Image is allegedly of the note Trump wrote while editing a speech while on the way back from the G20 summit.
The top Russian-Chinese agent, Donald Trump, has decided that the pace of dedollarization and the decline of American financial hegemony is going too slowly. He has therefore decided to put tariffs on everybody; from America's largest trading partners to uninhabited islands. In the process, he is trying to create an autarkic America. Jokes aside, interpretation and analysis of this has ranged across a wide spectrum. I think we can broadly agree that the most idiotic are the "true believers"; those that actually believe Trump's every word, and that this will somehow bring back American manufacturing and whatever other inane promises he has made.
However, there is a much more interesting debate. The first camp are those who believe Trump is acting as an inadvertent accelerationist due to his lack of understanding about how the world economy and dollar hegemony functions (and that this will subsequently ensure that countries flock to China instead). The second camp are those who believe that Trump does know what he's doing, at least to a certain extent, and that the effective result of this period of madness will be countries kowtowing to the United States; renegotiating trade deals to be even more in favor of the US in order to get tariffs reduced. There's even a yet more cynical camp who believes that in fact, this entire trade war is just theater for further national wealth redistributions from poor to rich; that all these monumental international trade wars are more of a sideshow. To quote the linked article: "[...] out of the mountain of tariffs that threaten to turn into a global trade war will emerge the mouse of further tax cuts."
I'm not embarrassed to admit that I have absolutely no idea which one of these is the closest model to reality. We're in new economic and political ground, and even if the tariffs are quickly renegotiated and/or dropped, the impacts will continue to reverberate around the world for years. I'm sure we'll debate this for months to come here, though!
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
What a coward. Take control of the Fed and peg the yields like what Japan does, Don. Then go back to tariffs on all countries based on their trade balance.
Really, Trump got screwed over by fed doing nothing. Someone needs to show that central banks don't have power over treasury.
Funnily enough, Modi did it in 2016 when he had the central bank default on bank notes and all the bureaucrats obeyed even though Central bank was nominally independent. It was a shitty policy (just like tariffs) but it showed the executive, not central bank has the real power.
If any leftist ever takes over the U.S. and bond markets behave like this; be sure to coerce, take over Fed and have them do YCC, or maybe let the yields rise and stop issuing more debt. Bond markets don't have power over the Government not being able to "borrow". True, Trump tariffs would have (and will) hurt Dollar's global standing long term but that's not what happened with the bond yields.
if a "leftist" were to somehow take over the settler state known as the US without the state just being outright destroyed (lol, lmao even), the first thing they should do is liquidate anyone involved with the Fed and stock market also
Yep. I was thinking more about socdems, Fed will try to sabotage you if you nationalize even just key industries.
in fantasy world i guess yeah, bernie was totally ratfucked despite still being devoted to isr*el and empire generally, i dont see a path to succdems ever actually gaining power in the democratic party (and i think the US falling to revolution is infinitely more likely than a 3rd party actually gaining power in the US lol)
True but central banks have done shady stuff to right wing Governments as well who don't follow "standard" neoliberal economics. Liz Truss for example, where BoE (deliberately?) didn't manage bond yields fast enough.
And now Trump who only partly yielded not because of stock market meltdown but because of bond yields.
i get your point but i guess im saying it seems moot, anyone who would actually need to listen to this advice should really not ever need it?
yea ik, i'm just annoyed that this was what pushed trump over the edge and not Dollar depreciating, China being willing to fight back, China working with its neighbors or not exporting to the U.S.; real things.
fair enough. im probably just being annoying anyways but i can never miss an opportunity to shit on succ dems/"leftists"
Step #1 of the PSL's revolutionary government plan is to abolish the Fed, Senate, and Supreme Court
the constitution's gotta go as a whole anyways why keep the house or presidency???
I guess really that was the top line item in the presidential campaign program. The revolutionary program is laid out in Socialist Reconstruction and that toasts the whole system.
fair enough
Trying to take over the Fed is probably one of the few things that would actually get him Nixon'd or even JFK'd.
Borrowing means issuing Treasury debt... Why do you think people would give the government money, it has to be exchanged for something.
because the alternative is holding cash without interest. but yea there are institutional rules specific to the US which says fed must buy treasuries from anyone except The Treasury, The Treasury usually sell it to big banks and fed soaks up excess treasuries later, roundabout way of doing the same thing. this 'allows' market to impose interest rates but really that's a made up rule.
that's where the trillion dollar coin idea comes in where treasury mints a trillion dollar accounting coin and deposits it at the fed and fed credits the accounts of treasury by the same amount, no debt issuance required. fed is not just bank of banks, it is also the bank of the government, it is the 'fiscal agent'.
I am violently opposed to the idea of the trillion dollar coin unless they actually mint a suitably giant coin. It doesn’t need to be so big that it needs its own room or anything, but it should be big enough that you need both hands to hold it.
Have you considered that them minting a coin the size of the giant coin in the batcave would be really funny?
I have, and that’s obviously the ideal outcome, but I’m trying to set realistic expectations. You know if China minted a trillion yuan coin it would be the size of an elephant. They’d send it to parades so that people got to see it.
Casa de Papel would have been so much better if the plan was to mint a room-sized coin instead though
The Fed can buy treasuries from places other than the Treasury, they would have had to during QE. The Fed has rules that the assets they buy (treasuries and MBS) must be government backed (with statutory exceptions such as the AIG bailout)
Yes, the trillion dollar coin has been discussed, but my understanding is past administration lawyers view it as illegal. Not that it would stop this admin. But if you REALLY want to see bonds crater, mint the coin and monetize the debt. Investors would dump treasuries and inflation would get out of control
Yes. Secondary markets.
But I disagree that inflation will spiral out of control if they do a trillion dollar coin. The budget still has to be authorized by congress and taxes will still be collected and private debt will continue to take away purchasing power from goods and services.
The trillion dollar coin only exits in the accounting sense, it's not spent on goods and services. The actual spending comes from the budget.
What if someone stole the trillion dollar coin and spent it on goods and services?