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Debt Rattle October 10 2024

Oct 102024
 
 October 10, 2024  Posted by at 8:38 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  72 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Peasant burning weeds 1883

 

• Chaos is Coming – John Rubino (USAW)
• 60 Minutes Under Fire For Deceptively Editing Kamala Harris Interview (ZH)
• Harris Attempts To Blame Trump For FEMA Hurricane Relief Failures (MN)
• US in Dangerous Hiatus Amid Biden’s Lame Duck Period – Jeffrey Sachs (Sp.)
• Trump Is Making A Mistake That Could Cost Him The Presidency (Marsden)
• Russian Victory Will Liberate Europe – Emmanuel Todd (RT)
• EU Running Out Of Time On Ukraine – Orban (RT)
• Refusal to Buy Russian Energy Endangers EU’s Economic Growth – Orban (Sp.)
• What Is Russia Deciding For Terms To End The War In The Ukraine (Helmer)
• Zelensky Cancels November ‘Peace Summit’ (RT)
• Russia Could Seek War Reparations From Ukraine (RT)
• US Global Economic Share Dips Below 15% For First Time (Sp.)
• US Spending on Mideast Conflict Tops $22 Billion in One Year (Sp.)
• Israel Seeks To Fix 2006 Failures, While Hezbollah Lies In Wait (Mehdi)
• Israel’s Collective Punishment Turns the World Against It (DeMartino)
• Iran ‘Fully Prepared’ For War – FM (RT)
• US Navy Was At Scene Of Nord Stream Blasts – Media (RT)
• US Antitrust Officials Consider Google Breakup As ‘Trustbusting Era’ May Return (ZH)
• Crypto Exchange Sues US Market Regulator (RT)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1843706162509951236

JD RFK

DeSantis

Trump Elon MAGA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1843999824359919850

Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1843991681072566642

Doocy

60m

Megyn Day 1

Doral

Tampon Tim

 

 

 

 

“There’s no reason to protect speech that everybody agrees on..”

John Rubino is a long time fan of TAE. The idea he uses here of the “shrinking trust horizon” was first defined by Nicole Foss right here at TAE at least ten years ago.

• Chaos is Coming – John Rubino (USAW)

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino has long warned of a massive financial crisis. With unstoppable wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, Rubino says one thing is for sure, “Chaos is coming.” Rubino explains, “This does not get fixed easily, and to the extent this gets fixed at all, this gets fixed via chaos. Prepare for a really interesting decade. This is going to be unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes. Not since the Great Depression, nothing like this has happened.”

This all feeds into what Rubino calls the “shrinking trust horizon.” Rubino points out, “When everybody is lying to you, you reach a point where you only trust your city councilman, or your mayor and your local farmers. . . . So, you just don’t put any stock in what your doctor tells you. You stop taking the vaccinations they tell you to take. . . . You stop doing the . . . statins for high blood pressure and cholesterol. You stop doing that because you don’t trust those people anymore. . . . Starting with the “weapons of mass destruction,” which the government lied to us to get us into a multi-trillion dollar war in Iraq, it’s been one big lie after another.

In 2016, there was Trump/Russia collusion. . . . It turned out to be Hillary Clinton opposition research. With the CV19 pandemic, it was just lie, after lie, after lie. . . . Now, you have what is going on in North Carolina and Tennessee after Hurricane Helene. People are figuring out they are being lied to one issue at a time. . . . You’ve got a whole new set of people watching the government screw up and behave incompetently or corruptly, and they are learning they cannot trust the guys in charge anymore. So, the trust horizon is shrinking everywhere you look.”

There are so many parts of the economy that are quietly facing huge trouble and big losses. Nothing could start a total all-sector market crash faster than an attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear sites. Rubino says, “There you go. That could be the thing that sets everything off. Bombing nuclear weapons facilities or a nuclear power plants is one of those things that has so many unintended consequences. Iran would have to respond to that in a serious way. It’s possible that China and Russia would step in on the side of Iran. . . . Then you get something much bigger. . . . I think the financial markets would respond to that.

Oil would go to $150 a barrel. That would crash the stock market. Then you get all the other dominos falling: commercial real estate, residential real estate, government bonds, derivatives and everything starts blowing up. That could be the catalyst for a market crash much bigger than 2008 and 2009. This would be something we have not seen since the Great Depression. We are not far from that. I think Trump said he thinks Israel should bomb Iran’s nuclear facility. . . . Biden is the demented figurehead for the neocons who want WWIII because they think they can win it. Chaos is definitely coming, but I am hoping it is survivable chaos, and I am not sure that it will be.”

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Did they think no-one would notice?

• 60 Minutes Under Fire For Deceptively Editing Kamala Harris Interview (ZH)

CBS has come under fire for deceptively editing Kamala Harris’ “60 Minutes” interview – replacing her word-salad answer from a pre-interview teaser with a completely different answer in the version that aired. When asked by host Bill Whitaker why it seemed like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t listening to the United States, Harris originally replied: “Well Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.” But in the version that aired, Harris’ answer was: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.” Watch:

The Trump campaign has demanded that the network release the full interview. “On Sunday, 60 Minutes teased Kamala’s highly-anticipated sit-down interview with one of her worst word salads to date, which received significant criticism on social media,” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary. “During the full interview on Monday evening, the word salad was deceptively edited to lessen Kamala’s idiotic response.” “Why did 60 Minutes choose not to air Kamala’s full word salad, and what else did they choose not to air?” she asked. “The American people deserve the full, unedited transcript from Kamala’s sit-down interview. We call upon 60 Minutes and CBS to release it.”

Trump also posted about it on Truth Social, writing “I’ve never seen this before, but the producers of 60 Minutes sliced and diced (“cut and pasted”) Lyin’ Kamala’s answers to questions, which were virtually incoherent, over and over again, some by as many as four times in a single sentence or thought…” Trump suggested that the network helping Harris may have been a “major Campaign Finance Violation,” and is a “stain on the reputation of 60 minutes that is not recoverable.” Trump also called for an investigation.

Several have called out the network over the propaganda. Investor Bill Ackman took to X, where he said: “And how could @60Minutes’ manipulation occur without the consent of @KamalaHarris? Let’s not forget she is the Vice President of the United States and she is being asked about our foreign policy in the Middle East and our relationship with the leader of our principal ally in the region. Thinking about this more, the only plausible explanation is that the Vice President herself and/or her administration found that her original answer, which implied that Israel’s actions in the region were a direct result of the Biden/Harris policy, would harm her campaign and would therefore need to be expurgated from the public record.

In order to execute such a violation of journalistic ethics, I would expect that CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon and possibly Shari Redstone herself would have had to approve the manipulated video. This is a story worthy of investigative journalism from real journalists. Where are they? Where are the whistleblowers? Or are all of them so ideologically compromised that they are prepared to sacrifice the truth and their integrity in an effort to elect their favored candidate?”

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“Trump hasn’t been in office since 2020, yet somehow a woeful federal government response to a hurricane that occurred in 2024 is his fault because he said some mean words.”

• Harris Attempts To Blame Trump For FEMA Hurricane Relief Failures (MN)

Kamala Harris reverted to her default position when talking to the cackling hags on The View about FEMA’s disastrous hurricane relief efforts. She attempted to blame Donald Trump. “He puts himself before the needs of others. I fear that he really lacks empathy,” Harris said of Trump, also describing his criticism of her as “callousness.” Trump hasn’t been in office since 2020, yet somehow a woeful federal government response to a hurricane that occurred in 2024 is his fault because he said some mean words.

It’s pathetic. She repeated the same script on Colbert’s propaganda parade.

While Harris is on The View, Stern and Colbert, Trump is giving out free accommodation to first responders prepping for the massive storm heading toward Florida, yet he’s the selfish one with no empathy according to her. Harris also claimed that Trump is using the hurricane to play political games, yet she outright lied Monday in claiming that Florida governor Ron DeSantis wouldn’t take her calls. Let’s also not forget that while Americans were begging for help, Kamala was appearing on a sex podcast, laughing about tampons. Her response is always either laugh inanely, talk about her mother, or blame Trump. As we earlier highlighted, in the same appearance Harris admitted that she wouldn’t do anything different to pudding brain Biden given the opportunity.

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“I hope for rationality by the next government, because we need a completely new foreign policy, based on negotiation, mutual respect with other great powers, and peace..”

• US in Dangerous Hiatus Amid Biden’s Lame Duck Period – Jeffrey Sachs (Sp.)

The United States is in a dangerous hiatus during outgoing President Joe Biden’s lame duck period, which several US allies are trying to exploit, Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned economist and president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, told Sputnik. “President Biden is not really in full control anymore, both because of his waning mental status and his lame duck status,” Sachs said. “We are in a dangerous hiatus. [Israel’s Benjamin] Netanyahu is exploiting that hiatus, and [Volodymyr] Zelensky is trying to as well.” The United States backs Israel’s reckless behavior, talks openly about war with China, and continues a delusional policy in Ukraine that is bleeding that country while threatening to provoke more escalation, Sachs explained.

Zelensky has been pushing the Biden administration to allow Kiev to use US-supplied long-range missiles for deep strikes inside Russian territory, which Russia has warned could drag the United States directly into the conflict. To date, Biden has refrained from granting Ukraine its request. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Netanyahu continues to expand his military operation in the region, shifting its focus from Gaza to Lebanon, which provoked Tehran to conduct its second aerial assault against Israel on Tuesday and left open the possibility for more military action by Iran. Sachs added that there is little chance Biden will steer the United States toward a “good direction” throughout the remainder of his term, but there’s also no guarantee that things will improve after either Republican candidate Donald Trump or Democratic candidate Kamala Harris comes into power on January 20.

“I hope for rationality by the next government, because we need a completely new foreign policy, based on negotiation, mutual respect with other great powers, and peace,” Sachs said. “The US doesn’t seem to have much sound thinking at the top right now.” Many other countries are trying to exploit US military power, including the United Kingdom, Poland, and the Baltic states, which are all urging reckless policies by the United States that could land it quickly in World War III, Sachs noted.

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Netanyahu is not Israel.

• Trump Is Making A Mistake That Could Cost Him The Presidency (Marsden)

When Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky recently stood next to Trump in search of support against Russia, looking like a kid being chewed out by the school principal, Trump reminded him that “it takes two to tango.” But, when it comes to Israel, Trump only sees a soloist, minding its own business and inexplicably eliciting the wrath of its neighbors. And Trump just can’t seem to shut up about it. That isn’t what his base signed up for. On the anniversary of the events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas fighters from Gaza attacked Israeli civilians at an adjacent music festival following years of anti-Palestinian oppression, Trump had a variety of options. His base expects him mainly just to butt out and focus on problems that affect the daily lives of Americans – not all of whom live in Israel, contrary to perception.

Trump fancies himself such a peacemaker on Ukraine that he’s said he could resolve that conflict in a jiffy. He has no such ambition for the Middle East, apparently. Instead, he threw on a yarmulke and stood beside some giant tablets with Hebrew inscriptions, and riffed about how he would “remove the Jew haters” if elected in November, and how the “bond between the United States and Israel is strong and enduring” and that he would ensure that it was “closer than it ever was before.” Trump called on Israel to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit? I mean, it’s the biggest risk we have, nuclear weapons,” Trump said at a recent rally, ignoring the fact that nuclear weapons have a magical way of inciting respectful behavior all-around, in the same way that Trump’s beloved second amendment does in the US.

That remark alone places Trump in a more pro-Israel and pro-war posture than the Biden administration, which has explicitly objected to Israel attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. He’s also more aggressively pro-Israel than his Democratic opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris, who at least routinely pays lip service to the need to protect Palestinian civilians in light of Israeli bombardments and glaringly dodged the question when asked whether Israel is even an ally. Who is Trump even trying to appeal to? The establishment? Why even bother? He has long lost their support on everything else, and this certainly isn’t going to bring them back aboard. Republican neocons? Same thing. Certainly not his “MAGA” base, whose position is non-interventionist and in favor of butting out of tiffs between countries on the other side of the planet. There was no shortage of them who noticed Trump’s October 7 pandering and announced on social media something along the lines of, “that’s it, I’m out.”

Maybe he’s trying to charm American voters, more generally? A new Pew Research survey published this month found that just 31% of them have confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with 75% of them now concerned that US forces will somehow end up getting dragged into the melee. A YouGov poll has found that just 33% of Americans sympathize with Israel over Palestinians in the Gaza conflict. A Gallup poll from March also found that a majority of US voters oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza. And that was even before it kicked off similar action against Syria, Lebanon, and “Hezbollah pagers” exploding in the vicinity of civilians.

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“If, as I believe, the US is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free..”

• Russian Victory Will Liberate Europe – Emmanuel Todd (RT)

A Ukrainian defeat would represent a victory for Europe, French anthropologist Emmanuel Todd has claimed, in an interview with the Italian news outlet Corriere di Bologna published on Tuesday. According to Todd, who has stressed that he is not an explicit supporter of Moscow, if Russia were to lose in the Ukraine conflict, this would allow “European submission to the Americans to be prolonged for a century.” The leading intellectual has argued that Europe has effectively delegated the representation of the West to the US and has been paying the consequences ever since. He claims in the interview that nothing can be done to change this fact at the moment due to the ongoing Ukraine conflict, but suggests that its outcome will “decide the fate of Europe.” “If, as I believe, the US is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free,” Todd told the outlet, noting that it is unlikely that Russia would be compelled to militarily attack Western Europe after establishing itself on the Dnieper River.

“Russia will have neither the means nor the desire to expand once the borders of pre-communist Russia are reconstituted. The Russophobic hysteria of the West, which fantasizes about the desire for Russian expansion in Europe, is simply ridiculous for a serious historian,” he said. A number of Western leaders have in recent months raised concerns that if Russia were allowed to defeat Ukraine it would eventually set its sights on other European and NATO countries. Moscow, however, has repeatedly stressed that it has no intention of attacking any other countries once it accomplishes its goals in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed talk of a ‘Russian threat’ as “nonsense” being peddled by Western governments to scare the European population in order to “extract additional expenses” from them.

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“..he will not wait until the inauguration ceremony … in order to manage a peace” in Ukraine..”

• EU Running Out Of Time On Ukraine – Orban (RT)

The European Union must act now to settle the Ukraine conflict or be consigned to irrelevance by the US, the Hungarian prime minister has warned. Viktor Orban predicted that if Republican nominee Donald Trump wins the US presidential election on November 5, he will start to deal with the crisis even before he takes office. The former US president has repeatedly claimed that if elected, he will persuade Kiev and Moscow to reach a diplomatic solution “within 24 hours.” His running mate, J.D. Vance, has suggested that Trump would likely freeze the conflict along the current frontline and offer Russia a guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO. Speaking at a press conference in Strasbourg on Tuesday, Orban said that should Trump defeat his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, “he will not wait until the inauguration ceremony … in order to manage a peace” in Ukraine.

Trump “will act immediately, so we as European leaders don’t have any time to waste, because there would not be two or three months, as we usually have between the election and the inauguration of the new president,” Orban said. He urged European leaders to “react first intellectually, philosophically, then strategically, and then at the level of action as soon as possible.” The Hungarian prime minister also said he was glad that the EU leaders would convene for an informal summit in Budapest on November 7, describing the event as a good opportunity to discuss potential ways out of the Ukraine conflict. Orban also pointed to foreign policy differences between the current Democratic administration and the Trump team, and admitted that he is rooting for the GOP candidate. Unlike many EU member states, Hungary has long called for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, and firmly opposed the delivery of weapons to Ukraine.

Last month, the Hungarian prime minister claimed that a growing number of EU nations were leaning toward abandoning their “pro-war” stance and “would like to join the peace camp.” According to the official, it was Hungary that “started this idea, because we stirred up a huge debate in Europe.” “Without the peace mission, such a debate would not have started and everyone would still only talk war,” Orban stressed. After Budapest took over the rotating presidency of the EU in June, the Hungarian prime minister visited Kiev, Moscow, Beijing and Washington as part of his “peace mission.” The initiative drew the ire of EU officials in Brussels at the time. According to Orban, “this war clearly has no solution on the battlefield… An agreement must be sought.” Earlier in September, he argued that Ukraine and Russia should first agree to a ceasefire before drafting a detailed peace plan.

After meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky late last month, Trump told reporters that he had not “changed from the standpoint that we both want to see this end and we both want to see a fair deal made.” He doubled down on his pledge to “get [the Ukraine conflict] resolved very quickly.” The last peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine broke down in the spring of 2022, despite the sides pre-approving a proposed peace treaty. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as both Ukrainian and US officials, the West “ordered” Kiev to withdraw from the talks. He has also claimed that Kiev had initially agreed to transform Ukraine into a neutral country and restrict the size of its military. Moscow has since expressed its readiness to settle the conflict diplomatically on numerous occasions, insisting, however, on Kiev accepting the “territorial reality” of Russia controlling the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and Crimea.

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Very much.

• Refusal to Buy Russian Energy Endangers EU’s Economic Growth – Orban (Sp.)

The fact that the European Union is refusing Russian natural gas has significantly endangered the bloc’s economic growth, forcing it to focus on its own energy infrastructure, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Wednesday. He added that this move spurred on an increase of energy prices. “The EU productivity is growing at slower pace of our competitors, and our share of global trade is going down. EU businesses are paying two to three times more in energy prices than in the United States, and this is four to five times when it comes to natural gas. Moving away from Russian energy has endangered EU GDP growth and we now need to focus on energy support and building infrastructure for liquefied natural gas [LNG],” Orban said at the plenary session of the European Parliament.

The West stepped up sanctions pressure on Russia after the start of the special military operation in Ukraine in 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the West’s long-term strategy of containing Russia was hurting the global economy instead. In June, the EU approved the 14th sanctions package against Russia. For the first time it is targeting gas, banning re-exports of Russian LNG in EU waters and prohibiting new investments and services in LNG production projects in Russia.

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“..the terms of Istanbul-II for the politicians to draft and sign must follow the terms of armistice, unconditional surrender and disarmament to be dictated by the generals.”

• What Is Russia Deciding For Terms To End The War In The Ukraine (Helmer)

The Russian history of end-of-war negotiations for the capitulation of Germany and for the World War II peace settlement requires it to be understood now: it was the Red Army’s defeat of the enemy on the battlefield all the way to Berlin which preceded and which was the precondition for the paper promises and pacts offered to Moscow by those allies whom Joseph Stalin understood to be permanent enemies of Russia — the United States, United Kingdom, and France. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has just spelled this out in an especially timed essay published on October 2. Those lessons are being repeated now because they apply with equal force to the end-of-war negotiations with the US in the process nicknamed Istanbul-II. For Russian decision-makers in Moscow, and for the Russian people across the country, there can be no long-term security for the country without the military defeat of the enemy on the Ukrainian battlefield, capitulation of the Kiev regime, and withdrawal from Ukrainian territory of its US and NATO allies. This is first of all.

The political “guarantees”, “permanent neutrality” of the Ukraine, and treaty promises for the removal of foreign bases, forces, and weapons to continue war against Russia – terms spelled out in the pact of March 2022 known as Istanbul-I — come second. This is because the terms are unreliable and unenforceable, no matter what president of the US is elected next month and promises the day after — unless and until the Russian military has won the unconditional surrender of its enemies, and secured the battlefield against revival of the war in future. This battlefield security extends from the new Russian western border to the old Ukrainian borders with Poland, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. Which must come first now — war or politics?

The Russian answers to this question being debated in Moscow today are turning the old German theory of war and the state upside down, reversing the meaning of the well-known maxim of Carl von Clausewitz, “war is a continuation of politics by other means.” In Europe today — the Russian General Staff and Security Council insist — politics is the continuation of war by other means. Accordingly, the terms of Istanbul-II for the politicians to draft and sign must follow the terms of armistice, unconditional surrender and disarmament to be dictated by the generals.

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“Peace summit”, “victory plan”, f•ck off. Your people are dying.

• Zelensky Cancels November ‘Peace Summit’ (RT)

Ukraine is no longer planning to hold a second peace conference on ending hostilities with Russia, a senior aide to Vladimir Zelensky has said. The meeting had been scheduled for November. Zelensky held an ambitiously-named ‘peace summit’ in June at the Swiss resort of Luzerne, where he sought support for his ‘peace formula’ – a ten-point wishlist that Moscow had rejected as delusional. The event, to which Russia was not invited, was widely seen as a failure. ”The Second Peace Summit will not take place in November,” senior presidential aide Darya Zarivna told the media on Tuesday. According to Zarivna, work is continuing on preparations for such a meeting, with “thematic conferences” dedicated to each point so that everything will be ready for an eventual conference. The last of those thematic conferences, dealing with humanitarian concerns, should take place in Canada at the end of October, Zarivna said.

During his visit to the US last month, Zelensky said he presented a “victory plan” to President Joe Biden and both presidential candidates in the upcoming election, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. While the exact details have not been made public, the five points leaked to the media amount to the West ramping up financial and economic aid to Kiev, admitting Ukraine to NATO and the EU, and allowing long-range missile strikes into Russian territory. Moscow has described the last point as direct participation of the US and its allies in the conflict, which would require an adequate response. Russia has since updated its nuclear doctrine accordingly.

On Tuesday, the White House announced that Biden would not meet Zelensky in Germany as previously scheduled, since he has canceled all of his travel plans due to Hurricane Milton impacting Florida. According to Ukrainian media, Zelensky and Biden were supposed to discuss the ‘victory plan’ this coming Saturday. Moscow has ruled out participation in Zelensky’s conferences, dismissing any discussion of the purported formula as futile and pointless. Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out a set of terms for a ceasefire with Ukraine in June, which included “denazification” and a legally binding rejection of membership in NATO.

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”Everything… is accounted for in a database for damage incurred to the economy, businesses and individuals..”

• Russia Could Seek War Reparations From Ukraine (RT)

Russian officials are keeping track of damage caused by Ukrainian military actions, so that Moscow has accurate figures for potential reparation claims, a senior diplomat has said. Rodion Miroshnik, who is leading Moscow’s special mission to investigate alleged Ukrainian war crimes, discussed this aspect of the conflict with Izvestia newspaper on Wednesday. Much of this work is done on a regional level, but the data collection is coordinated by the central government, he explained. ”Everything… is accounted for in a database for damage incurred to the economy, businesses and individuals,” Miroshnik said. ”Much depends on the battlefield,” he added. “As we progress, an opportunity will arise to formulate our demands regarding those who committed crimes and to discuss realistic mechanisms for damage compensation.”

In February, Oleg Ustenko, who advises Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky on economic issues, estimated the total damages that the country would seek from Russia at $1 trillion. Last year, Prime Minister Denis Shmigal put the figure of prospective reparations at $750 billion, saying that “confiscated accounts of Russia and Russian oligarchs should be the key source.” In May, the US created national financial mechanisms, which can be used to finance Kiev now and to fund its eventual recovery using confiscated Russian assets. Western nations seized some $300 billion of Russian sovereign assets after the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022. Brussels has applied a windfall tax on profits generated by those funds to be spent on Kiev’s needs. Work is underway to create a $50 billion loan against future profits, which would then be transferred to Ukraine.

Russia has denounced those actions as theft of its property. Kiev wants the entire amount transferred to the country. Izvestia cited several estimates by Russian regions in relation to damage that could be claimed from Ukraine, ranging in value from roughly $200 million in the border Belgorod Region to $145 billion in Crimea. This was the biggest figure, set out in June by Vladimir Konstantinov, the parliament speaker of the former Ukrainian region. It included damages relating to Kiev’s economic blockade of the Crimean peninsula. The Ukrainian government cut water and power supplies to Crimea following a decision by its people to join Russia and reject the government that was installed in Kiev after the US-backed armed coup in 2014.

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“..a cumulative decline of 0.58% under Biden to 14.76%..”

• US Global Economic Share Dips Below 15% For First Time (Sp.)

The US share of the global economy has tanked below 15% during Joe Biden’s presidency. By the end of his term, it is projected to hit a record low of 14.76%, according to Sputnik calculations based on data from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In 1990, the US accounted for 20.16% of the global economy, measured by purchasing power parity (PPP). That share peaked at 21.01% in 1999, with an economic output of $9.6 trillion, compared to a global output of $45.85 trillion. However, the US portion has steadily declined since, with the sharpest drop occurring between 2006 and 2008, when it fell by 0.6% annually. The US share temporarily increased during Barack Obama’s second term, reaching 16.26% in 2014 and 2015, but failed in sustaining the momentum.

By the end of Obama’s presidency, it fell to 16.04%. Subsequently, the US share declined by another 0.7% under Donald Trump. In Biden’s second year, the US share slipped below 15%, reaching 14.82% by the end of 2023. IMF estimates predict the trend will continue, with the US share falling by another 0.06% by the end of 2024, resulting in a cumulative decline of 0.58% under Biden to 14.76%. Meanwhile, China’s share of the global economy has surged to 18.76%, while Japan’s share has dropped by 4.33% over the past 33 years.

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“..it would take about $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States, or about $25 billion to end hunger in the country..”

• US Spending on Mideast Conflict Tops $22 Billion in One Year (Sp.)

The Biden administration began the emergency supply of weapons and ammunition to Tel Aviv immediately after the start of the Israel-Hamas War a year ago, further ramping up its involvement in the conflict by deploying carrier battlegroups, aircraft squadrons, air defenses and boots on the ground at bases across the Middle East. The United States has spent $22.76 billion on the conflict in the Middle East between last October and now, $17.9 billion of this for security assistance to Israel, and $4.86 billion on beefed up US deployments throughout the region, including for the flagging campaign against the Houthis, a new report by Brown University’s Cost of War project has revealed. The university says its estimates – accounting for the period from October 7, 2023 through September 30, 2024, are “conservative,” and do “not include any other economic costs” associated with the crisis, such as heightened costs to global shipping resulting from the Houthis’ partial blockade of the Red Sea to Israel-linked maritime traffic.

The report says US weapons deliveries to Israel have included some 57,000 artillery shells, 36,000 rounds of ammunition for cannons, 20,000 M4A1 rifles, nearly 14,000 anti-tank missiles (though Israel’s Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi adversaries possess no tanks), and 8,700 MK 82 500 pound bombs. Other assistance included $4 billion to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling air and missile defense systems, $1.2 billion for the Iron Beam laser air defense system, still in development, and $4.4 billion to replenish US armories emptied by the emergency deliveries to Tel Aviv. US aid also included 4,127,000 kg of JP-8 jet fuel, 14,100 MK 84 unguided 2,000 bombs, 3,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition dumb-to-smart bomb conversion kits, 3,000 Hellfire missiles, 2,600 250-pound GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs, 1,800 M141 bunker buster bombs, 3,500 night vision devices, 200 Switchblade drones, 100+ Skydio X drones, and 75 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles.

Brown’s report noted that the $17.9 billion in direct arms aid to Israel over the past year is “substantially more than in any other year since the US began granting military aid” to the country in 1959. Before 2023-2024, an average year’s-worth of US assistance amounted to approximately $3.3 billion, with total aid between 1946 and early 2024 topping $300 billion, adjusted for inflation. The study also broke down US expenditures related to the Pentagon’s beefed up footprint in the Middle East amid the Gaza conflict, including a $2.4 billion supplemental, another $2.4 billion for costs associated with operating carrier strike groups and other missions against the Houthis, and $50-$70 million for additional combat pay.

Washington’s largesse fueling the conflict in the Middle East contrasts sharply with its economic neoliberalism-driven penny-pinching on social programs at home, with aid organizations calculating, for example, that it would take about $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States, or about $25 billion to end hunger in the country. The crisis in the Middle East is just one of three major security emergencies the US has been actively engaged in over the past year, with others including the ongoing NATO-fueled proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and the spat with Beijing in Asia amid Washington’s efforts to hem China in along its coasts and prevent the peaceful, negotiated reunification of Taiwan with the People’s Republic.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that the United States has sent over $82 billion-worth of support to Ukraine over the past two-and-a-half years, including $56.6 billion in military assistance. Former President Donald Trump believes that figure is much higher, estimating that the actual number is closer to $300 billion. “So, we’re into almost $300 billion for Ukraine, and yet they’re offering people $750 for immediate aid for the worst hurricane than anybody has ever seen,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Monday, referring to federal assistance to the victims of Hurricane Helene, which laid a path of flooding and destruction across the US southeast in late September, killing at least 200 people and causing over $38 billion in damage.

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“Anyone dumb enough to push a tank column through Wadi Saluki should not be an armored brigade commander but a cook..”

• Israel Seeks To Fix 2006 Failures, While Hezbollah Lies In Wait (Mehdi)

[..] in the wake of the assassinations of Nasrallah and other top Hezbollah commanders and strategists, the occupation state has ramped up its offensive in Lebanon, with devastating consequences. Targeted airstrikes on Hezbollah’s communication infrastructure and leadership compounds have claimed the lives of over 37 Hezbollah fighters, but it is the civilian casualties that have been most staggering. More than 2,000 Lebanese civilians, including women and children, have been killed – almost double the death toll of 2006 – and over 10,000 injured in less than two weeks, leading international organizations to consider these actions potential war crimes. In 2006, during 34 days of Israel’s aggressions, the total death toll was 1,300. The Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon and Beirut today mirrors the devastation 18 years ago when villages in the Bekaa Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut were similarly struck.

Despite the enormous setbacks, Hezbollah has continued to launch rocket attacks deep into Israeli territory, demonstrating a resilience that reflects its strategic gains from the 2006 war. In the last few days, the Lebanese resistance appears to have turned the tide further, striking key Israeli port city Haifa with over 200 projectiles in a historically unprecedented attack on the city and its environs. One of the key lessons Tel Aviv appears to have absorbed from its 2006 military campaign is to apply an excessive use of force, regardless of any accompanying international backlash. CSIS report author Daniel Byman points out that Israel’s war on Gaza and its recent assaults on Lebanon “have clearly shown that Israel’s doctrine of using force has also become more destructive.”

In 2008, the head of the Israeli military’s Northern Command, Major General Gadi Eisenkot, warned after the 2006 war that next time, Israel would destroy “every village from which it fires” and make Hezbollah pay a heavy domestic price for its actions. The CSIS report notes that Israel is less concerned about damaging its international reputation than it was in 2006: “After the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, killing more in Lebanon is not likely to make it worse.” Despite its overwhelming firepower, Israel’s ground invasion during the 2006 war exposed significant tactical failures. After two weeks of heavy airstrikes, Israel launched “Operation Change of Direction,” deploying thousands of soldiers into southern Lebanon to eliminate Hezbollah fighters.

However, the ground incursion proved disastrous for the Israeli army. The Lebanese resistance, deeply entrenched in underground tunnels and well-versed in guerrilla warfare, inflicted heavy losses on Israeli forces, most notably in the Saluki Valley ambush, where Hezbollah blocked the southern end of a column of tanks, then fired anti-tank missiles to devastate Israeli units who were helpless without artillery and infantry support. “Anyone dumb enough to push a tank column through Wadi Saluki should not be an armored brigade commander but a cook,” reflected Timur Goksel, a Turkish diplomat, military officer, and former spokesman for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

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“..the enemy at this point, honestly, not just of Lebanon, or of Palestine, or Syria, or Iran. Israel is becoming an enemy of humanity.”

• Israel’s Collective Punishment Turns the World Against It (DeMartino)

In 2008, Israel Defense Forces colonel Gabriel Siboni described what would be named the Dahiyeh doctrine. ”In Lebanon, attacks should both aim at [Hezbollah’s] military capabilities and should target economic interests and the centers of civilian power that support the organization… [Israel] will have to respond disproportionately,” he wrote. The collective punishment carried out by the state of Israel on the people of Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon has turned the world against it and could be its undoing. The repercussions of Israel’s indiscriminate and murderous campaign can be seen both locally and across the globe. “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed [in Gaza]. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said days after the October 7 attack. Inside Gaza, Hamas was facing a popularity crisis, with only 20% of the population supporting them before October 7 according to James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute.

By launching Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Hamas hoped to change its image and increase its popularity. “Hamas sought to use October 7th as an attempt to reconfigure its image as an authoritarian militant group into a fighting force protecting Palestinians against Israeli aggression. Hamas believed that by framing October 7th as a revolutionary act of resistance against Israel, Palestinians would see them as protectors of their struggle and see Hamas in a favorable light,” wrote Abdelhalim Abdelrahman in an article for antiwar.com on the anniversary of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. A recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 56% of Palestinians in Gaza say that armed resistance is “the best means of achieving Palestinian goals in ending the occupation and building an independent state,” increasing from 50% in September 2023. The same trend is happening in Lebanon with Hezbollah, the editor of The Cradle told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Tuesday.

“What has been happening in Lebanon I think is actually creating more support for Hezbollah because even among the people who dislike the existence of the Lebanese resistance, they dislike Israel more,” he argued. “You’re not all of a sudden gonna start taking the side of the people who are bombing your city, your capital, your country. So indiscriminately cutting off the land route to Syria, threatening to start bombing from the sea, as well as from the air… this is the Dahiyeh doctrine.” “They were hoping that at some point Palestinians would be like enough is enough, we are going to turn against Hamas, and that never happened. And, it’s never gonna happen here in Lebanon as well,” Carrillo continued. “Even if they spark some sort of color revolution, it’s gonna fizzle out because Israel, at the end of the day, is the enemy at this point, honestly, not just of Lebanon, or of Palestine, or Syria, or Iran. Israel is becoming an enemy of humanity.” In the region, Israel’s actions have erased decades of work that its government and the US put into normalizing relations with its neighbors.

“[October 7] sidelined what appeared to be an upcoming, soon to be realized, entente between Saudi Arabia and Israel. That would have sidelined… the notion of Palestinian self-determination. But, with October 7, the opposite is in play with the Saudi leadership now contending that no normalization with Israel is possible unless the question of Palestinian self-determination and statehood is on the table,” Dr. Gerald Horne, a historian that holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour. “You can also say that October 7, 2023, weakened the Abraham Accords. Those are the accords initiated by US President, Mr. Trump, which called for normalizing of relations between Morocco and Bahrain and Sudan,” continued Horne. “We now know that with Sudan’s leadership inking those ill-fated accords, it was greeted with hostility on the streets of Khartoum, leading to what is now [a] de-facto civil war.” Across the globe, Israel is finding that countries that were previously satisfied with the status quo are no longer supportive of the zionist state.

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“We are ready for any scenario, the armed forces are fully prepared,” Araghchi stressed. He, however, noted that Iran’s policy is to stop the hostilities and reach an “acceptable ceasefire.”

• Iran ‘Fully Prepared’ For War – FM (RT)

Iran does not want an escalation of tensions in the Middle East and supports efforts for a ceasefire but is fully prepared for war, the country’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, has stated. The Islamic Republic launched a barrage of missiles at Israel last Tuesday, striking a number of military bases in what Tehran said was a response to recent Israeli killings of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. Israel vowed a “serious and significant” strike in reprisal. “We have stated many times that Iran does not want to increase tension, although we are not afraid of war, we are fully prepared…” Araghchi told reporters on Tuesday in Tehran on the sidelines of the ‘Al-Aqsa Storm; The Beginning of Nasrallah’ conference. “We are ready for any scenario, the armed forces are fully prepared,” Araghchi stressed. He, however, noted that Iran’s policy is to stop the hostilities and reach an “acceptable ceasefire.”

According to Mehr News, the top diplomat said at the conference on Tuesday that Israel should not test Tehran’s will. He warned that any attack on Iran would be met with a crushing response. The Iranian military has prepared “at least ten” scenarios for a possible Israeli strike, according to media reports on Monday. The Iranian parliament is reportedly drafting a so-called ‘resistance pact’ to bolster regional security and counter potential external threats, particularly from the US and Israel. According to the Tehran Times, citing the text of the proposal, all member countries will be required to provide comprehensive support – including military, economic, and political assistance – should any member come under attack from Israel or its allies.

Monday marked the one-year anniversary of the raid into southern Israel by Hamas, which claimed some 1,200 lives. The Jewish State responded by declaring war on the Gaza-based militant group and imposing a near-total siege on the enclave. Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Tensions have also risen between Israel and neighboring Muslim countries, which have sided with the Palestinians. Earlier this month, Israel launched a ground operation in Lebanon and has targeted the leadership of the Hezbollah organization.

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We know.

• US Navy Was At Scene Of Nord Stream Blasts – Media (RT)

US Navy vessels were operating at the scene shortly before the explosions that crippled the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea, Danish newspaper Politiken has reported, citing a local harbormaster. The crucial energy infrastructure, built to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Europe, was ruptured by underwater blasts in September 2022. The piece by Politiken was published on September 26 but largely went unnoticed. However, it resurfaced on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, with claims being reposted by Glenn Greenwald and other prominent independent journalists. According to the article, American warships had been operating in the area east of the Danish island of Bornholm with their transponders switched off. The paper spoke to John Anker Nielsen, the harbormaster at the Danish port of Christianso, located near Bornholm.

He said he had decided to share details of the events of September 2022, despite initially being “not allowed to say a thing” about them. According to Nielsen, he launched a rescue operation in the area four or five days before the Nord Stream blasts after spotting ships with their transponders switched off and assuming there was an emergency. However, when Danish rescuers approached the scene, they saw that the vessels in question were US Navy ships, Nielsen said. The Naval Command then told Nielsen and his colleagues to turn back, the harbormaster recalled. Politiken said Nielsen does not believe Western media claims that Nord Stream was sabotaged by Ukraine, supposedly using a yacht, named Andromeda, and a small crew to carry out the sophisticated attack. According to the paper, the harbormaster instead has “some faith” in the version of events provided by legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

In early February 2023, Hersh authored a report claiming that US President Joe Biden had given the order to destroy Nord Stream. According to an informed source who talked to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, the explosives that were detonated on September 26, 2022 had been planted at the pipelines during the previous June by US Navy divers under the cover of a NATO exercise called ‘Baltops 22’. The White House denied the report, calling it “utterly false and complete fiction.” Senior Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have previously pointed the finger at the US as the possible culprit behind the Nord Stream explosions. They have argued that Washington had the technical means to carry out the operation and stood to gain the most, considering that the attack disrupted Russian energy supplies to the EU and forced a shift to more expensive US-supplied liquefied natural gas.

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“Google will battle this in the courts for years.”

• US Antitrust Officials Consider Google Breakup As ‘Trustbusting Era’ May Return (ZH)

The US Department of Justice and a group of states submitted a document detailing a proposed remedy framework in the ongoing antitrust case against big tech giant Google. The case centers around Google’s violations of Section 2 of the Sherman Act for illegally maintaining monopolies, including general search services and text advertising. On Aug. 5, US District Judge Amit Mehta, Washington, DC, ruled that Google violated antitrust law by spending billions of dollars to create an illegal monopoly as the world’s default search engine on smartphones, computers, and tablets. The ruling paved the way for antitrust enforcers to submit a 32-page document on Tuesday that explained the potential remedies for the judge to consider as the case moves into the remedy phase.

On page 9 of the remedy framework document, the DoJ specifies the government has a “full range of tools previously identified such as structural and additional behavioral remedies as well as term extensions” to restore competition in the marketplace that would modify Google’s business from using products such as its Chrome browser or Android operating system to create advantages for the big tech firm’s search engine. “Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow,” DoJ said. Antitrust enforcers said Google colluded with other big tech companies to make its search engine the default option on devices.

Google quickly responded in a blog post titled “DOJ’s radical and sweeping proposals risk hurting consumers, businesses, and developers” to the remedy framework document on Tuesday evening. Google Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland wrote in the post that the DoJ’s remedy framework is “radical” and could have “negative unintended consequences for American innovation and America’s consumers.” Google’s market capitalization (as of Tuesday’s close) of just a little over $2 trillion makes it the world’s fourth-largest company. Mounting legal pressure sent shares down around 1% in premarket trading in New York. Antitrust pressure has been building, with multiple cases being pushed against Google. It also faces the threat of breakup in a separate government lawsuit centered around its online advertising business.

Across the Atlantic, European Union watchdogs have voiced similar concerns with antitrust enforcers in the US about the need to break up Google’s businesses. EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager recently said that “divestiture is the only way” to settle these worries with the big tech firm. Daniel Ives, managing director and senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, commented on Google’s potential breakup, indicating it’s “unlikely at this point despite the antitrust swirls,” adding, “Google will battle this in the courts for years.” There has been a four-decade lull in the government breaking up major companies. The last major one came with the 1984 breakup of AT&T. Before that, the 20th century was considered the ‘trustbusting era’, with Standard Oil, American Tobacco, and a railroad trust known as Northern Securities forced to spit up by the government.

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The SEC was never fit for the task.

• Crypto Exchange Sues US Market Regulator (RT)

The cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com has filed a lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for what it believes to be an overstepping of legal boundaries in regulating the crypto industry. The decision by Crypto.com to sue the SEC came after it received a so-called Wells Notice from the regulator, according to a statement issued on the company’s website on Tuesday. The company claims to be seeking to protect the future of the industry. A Wells Notice is a formal declaration that the regulator intends to recommend an enforcement action against it. According to Reuters, retail trading platform Robinhood’s crypto business, major US crypto exchange Coinbase, and NFT marketplace OpenSea are among the companies in the digital assets industry that have received such notices.

The SEC’s “unauthorized and unjust” actions towards the crypto industry have left no other choice than to file a suit, Singapore-based Crypto.com stated. “Our lawsuit contends that the SEC has unilaterally expanded its jurisdiction beyond statutory limits and separately that the SEC has established an unlawful rule that trades in nearly all crypto assets are securities transactions no matter how they are sold…” “We seek to stop the SEC’s illegal actions in excess of their authority and in violation of federal law in their tracks,” the statement reads. Separately, the company filed a petition with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the SEC, seeking a joint interpretation to confirm that certain cryptocurrency derivative products are solely regulated by the CFTC.

The crypto industry has faced a US regulatory crackdown since the 2022 collapse of FTX. The Bahamas-based exchange was exposed as a Ponzi scheme used to siphon investor funds into the pockets of executives and, via donations, to politicians. Crypto companies have since accused the SEC of overreach and of violating its jurisdiction, while the agency has claimed that it has the authority to regulate crypto under existing laws. The SEC’s cryptocurrency-related actions increased by more than 50% in 2023 over the previous year, according to the US law firm Troutman Pepper. The firms expects this trend to continue.

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