pay mercenaries or Amerindian allies during the Revolution or Lincoln’s bribery campaigns in many European governments to impede the Confederacy. The idea that the SWIFT cutoff was a drastically new concept does not wash when you study some of the things my Dutch and Italian ancestors were doing back in the Renaissance.
When Richard Nixon became president, you could go to a coin dealer and buy a $20 gold coin for about $50.
Today that same coin would cost you about $5,000.00 and I don't believe it's due to the increasing popularity of numismatics.
What point are you trying to make? That other currencies are worse?
Yes, that other currencies are worse, and that frankly that’s the main thing at play. I can rant all day long about the many problems with the USD, both as emblematic of wider crises caused largely by Keynesian and Post-Keynesian follies worsens by them ignoring some of the little good advice Keynes gave like running surpluses in times of plenty or stability, and in its own special screwed up ways. But that’s in many ways less important than the ability to put up even longer and more cutting lists of all the problems with its leading competitors, including those I had figured as more serious competitors like the Euro and Pound Sterling. In many ways I feel the Indian Rupee might be a bigger longer term problem for the USD as reserve currency if Bharat does not screw anything up too seriously, but that’s well on the horizon.
In many ways currency success is less about being fundamentally sound in and of itself (though that HELPS to put it mildly) than about being the Sound-EST or most successful of the games in town. Classic "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you" stuff, which is why even as currencies broke down or went into freefall like happened to Roman currencies several times over you still had wide circulation (in part due to there not being anything better in town save barter). And as bad as the USD is it is still more trustworthy and sounder than essentially all of its major competitors, ESPECIALLY the Ruble and Yuan.
Also that the Russian security services and military and bureaucratic apparatuses that basically took over the country after Yeltsin have a strong anti-American and anti-Western bent that can’t be explained away by some kind of “we wronged them” story from the 80s or 90s and that saw them steadfastly refuse our entreaties for partnership against the likes of Iran and the PRC in favor of ties with them, even after things like Obama’s reset.
Go on. I'd love to hear more of your ranting.
I'd be honored. But basically, people know the USD has farqed up and has farqed up, and is being inflated to the moon and back. And can even make guesses on how much. Which is bad for long term stability and to be honest I feel we are overdue for some correcting deflation. Political pressures like the mortgage overinvestment makes this worse.
But at least people can assess more or less how farqed up it is and have a decently accurate grasp of its value. This is one reason why the USD's value at home and its value abroad are far closer to each other than most others. It is "honest" or at least more honest than most currencies historically have been. And this is ultimately a positive because it lets people make rational (or not so rational) informed calculations on its value when trading or accepting it, helped by its widespread spread. I'd argue the global markets probably trust the USD More than they should, but even that's relative to the other options.
The likes of the Ruble, the Yuan, and so on are in a worse boat because not only are they inflating to the moon (and probably at least as aggressively) but they are much more nakedly manipulated due to lacking even many of the US's flawed safeguards, and putting out data that is relatively sparse or doctored when it is put out at all. This is why the people that know the Ruble and Yuan best do not want to hold much of it ,hence the large scale attempts by Russian and Chinese VIPs (even those in favor of the regime or against us) to diversify holdings into USD, Euros, real estate, and others. Which benefits them but undercuts the long term favorability of the currencies in question, hence why China has had relatively few takers even from serious pushes to get people to sell things in the Yuan more prominently. Because people know that it's one of the worst kinds of fiat currency and cannot be trusted even compared to other fiats.
As for Russia, the long term leaning of the elites that matter there (mostly the "Organs" and other military and bureaucratic elites that helped produce Putin) and the aforementioned Bukhovsky, this helps go a bit into more detail, as well as a host of other things.
https://bukovsky-archive.com/
Moreover, NATO expansion Eastwards happened in large part independent of the wishes of a lot of the core NATO leadership (HW Bush spent much of his career lukewarm to it) in part due to the genuine desire of a lot of the countries on Russia's borders to have an international, multinational safeguard against Russia, made worse by real or feared scares like those from the Yugoslav, Moldovan,, Georgian, and Chechen wars of the 1980s and 1990s. In a lot of ways I kind of feel NATO was kept alive due ot the sheer popular momentum of Eastern and Central Euro countries trying to get into it (helped by some of the hanger ons or die hards in NATO who may have been looking for a vantage point).
As for "stole Russia's assets", that's harder to do. Russia, the UK, the US, and Ukraine all signed on the dotted line at the Budapest Memorandum swearing to safeguard Ukraine's territorial integrity in exchange for things like denuclearization and to bring support to bear on that. That Russia broke the terms of those agreements violently and fraudulently doesn't exempt us from them or prevent us from applying them to it, and the Kremlin not spending time decoupling between 2014 and 2022 points to a major failure of it.
That'll hurt foreign investment by countries that fear we might do similar to them if irked, but considering we waited nearly a decade after 2014 to do them to Russian assets and still have not done so to PRC ones even after multiple judgements about their nonsense in the South China Sea lets us and other investors raise the question of "Kay, why are you so concerned about triggering that? What are you planning to do?"
If anything I'd argue the failure of the Kremlin to decouple even to that degree in spite of around a decade of lead time (whether you start like I might around 2008 with the Georgia war or in 2014 with the Crimeaschluss and the invasion by stealth in the Donbas) I think points to how the US is still probably the best and most prominent game in town, especially since nobody but nobody is going to believe the PRC or Russia will not be even more shameless or blunt in stealing foreign assets. Considering they already have done so multiple times.
Isn’t inflation just a subtle form of theft?
Oh my lord! The sky has fallen. A conservative railing against Keynesian and Post-Keynesian economics acknowledged the truth. John Maynard was right.
True Keynesian economists recognise collecting from surpluses in times of plenty is the balance to spending richly in times of privation. Keynes' work has been perverted, and his reputation sullied, by those who let ideology blind them to the truth. Policymakers who spend in times of trouble should not be blasted for their spending, they should be blasted for not getting it back when the economy is on the upswing.
RIP sorry for killing Chicken Little. I am honored.
Still, as for “John Maynard Keynes was right”, I would respond with “about that” and the “whoa hold on there” meme. It certainly is true that Keynes had been misunderstood, perverted, and strawmanned, including by his own proclaimed disciples. But he was still wrong about plenty. It still irrrtates me that he became a global superstar largely due to his book “I got conned by the German government cooking its books and flattering my ego and preconceived biases in order to scam its war victims”, and to be fair while he did realize on some level that he had been had after the fact and worked to remedy it the damage was already done. But on more fundamental levels I think he badly undervalues creative destruction and the benefits of deflation, and also did not understand the issues of how many of his policy prognostications - even if right in theory (and I think many of them were not even that) - would fail due to ignoring the human facto, such as that if stimulus spending was good for the economy to recover in an upturn wouldn’t more of it to accentuate growth be ‘better’ for it? And that this would prove addictive or even terminal.
He deserves serious and honest consideration for what he wrote and did rather than what others say he wrote or did, but I would still say I am not a fan.
You need to read the book. First, it’s well written, some of his stuff is pretty difficult, this one ain’t. But, more importantly, he was correct. The economic situation imposed on Germany was why we suffered WWII. He practically wrote, “. . . and then Hitler will shuffle 6,000,000 humans off to the gas chamber.”
A shoutout to you Florentine and Dutch ancestors who invented capitalism.
The Spanish Hapsburgs have entered the chat.
A perceptive person might think that disentangling US supply chains from China might be a good idea as well.
Actually disentangling US supply chains from anywhere along the Asian Pacific coast might be a good idea.
LT NEMO:
Many major US corporations are run by people for whom Asia (in particular, China and India) is "home," literally and/or culturally. Or, companies are run by self-defined "citizens of the world." Demographically, we're sunk.
Maybe so. But generally profit and continued profit is the main motive.
I've dealt with both Indian and Chinese offshore businesses as a vendor to the US branch of a European company. Don't know what the actual savings were for the final customer, but it sure wasn't worth the hassle IMO. And certainly a potential single point failure for a significant product line.
Say what you like about tariffs, but they certainly encourage onshoring of production.
LT NEMO: Yes, profit motive is the key driver, as demanded by Wall Street, where the Masters of the Universe could care less about national security issues and patriotism and have never spent any time dealing with manufacturing, logistics and other operational concerns. Also, I agree about tariffs. If that's what it takes to get manufacturers' attention, so be it.
Maybe I’m just old, but in my day everything that might affect the mission was required to be US sourced.
The debt is required to have the economic advantage of having the world's reserve currency. Brent Johnson of the excellent Milkshakes, Markets, and Madness podcast/YouTube channel points this out.
And for any goldholes here, consider this your annual reminder that the Constitution requires silver to be used for currency.
Your comment makes no sense whatsoever.
I take it as an expression of MMT idea that trade deficits are good and surpluses bad. Trade deficits imply fiat currency is exported. Net trade surplus countries have to figure out how to manage their foreign currency holdings so bonds denominated in those currencies are a way to do that. Note that for MMTers, there's no limit to the amount of bonds that can be issued in a fiat currency; money supply is controlled by taxes which have nothing to do with government spending.
As far as the idea that the Constitution "requires" silver currency, the only thing I am aware of is the power of Congress to coin money and fix its value.
What happens when it's not the reserve currency?
That's when things get interesting.
“ … it’s a pretty strong I&W that the PRC is preparing for war with the United States.”
That doesn’t mean the ChiComs plant to start it, or, even if they do, that they plan to carry the battle to “The Homeland.” Dollars to donuts, the USA will use Taiwan as an excuse to trigger the conflict there.
That assumes, of course, that the US doesn’t decide to reprise the 413 BC Athenian experience in Sicily by striking Iran.
The ChiComs have been pretty loud at planning to start it and the demographic pyramid bears that out. The regime basically faces a prospect of having its “bare stick” surplus, unmarriable-due-to-no-women males fight a war against itself internally, or throwing them abroad to fight wars externally.
As for the USA using Taiwan as an excuse… how and why? Maybe if there was serious prospect of complete unification under CCP terms peacefully, but there is almost no market for that in Taiwan and the Taiwanese public is getting less thrilled with that every year that passes the US has no incentive to start a war unless the CCP does.
And as a former reenactor and history nerd the comparison between Iran and Sicily is glaringly dumb. Iran’s been in a declared state of war with us for decades, and is a key part of the wider coalition against us. Syracuse at worst was giving financial support to a Corinth and Sparta and even that is iffy. Moreover at the time Athens invaded it Sparta had showed it was capable of marching across Attica and scorching the earth almost to the Long Walls of Piraeus and Athens. So the equivalent of the Sicilian Expedition would’ve something like the US invading Iran or Indonesia even when a CCP army based in Mexico regularly ravaged Texas. And even that is probably iffier.
I think there’s a bit of difference between a CVN and a trireme.
I agree. But if anything that would hurt The Alarmist more. Athens met ruin outside the walls of Syracuse because the Iranian Empire of the day could partner with Corinth and Sparta and other Athenian enemies to basically spam out triremes and quinqueremes on par with or comparable to what Athens could muster, while also fielding a superior land army. This also played a role in the later Athenian defeats like the long, bloody, futile-for-Athens fighting over the Cyclades and the Hellespont to try and secure the Black Sea cereal convoys.
There is absolutely no REDFOR force with this capability. The closest would be the PRC and MAAAYBE a hostile Indonesia, and even those fall well short of the US"s cutting edge CVNs.
Also Athens intervened in Sicily as a result of a petty war between Syracuse and minor Greek city states there, not some internal revolution or rebellion against Syracuse's regime.
If Iran has been in a state of war with the US for decades, it is because it is US provoked. We’re screwing with them in their neighborhoood and have done so for decades. 1979 was not the beginning of this.
As for Taiwan, you can pretty much count on enough of the Taiwanese not really caring one way or another about joining the PRC. Aside from the TFNG, it would largely be the okigarchs that are vehemently opposed.
Your analogy about Sicily is alsomflawed. Maybe Sparta could march across Attica, but the poimt is that Athens went looking for trouble and had its ass handed to it.
"If Iran has been in a state of war with the US for decades, it is because it is US provoked."
Farqing how? Do you even understand Twelver Theology?
And how did Argentina "provoke" the Mullahcracy?
"We’re screwing with them in their neighborhoood and have done so for decades. 1979 was not the beginning of this."
Correct to the point it is said, though this ignores the fact that up to and including 1979 the US generally intervened in ways that benefited Iran and the religious establishment that Khomenei etc al emerged from, whether it was stepping in to avoid a partition of Iran between Britain and the USSR in 1943 (something I see most of the Mullah apologists ignore), preventing the USSR from creating communist aligned Kurdish and Azeri Bantustans in 1945-6, helping to stop Mossadegh's coup of the Shah and the Communist attempt to coup him in 1953 by supporting the Royalist/Religious counter-coup (something that is generally utterly misunderstood by the cult of Mossadegh mythologists), and helping ease the Shah out of power.
Up until the embassy hijacking US officialdom looked forward to warm and welcome relations with the US.
"As for Taiwan, you can pretty much count on enough of the Taiwanese not really caring one way or another about joining the PRC. Aside from the TFNG, it would largely be the okigarchs that are vehemently opposed."
This is monumentally stupid. At no point in Taiwanese history have "enough of the Taiwanese not really cared one way or another about joining the PRC', even back in 1947-9 when the KMT was the most apparent problem. And the fates of Hong Kong and Macao have made responsiveness to the CCP and possible reunion by force even LESS open.
"Your analogy about Sicily is alsomflawed."
Not compared to yours Alarmist, not compared to yours. I do not take history lessons or lectures on my analogies from historical illiterates, which you are showing yourself to be.
"Maybe Sparta could march across Attica, but the point is that Athens went looking for trouble and had its ass handed to it."
This is misunderstanding it and why the Sicilian Expedition happened and turned out the way it did. It's true that Athens had been looking for trouble, that's the entire point of the Melian Dialogue (propagandized and likely inaccurate as it is). What was different about Sicily is that it was not only another neutral that had done little to nothing to offend Athens being targeted, it was on the limits of Athens's abilities to intervene (but not its enemies), AND it was epically mishandled and mismanaged both in greater strategy and in how Sicily happened.
That's why Sicily happened and why it ended with Athens getting its ass handed to it.
You have failed to explain how this would result in similar in Iran, probably because you can't. Probably because you're a historical illiterate acting as a whitewasher for the Mullahcracy and the CCP in order to blame America first.
You really do your arguments no favor with the ad hominems.
Just sayin’.
But you do a wonderful job of showing a US-centric view of the world, complete with flawed analysis. Yeah, it was really in Iran’s best interest to pick up the mantle of plunder on behalf of the City of London.
Part
1"You really do your arguments no favor with the ad hominems.
Just sayin’."
So you're another fucking midwit who either does not know the meaning of the term ad hominem, or does but is happy to misuse it if they think (and I use that term loosely) it will give them a leg up in an internet debate. Absolutely spectacular.
Because apparently you've apparently decided to treat me like the instructor in a remedial course, let's get one thing straight:
The Ad Hominem fallacy is NOT merely calling someone bad names or disparaging them. The Ad Hominem is using such things TO THE EXCLUSION OF supporting evidence and proof, ergo Ad Hominem, Against the Person (rather than the argument), thus leaving the argument unaddressed.
That is not something I have done. i have acknowledged your claims and what you probably think passes for evidence or supporting argumentation. I have addressed and refuted it, because frankly you don't have much. Most of what you have amounts to unsupported assertions, such as claiming that a US attack on Iran would be akin to the Sicilian Expedition (why? You never bother to specify) or that if the Ayatollah declared war on the US and waged it for decades it was because we provoked him (Ok, how when and where? You do fuck all to explain except for referring to allusions to US meddling in Iran for decades, which while true ignores the fact that said meddling was generally favorable to the future Ayatollah and the priestly sects he arose from).
You have no arguments. Having misplayed your hand and your arguments badly, you now insult the intelligence of whoever bothers to read this far in by misusing ad hominem.
As such, I conclude you to be a midwit sophist, and one that has an unhealthy tendency to shill for totalitarian fools.
Secondly: Judging from this exchange, my arguments are doing just peachy keen on their own merits, whether or not my calling you out helps them. You have not been able to lay a finger on them in all of your responses to this whatsoever.
For the sake of it, let's go through your arguments, shall we?
"That doesn’t mean the ChiComs plant to start it, or, even if they do, that they plan to carry the battle to “The Homeland.”"
It's sad that this is the logically soundest argument you have on offer. Yes, it is true that the ChiComs planning war with the US does not mean they plan (not PLANT, SIC), to start it, or that they plan to carry the battle to "The Homeland." But this is rendered moot because of the very loud and vocal declarations that the CCP does indeed intend to start it, their pattern of aggression against other nations in the South China Sea and of supporting narcoterrorism in the Western Hemisphere (most notably in Mexico but most visibly in Cuba and Venezuela), and so forth.
"Dollars to donuts, the USA will use Taiwan as an excuse to trigger the conflict there."
Conveniently unmentioned: how the US would "use Taiwan as an excuse to trigger the conflict there" and how this would come about without the ChiComs starting the war or planning to do so. Now to be fair, I imagine there would be ways that could happen (I could probably think of some reasons how, even if they would be extremely unlikely). But that's never been likely to be how. The Taiwan Strait Crises that have happened have consistently seen the PRC be the aggressor in the past, even when leadership in Taiwan was expressly dedicated to reinvading and conquering the mainland under Jiang/Chang and the KMT dictatorship (something that is not the case for current Taiwanese leadership). There's little reason to believe that would change in a future conflict, even before we factor in the PLAN and Peoples' Armed Police maritime forces engaging in large scale theft and aggression against other nations' sovereign territory in the South China Sea after being expressly told the Cow Tongue Line map is meritless and a violation of the agreements the PRC said.
The onus is on you to try and explain how the USA would "use Taiwan as an excuse to trigger the conflict there" and how this would not amount to the ChiComs starting the war.
You have failed to do so.
"That assumes, of course, that the US doesn’t decide to reprise the 413 BC Athenian experience in Sicily by striking Iran."
Note that you were the one that was drawing the analogy to the "413 BC Athenian experience in Sicily" by "striking Iran." In spite of the fact that the US already struck Iran with Operation Midnight Hammer and there was no comparable case.
(My only regret beyond wasting so much time dealing with your dishonest asshole is that I did not bring this point up earlier to show how overheated, irrational, and historically illiterate this hyperbole from you is, by pointing out that the US already has a demonstrated capacity to strike Iran and win.)
This is where I came in. And it is only downhill for you from here.
"If Iran has been in a state of war with the US for decades, it is because it is US provoked."
One would think if this apologist bullshit for one of the most remorseless and apocalyptic terrorist regimes on Earth - and one that sanctioned violations of some of the more or less solid taboos in international affairs by holding embassy staff hostage in the hands of a paramilitary - it would be easy enough to point to how the US Provoked such a thing. No not in abstract "we've been screwing with them in their neighborhood and done so for decades", but in terms of dates and times.
Again, you fail to do so.
"We’re screwing with them in their neighborhoood and have done so for decades. 1979 was not the beginning of this."
Conveniently not mentioned: Almost every single one of those "screwing arounds" were to the benefit of not just Iran, but specifically to the Iranian clergy that the Ayatollah arose from, and even the Ayatollah himself.
This is not proof that the Iranian declaration of holy war from the Ayatollah was a result of US provocation, especially when you realize that this does not explain things like the attacks on other countries like Argentina.
"As for Taiwan, you can pretty much count on enough of the Taiwanese not really caring one way or another about joining the PRC."
Citation: Dude Trust Me. Polling data? Past history? The lack of communist support even during things like the 2-28 Crisis? Who needs any of that? The Alarmist Knows! They read it in their magic 8 ball!
Shame that nobody can see that Magic 8 Ball of yours or has any reason to take it seriously.
"Aside from the TFNG, it would largely be the okigarchs that are vehemently opposed."
Translation: you know farq all about Taiwanese politics or demographics, and probably can't tell the difference between the Pan-Blue or Pan-Green Coalitions without looking them up. Contra you, the "oligarchs" (not "okigarchs, another SIC) probably have a more per capita approval of reunion with the PRC than the public at large. That's not to say you don't have several Taiwanese oligarchs fervently opposed to it - equivalents of Jimmy Lai such as Frank Hsieh - but the KMT and its leaders have come around to support the One China Policy (even if they disagree with union under the PRC's dictates and would e expected to resist). While what evidence we have from the grassroots indicates Taiwanese support for not just repudiation of the One China Policy but outright independence is -- while still a minority - steadily growing.
So it's actually the oligarchs that are less vehemently opposed to reunion with the mainland and would be less likely, per capita, to resist the PRC than the general public. Which actually dovetails well with what we could observe with prior cases like the "Republic of Formosa" and the Japanese invasion in 1895 and the crises era from 1945 to 1960, where those that had more to lose and had wider contacts abroad tended to be more open to accommodation with would-be invaders (The Japanese in 1895, and the CCP in the Crisis Era, even if they never made conventional landfall on Taiwan itself and had limited contacts the CCP had on the island itself).
Part 2
"Your analogy about Sicily is alsomflawed."
Note the bullshit shifting of the goal posts. "Your analogy about Sicily-" It wasn't MY analogy. It was yours.
You specifically cited the "413 BC Athenian experience in Sicily" as what would happen if the US struck Iran, blissfully ignorant of the fact that the US already struck Iran. To those not quite so versed in ancient history, this was a reference to the final, catastrophic end of the Athenian invasion of Sicily and attempt to conquer Syracuse, culminating in the complete surrender of all remaining forces in Sicily to a Syracusan/Spartan/Corinthian force, utterly devastating the Athenian population as a whole and requiring the reconstruction of most of the Athenian Navy at a time when the Spartans and Thebans had been regularly harrowing Attica with land troops for years. And crucially, had any of several variables changed (such as a decision to withdraw during the second expedition's arrival), the results would have been much different, possibly an Athenian victory or a draw but certainly less of a defeat.
To say that this was a dumb comparison for you to make to the potential of a "US strike on Iran" or even a full US invasion of Iran is utterly stupid. 413 BC Sicily was not merely a frustration or quagmire for Athens. It was note even "just' a defeat, even a major one. It was a catastrophic, demogrpahically-so-large-you-can-see-it-on-the-population-pyramid defeat that would've been the equivalent to at least a third of the US Navy "Fleets" being utterly destroyed and about a third of the US's Military Age population (at least 25 million or so). either dying or being enslaved.
You offer absolutely no reasons for why this would result from a US strike on Iran, probably because you not only did not think through your hyperbole that far, but also are not aware of the depths of your folly in making that. You simply assert that is what would happen. In spite of ignoring prior US military conflicts with the Iranian Mullahcracy and how none came anything close to that result, and more often than not saw the US prevail like we saw with Midnight Hammer.
Literal. Clown. Behavior on your part. This was your analogy, I was just taking you to the woodshed over how stupid and historically illiterate it was.
"Maybe Sparta could march across Attica, but the poimt is that Athens went looking for trouble and had its ass handed to it."
Apparently you are missing the point. Probably intentionally. I was pointing out how the presence of Spartan forces in Attica made this even dumber, and would be on par with regular PRC/Mexican invasions of the American Southwest. And a crucial reason why Athens could not simply drop everything to try and save the expeditions on Sicily, and why it would ultimately be defeated.
This point goes well over your head. Probably because you're not capable of intelligently arguing this point and want to desperately save face even if it involves trying to shift the burden of proof by claiming it was MY analogy rather than YOURS.
So in short, you provide absolutely no proof for any of your claims whatsoever and rely upon others to externally verify. The only attempt at logical argument you made beyond unsupported assertions and "Dude Trust Me" claims is an analogy comparing a US strike on Iran to the 413 BC disaster of Athens in Sicily while providing absolutely no material, strategic, or logical reasons for why those results would be in any way comparable (and again, 413 BC isn't merely a DEFEAT or a case of getting one's ass handed, it was a case of catastrophe causing a multiple percentage point DEATH OR ENSLAVERY impact on the national population).
You are illogical, historically illiterate, and apparently have a vastly greater faith in the abilities of the Iranian Mullahcracy and the PRC than they themselves do, as well as a love for carrying water for them.
"But you do a wonderful job of showing a US-centric view of the world, "
This is hilarious considering your post is far more indicative of US-centric views of the world than mine have. Most Americans have no idea of Iranian history, and certainly do not know the actual history behind Operation Ajax (such as Mossadegh's involvement in paramilitary violence and vote rigging, and how it was triggered by Mossadegh responding to lawful dismissal by arresting the officers that told him that), or US support for Iran during and after WWII. They also generally do not have any comprehension of the Iranian Shiite Clergy as their own independent actors with history, traditions, and agendas that led them to first support the Shah against the Communists like the Tudeh Party or the Left Wing Republicans/Constitutionalists like Mossadegh, and then to oppose the Shah alongside a largely left wing or constitutional opposition during the Shah's so called "White Reformation."
Moreover, they probably do not understand Taiwanese history or demographic trends and how the KMT has ironically been forced to make common cause with the CCP - albeit in limited fashion - against the Pan-Greens and Taiwanese Independence advocates to preserve the dream of eventual reunion of the island with China. And even they aren't prepared to accept unconditional reunion on the CCP's terms or even something like hte "One Nation, Two Systems" deal that the PRC had with Hong Kong and Macau before it broke the terms of that deal.
And that's before we get into the discussion of the Peloponnesian War and the Sicilian Epedition.
That my analysis is more pro-American than yours is not indicative of my analysis being more American-centric. Yours is, since it regurgitates much of the cliches of the knee jerk, blame-America-first trends on both the American right and left by trendy pseudo-intellectuals who will name drop stuff without bothering to check the details. Indeed, I actually have much more respect for other factions- the Iranian clergy and their regime, as well as the Iranian opposition, the PRC, the various Taiwanese coalitions - than you do. Which is why I do not have to resort to asserting things like articles of faith.
"complete with flawed analysis."
Ok. How is my analysis flawed?
And in particular, how is it flawed COMPARED TO YOUR OWN, The "I was stupid enough to claim a US strike on Iran would result in a 413 BC catastrophe for the US" Alarmist?
It isn't.
"Yeah, it was really in Iran’s best interest to pick up the mantle of plunder on behalf of the City of London."
Compared to what happened to Afghanistan and Azerbaijan under Soviet rule, yeah it was. Iranians hate the City of London like few others do and that was one reason why Mossadegh had the popular support he did until he overreached, made alliances with the Stalinist Tudeh, and tried to coup the Shah. But they had even more reason to hate and fear "Russia" and the Soviet Union, as the Soviet conduct in their country before, during, and after WWII showed.
But I'm guessing you don't know much about that in the same way you don't know much about the proper definition of ad hominem or how and why the Athenian expeditions to Sicily ended like they did.
Now stop gaslighting, stop huffing totalitarian apologist fumes, learn some history worth a damn, and apologize.
Iran has been in a state of war not just with the US, but with the entire non-Islamic world since 1979. Their goal is a world wide Islamic caliphate. It's in their Constitution and their god commands it in his instruction manual.
You ate a lot of lead paint chips as a toddler.
Good Morning CDR, I’m standing and applauding you!
Thank you for sharing the graph about the rise in the price of Gold!
Thank you for sharing your valid thought about the serious USA National Debt!
Thank you for acknowledging the “Unpredictable CCP”.
China is the Five Claw Dragon who will appear suddenly from the sky, grab what she ( The Dragon is a “She” ) wants and just as quickly fly away!
The Banking Industry … the guarantee of funds… guards its own Business Interest.
The American Dollar “Cash” is King in my opinion. Therefore I recommend FDIC $250,000 pert titled holder… keep some cash in “Money Market” Keep Cash! Keep Gold!
I recommend guard against bad actors with AI capabilities, which can and will grab your personal data!
I recommend knowing exactly where you use your Credit Card and… twice per month monitor your account and, if possible pay credit card bills in full monthly.
Last, use caution with Asian RealEstate investors or other Asian run businesses which you may frequent or which may target you. Cleaning services as an example.
Communism is practiced in Vietnam. Socialism is practiced in New York City and in Minnesota. Shipmates, be very vigilant. Stay safe! God Bless America! Nurse Jane
I suspect the Vietnamese think Bernie, AOC, Mamdani, Warren, etc. are crazy.
Aren’t they?
Yes.
My point was that people who have gone through communism never want to go through it again (even if they keep the name) and are amazed by anyone who still believes in it.
A system that has never worked at any time or place because it cannot work.
China is building out its military so it will never be bullied again. And its using all that American Walmart cash to do it (which constitutes the bulk of all those US Treasuries they accumulated). But there's a historical context. Remember when they were forced (by American navy guns) to open trade to the West. England and the Netherlands were world trading powers. They bought all the silk, tea, and chinaware and paid for it in SILVER. It basically bankrupted England. And how did the British, Dutch and Americans get it back? They bought opium from India and addicted the Chinese population, using all that silver to pay for it. Many famous (infamous) British, Dutch and American family fortunes were made that way. The Chinese remember.
But China is geographically large and has a lot of critical minerals. Tungsten is one. By paying attention and political smartness, they focused on and invested in vertical integration in all the key industrial areas and now dominate production and refining. The rest of the "modern" world moved away from that under the economic theory of comparative advantage and globalization. Well, we're finding out in real time how that worked out. China isn't so much preparing for war with the United States as protecting themselves from us attacking them. That's been the historical pattern. Big countries with militaries attacking small countries to take their resources.
Study the charts showing who owns all the critical minerals and industrial supply chains and it isn't the United States or Europe. We voluntarily gave all those up when American graduate business schools told corporate boards of directors to move that capacity to Japan, Taiwan, China and other southeast Asian countries because it was more economic and increased profits. Well, globalization is NOT politically neutral. China and the BRICS (but not so much Russia) have accelerated their move away from the dollar and SWIFT. And as they convert their surpluses from US Treasuries and into mineral and other hard assets (real estate), the US economy will only get worse, and our standard-of-living will drop significantly.
Gold is nice but silver is the real commodity of monetary exchange and industrial use. Same for copper. China's internal requirements for their critical minerals, including very critical tungsten, is maxing out their supplies. It only appears they are restricting sales to us because of politics. When I was in college 50 years ago, the United States was 4 percent of the world's population consuming 25 percent of the world's resources. That equation has changed. The American Empire is over and bad policies like tariffs are only accelerating that decline.
He--, as I recently learned, we don't even make our own French fries! While the US grows large quantities of Idaho and Maine potatoes, Canada produces 97 percent of the world's frozen French fry supply. Combines that with their critical potash and aluminum markets. And with the current administration's move away from NATO and other critical alliances, the US has become an unreliable trading partner and pariah. Now leverage that with $39 trillion in debt - and rapidly increasing under the current administration as taxes on the wealthy are reduced - and you can understand how we can't even guarantee French fries to McDonald's let alone maintain our ships or build them in bulk anymore!
John King, what is your specific strategy and plan for reestablishing the larger American industrial base which has been off-shored over the last forty years, and which is a necessary prerequisite for building a larger US Navy which can compete with China's navy?
The strategy has been around for decades. It's called a national industrial policy. And it should be what's meant by the Federal Reserve's second charter to "manage employment." That CAN'T be done through its tool kit of "managing the money supply" (its first charter). But in a "capitalist" society national industrial policies are anathema. And that has cost us. Less employment (which we intentionally exported) and eventual lower lifestyle. The plan is something similar to the current tariff regimen, but more refined and targeted. First, define the level needed to maintain American capacity in ALL specific key industries at 75 percent of our current internal U.S. usage/consumption levels (defined as production to support American use; not including export). If we are not currently meeting that 75 percent and rely on foreign imports, institute a progressive additive tariff on imports at the rate of 25 percent a year over four years. That's 25% for year 1, 50% for year 2, 75% for year 3, and 100% for year 4 and after. That provides a sufficient lead time for U.S. companies and foreign companies to build new capacity in the U.S. Allocate the progressive tariff receipts to back-stop new capacity construction as U.S. loans guarantees for only a 10-year period. Sounds punitive to importers but that's the point. We should participate in a global market, but NOT beyond the point at which internal U.S. employment needs are supported to some minimal and critical level. Make sense?
So far so good. How does your approach compare with the one Trump is using?
My plan, which would require Congressional approval and include a sunset date, would target certain identified key national industries, tariff them now at 25% and give those industries (US and foreign reshoring) time to build up in the US (to say 75% of customer demand) before a large punitive tax hits them. But there's lots of products that would be excluded from tariffs (1) like things we will never produce - coffee, cocoa beans, bananas - or (2) are NOT key industries. Trump's tariffs are pure shotgun financial penalties (taxes on American consumers) across almost everything. And from which he backs off (TACO) when he's lobbied by his billionaire buddies. Canada, the EU, the BRICS are quickly realigning their trade and using non-U.S. dollars and financial markets, which reduces the base on which Trump calculates his tariffs. That's an inverted cash death spiral. I'd also us a different rationale, one which equates the tariff tax as a direct labor surcharge to compensate for displacing a U.S. employee (which otherwise has to be subsidized with taxpayer monies (which we can't afford)).
We have more than enough supply of the critical minerals in the ground. Our problem is processing the ores we have and that is due to regulatory hurdles and NIMBYs. https://news.gatech.edu/news/2025/05/06/how-us-can-mine-its-own-critical-minerals-without-digging-new-holes
The way forward is to declare these efforts critical to national security and defense and build the facilities on federal reserves for the military. Under the Defense Production Act and 15 U.S.C. § 2621, the President can waive compliance with environmental or other regulations if necessary for national defense, provided a written record is maintained. Also, the Department of Defense allows waivers for complying with restrictions on sourcing specialty metals if it's in the national security interest, as outlined in 10 U.S.C. § 2533b.
And I see us doing that WHERE and how much? One company. MP Materials. That's like NADA from a production perspective. Like the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government needs to directly BE that catalyst to get this going (and hiring the best scientist and engineers like we did during the Cold War), subcontracting out to existing companies (not start-ups) with real industrial capacity to pull everything together. We can't just say we need to do something and wait for the private sector to get to it. They have no incentive. We need to give them a very high bonus-per-production credit or it all just talk. Plus, you're talking years, not tomorrow, so the exposure and national security risk is very high until we get there.
I'm actually working with three private sector companies on REE mining and processing in Wyoming, Montana and Texas in my professional practice...navigating all the hurdles, but progressing.
And we agree on the government leading the effort so we can speed all of this up.
In the 1970's and early 1980's, I worked in the US mineral industry in gold and silver, copper, coal, uranium, industrial minerals, and oil shale.
I worked mining & milling operations at active mines. I did mine planning, equipment evaluation and purchasing, project estimating, project scheduling, and environmental compliance.
After the US mineral industry suffered a general collapse in the mid-1980's, friends who were already there brought me into the federal government's nuclear weapons complex. Where I worked doing a variety of odd technical and administrative activities until my retirement in 2018.
OK, I admit I am pessimistic.
Why? Because the Democrats have said unequivocally that as soon as they take back control of the federal government, they will quickly reverse any and all decisions the Trump administration made between January 20th, 2025 and January 20th, 2029.
The way they put it, the state of the nation will be quickly returned to what it was in the summer of 2024.
It will be as if the Trump 47 presidency never happened. Except that Trump himself will be prosecuted and jailed just as soon as he leaves office, and that some number of his cabinet members and his senior political appointees will also be prosecuted and jailed.
This is not an idle threat on their part. The Democrats mean every word of it.
No doubt a part of them mean it, maybe a large part. The key is just to get people out to vote to keep it from happening. There are electoral realities, still, that will become more favorable with the SC ruling on the 14th Amendment and fixing the last (erroneous) census. That will change Congressional seats and electoral college votes. The SAVE Act wouldn't hurt, of course, but won't come into play until 2028 after court challenges.
So, the key to it NOT happening is just to work to get our people to the polls and keep the momentum going.
Initially extracting these minerals from the ground requires years of geological exploration, mine & mill planning, and mine & mill development activity before the very first ton of ore goes to the mill and the mineral processing operations can begin.
The critical minerals problem has a basic issue which cannot be easily resolved. If it even can be resolved.
Before Donald Trump was president, the US as a nation, and the federal government and the state governments together, had already made a firm decision to throttle most mineral development activity which carries any substantial degree of environmental risk.
Developing a new ore body takes fifteen to twenty years of diligent work. Environmental permits granted in each phase of the mine development process can be quickly revoked by a succeeding state or federal government administration.
Sooner or later, the Democrats will be back in full control of the federal government. One of the first things they will do when they regain power will be to revoke any and all environmental permits which were granted to the mining industry in the years immediately before the Democrats were back in charge.
No mining company in its right mind will commit to a mineral development project in the United States knowing that sooner or later, their investment will be lost when a new anti-mining administration revokes their environmental permits.
No, it takes about 29 years in the US due to regulations, not technical impediments. For processing, you could set up a facility in 18 to 36 months using pre-existing plans (cutting development and design time).
The question of keeping the momentum going from Congress to Congress is, as always, to make sure Dem districts are involved in the production and they get some credit. So, it should be - for anyone with a brain - bipartisan and it should be presented that way. Perhaps a way to unify around one of those things that should be a consensus above all others - national defense. We need that kind of continuity across all industries, from energy and tanks to shipbuilding and aerospace, on long term funding so they can invest in serial production.
CDR, appreciate you walking through the economic flank here.
I’ve seen reporting (Politico and others) suggesting Russia has also continued increasing gold reserves while reducing exposure to Western financial instruments. When viewed in isolation, any one of these moves can be explained as diversification or sanctions resilience.
But when multiple revisionist powers simultaneously harden their financial positions, reduce dollar exposure, and build parallel systems — that deserves attention.
Whether this signals war preparation or simply long-term insulation from U.S. leverage, the implication is the same: economic resilience is now a core element of national power.
For Americans, the larger issue may not be whether 2027 becomes kinetic. It’s whether we’re strengthening our industrial base, shipbuilding capacity, and fiscal stability in time to compete in a world where economic statecraft is already weaponized.
Debt, supply chains, maritime logistics, energy — they’re all connected.
Appreciate you raising the economic dimension of DIME. It’s often the least discussed — until it matters most.
CDR … C-SPAN Federal Office Banking Systems…on line as I write this…
CDR, please encourage our shipmates to understand “Banking”.
What I want to share with you and our shipmates, please confirm the Bank backing your credit card transactions when you leave CONUS!
If you travel far and wide, please confirm your Banking needs will be met.
Russia, for example, double check a VISA accepted by Russian banks.
In no way, do I recommend any shipmate going to a CCP controlled area.
Please understand BRICS countries doing business in South and Central America, Africa, Indonesia, Eastern Europe, Belarus, Russia etc. trade in their own “Currency” maybe not backed by either Gold nor the American Dollar. Yes, do care and do understand!
I explained to my precious son to find a jerker who can assess a single bracelet worth more than $100,000. Not every jeweler is licensed to value a piece of jewelry greater than $100,000.
Please remember, I’m keeper of “Holocaust Memories”, I have the photos and the jewels saved from Nazi acquisition! Too much information for my young son. He did share appreciation his lessons on precious, cultured and natural pearls. Yes! I went deep into Mainland China about 1988, I brought out merchandise I paid for, valuable objects. Pearls were something I learned about in Hong Kong and the USA.
As Defense Attache to Jakarta, Indonesia, 1994, I was laughed at by the U.S. Embassy Pay Master! No worries then… my priority was to survive my Jungle mission and report “Facts”. I
was blessed to be “Frugal”! Sometimes Intelligence Officers are given monies to use generously at their discretion. Usually, that purpose is to learn “Information”.
I smile recalling 1994, boots on the ground inside Jarkata, Indonesia.
The Indonesian military men stayed clear of me because they knew why I was there. Only recently did I learn about Indonesian Wealth! Phew! I was taken to nice private homes with gates and gardens. Nothing resembling the “Wealth” accumulated by some Indonesians. Banking was/is their source of money transfers!
CDR said it perfectly in his Number 35. Our Naval Ships on 11 month deployments are in serious need of maintenance and repair. I made it my “Business” to go to Indonesian Boating facilities… where the strong men operated the oars of their boats! I was humble, observant… taking it all in! I relied 100% on the U.S. Embassy staff; I signed papers to protect our Embassy Interests.
So yes, please understand “Banking”!
One day, I’ll pay for “Glamour Photographs” wearing CHANEL makeup and Clothing. Until then, I don’t permit my photograph to be taken. Please understand you media legal rights! Stay safe! God Bless America! Nurse Jane
If they are a significant reason for the run-up of the price of gold they will face significant losses when they have to sell. Given the downturn in exports and domestic demand, the ongoing success of the India agreements and further isolation they may be using that gold reserve before they are prepared to initiate war.
IMO, the number to keep an eye on is not the level of U.S. debt, but rather the percentage that interest payments are of government revenue. And since 2015 that percentage is rising. As with most Big Picture concerns the solution, again IMO, lies in politics. So, if we keep voting for politicians who favor private gain at public cost, then . . . As always, YMMV.
Thank the Boomers. Did they just get another $6K break?
If you believe the national debt is the biggest risk to the country, where do you put the Government that created it and the Legislature that refuses to fix it?
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
Phenomenal book and apt lesson for so many exponential systems including bankruptcy, debt growth, tech acceleration, conflict escalation, etc.
If only we weren't 38 trillion in debt.
Even if it doesn't mean war. It means a stable currency and ensuing economic power. If and when the Yuan replaces the dollar and it's backed by gold? The dollar will become worthless.......and we import lots of stuff.
It doesn’t mean a stable currency. The Yuan is suffering hideous instability even in internal Chinese markets, because while being a pawn of a corrupt and opaque totalitarian dictatorship that could change the rules and stated value on a whim is something anyone holding the Yuan has had to deal with from the start, now they have to deal wit the CCP clamping down on releasing much of the economic data it used to while starting to go into demographic and credit crunches. Which is one reason why rather heavy pushes by the PRC to push the Yuan for deals like Saudi oil purchases have been rebuffed. The interest in large scale use of it is minimal.
And gold purchases alone would not change that too much precisely because a system that can lie to you about everything from national population to economic growth can lie to you about how much gold it has access to (lying about how much it bought is harder though still doable, but the bigger issue is market uncertainty about party leaders stealing the occasional bit of bullion from the vaults) and the lack of convertibility. Anybody saying that gold or precious metal backing alone makes a strong and stable currency needs to do primers on the fall of the Ming Dynasty even as its ministers pushed silver to the hilt, or to Habsburg Spain’s sucking chest wounds. I’m not hostile to gold backing and it is obviously something the CCP and many others view as a useful investment but the idea it is a magic bullet needs to die and be buried in the same ditches as the chronically underpaid Habsburg troops killed at Rocroi. You can make a fiscal system work - or “work” - with cowrie shells or even credit and wishes if there is enough buy in, support, faith, and convertibility/use while you can have a fiscal system that collapses even as it hauls precious metals around by the literal ton of you mismanage it hard enough and cannot convert it to usable goods and services.
I understand what you're saying. And while prognosticators like Gordon Chang have been forecasting the end of the Chinese economic miracle for decades, China has survived numerous economic debacles since that time to the appearance of little damage.
England pretty much expended all of her gold reserves by 1945 and watched her economy slowly collapse and the Pound Sterling replaced by the USD.
Chang's become a bad meme in a lot of ways precisely because he keeps jumping the gun, but he keeps doing so and isn't immediately laughed out of the room in part because he can point to a lot of the same fundamentals as myself, the CDR, and others. The PRC's demographically hollowed out and running a totalitarian, inefficient system and all else flows from there.
Also while I agree China has survived numerous economic debacles, I would hazard that Xi and much of the leadership in the CCP care at least as much about whether they and their party regime will survive. Which is a bigger issue. I doubt China will cease surviving for much short of major WMD deployment across the major rivers and the North China Plain, but the CCP "Dynasty" is a lot more fragile and while it's survived a lot since Mr. Chang's old post, it still struggles with major internal unrest and that.
And the "economic miracle" isn't as miraculous when you start auditing the figures.
England's economy was breaking down well before 1945, and the gold reserves were only part of the problem. The reason why the British Government even under arch imperial champions like Churchill agreed to things like Lend Lease that so depleted the good stockpiles was because that they knew the Empire and perhaps Britain herself could not survive without them due to lacking the metropolitan demographic heft or the production capacity. The collapse of Britain's gold reserves as well as Attlee replacing Churchill and trying to build a "New Jerusalem" made things worse but did not cause the underlying problems.
And the Pound Sterling was gradually being replaced by the USD over the course of the long 19th century and especially the early 20th. 1945 was a watershed but in a lot of ways it confirmed the way the winds had already been blowing.
Why did the British Empire collapse after 1945 whereas Russia which had suffered far worse in both world wars emerge as a superpower?
"Why did the British Empire collapse after 1945"
In a word, it didn't. The British Empire didn't even withdraw "East of Aden" until 1967, a full decade and change after Suez and 20 years after 1945, after fighting and mostly winning a host of conflicts from the Mau Mau War to the Malayan "Emergency." And even the "withdrawal East of Aden" needs asterisks given some British posts like the now-famous Chagos. And arguably a form of the British Empire is still around.
But that wordplay aside, the British Empire slowly collapsed from its height after 1945 for a host of reasons. It was already dealing with major solvency issues that required peace and quiet in the 1920s and 1930s, which it didn't get. WWII showed that holding onto India was untenable, and that meant that going broke even without Attlee's ill fated spending was crucial. So it gradually contracted over the next 40 years, and even saw limited resurgences in the 1950s (cut short at Suez) and 1960s but was largely kneecapped domestically.
"whereas Russia which had suffered far worse in both world wars emerge as a superpower?"
Russia was already one of the great powers and had been for centuries, since at least 1721 if not the 1500s, and even the Communists could only bugger that up. But couple that with Stalin and his successors not giving many farqs about costs or casualties and being able to impose a domestic living standard indefinitely comparable to what the British griped over Attlee doing in the 1940s and 1950s during the heights of post-war scarcity, as well as the global reach of Soviet influence, and you see a lot.
Also it was the Soviet Union, not just "Russia." Russia was the core and a shorthand of it, but it incorporated a host of other regions it inherited from the Russian Empire (which had generally annexed them directly) and which the Soviets tacitly recognized as "SRs", so while that benefitted Russia heavily in a way almost comparable to England within the UK and the wider British Empire it was still dependent on it in a way comparable to it. And even then the Soviets were unable to completely outshine the British in all ways, hence the naval and air power struggle.
The British Empire didn’t collapse after 1945. Its command structure in the City of London transferred their flag into a number of global institutions and the created the State of Israel, through which, to this day, they exert undue influence to use the US as muscle to do their bidding.
You are a liar and an idiot. Spare me your anti-Semitic drivel. This site is meant for serious discussion not Jew baiting.
Somehow I missed this. But the idea you think the City of London supported the creation of Israel - in spite of the Haganah and Lehi fighting guerilla wars against the British and British officers overseeing the extermination of the oldest continuous Jewish settlement on Earth when the Transjordanians wiped out the Old City of East Jerusalem - is utterly daft.
In reality the British Empire didn’t collapse after 1945, but it slowly broke down or diminished over the following decades.
The CCP has certainly outlasted it's Soviet inspiration. It will be interesting to see what happens if the internal rot becomes too big to continue sustaining.
It also started later. We shall see if it lasts longer than the USSR's ~70 years.
But you can’t print gold the way you can print paper dollars
Agreed, which is one reason why I mention. We might be coming CLOSE to doing comparable things to it, especially when asteroid mining gets underway, but we're not there yet. Not by a long shot. Which is also why I am not hostile to gold backing.
The issue is, you can print false reports about how much gold your stockpile has like you can print paper dollars, and you can print dumb economic malinvestment like you can. So gold backing would only ever be part of any wider solution.
You can print false reports. But when a COMEX contract comes due and you can’t produce the gold you promised it’s kind of hard to fake.
Agreed, and that's why this system is not infinitely sustainable. But there's a gulf between "infinitely sustainable" and "can go on for quite a while." And if you take the COMEX folks down a suspiciously long route where they get to see members of the Chengguan playing trampoline bounce with the heads of a few merchants, I'm guessing they might be "persuadable" to modify their contract somewhat. Certainly people have treated the CCP with greater kid gloves for far less reason, like the IP theft.
But gold backing or lack thereof isn't the biggest problem for the PRC so much as the demographic rot and the socialist calculation problem. Even corruption bad enough to have princelings walk away with gold bars is less of an issue compared to there being so much Chinese Whispers going around people cannot rationally plan in the system beyond trying to get out of it.
No it's not. Just changer the rules like the LME did in 2022 with nickel.
If the day didn’t go well just cancel it and pretend it never happened. Works for me.
CDR Salamander, kindly take a deep dive into the Crypto Currency as it relates to “World Liberty Financial”.
Please bring us up to speed. The UAE Minister made a $500 Million investment into World Liberty. That UAE Minister encouraged another very wealthy investor out $2Billion into this World Liberty Financial.
Why, I ask you CDR to lead this “Chart Room Talk” is because I learned in about 1995-2007, the Saudi Government was investing in Commercial Tourism and Commercial Air Travel for people and Cargo!
Oh, yes, I was a “Fashion Model” on the U.S. Saudi Embassy stage, recognized by A.J. and Arlen Dominek.
CDR and shipmates, an Intelligence Officer grabs opportunities as presented.
CDR Salamander, only you can do this “Chartroom Talk” a “Market Analyses for Crypto”, to protect our substack and our fellow shipmates. Thank you very much ! Very respectfully yours, Nurse Jane