Trump's legacy book may end up being: "The Art of Defeat!"
A swimming pool of black swans ready to take off!
Col Douglas Macgregor as incisive as usual!
Col Douglas Macgregor: WE'RE DEFEATED IN IRAN
If you enjoy hard truth about the West, here's Andrey Martyanov:
Trump is destroying the economy! But does he even care since absolutely everything is about himself and making money for his pals?
Whatever happens in the next few months we should gear up for inflation.
Top Economist: What's Coming Is WORSE Than the 1973 Inflation Crisis
- First the definition:
The Thucydides Trap is a concept that describes the tendency for conflict to arise when a rising power threatens to displace an established power. This idea is rooted in historical patterns of rivalry and war.
The Thucydides Trap serves as a cautionary framework for analyzing power transitions and the potential for conflict in international relations.
- What it means for the US:
Read carefully the History of the Peloponnesian War and the story becomes strangely reminiscent to what is going on currently.
As Athens' fear that its supremacy was being questioned grew, the city became paranoid and more imperialistic menacing both its friends and neutral states which ended up with the destruction of the neutral city of Mitylene on the island of Lesbos, convincing other Greek cities that Athens was the menace, ending with a stronger coalition against Athens and the victory of Sparta.
Now back to the modern world: China is menacing the current US dominated order by (for the time being) doing absolutely nothing militarily and focusing conversely on expending its commercial reach. This is both intelligent and very much in line with Sun Tzu's "Art of War" which in this case can be resumed by: Lets your enemy exhaust itself.
The US reading the writing on the wall, is now applying the disjointed strategy of the Neo-cons, menacing left and right and in doing so gulping more than it can swallow. Venezuela in January was the opening salvo of "Might makes Right!". Then came the misguided attack on Iran which failed miserably. And now the tentative peace agreement with Russia, while aiding Ukraine put "maximum pressure" to get time to focus on Iran while preparing the next move on China.
All this while the US is also supporting the no-holds barrel war of Israel against its Arab neighbors as well as a commercial war against anyone remotely supporting Russia. If this isn't overkill, what is?
As for Athens 2,500 years ago, the result of this absurd strategy is to cement the coalition of Iran, Russia and China, radicalize the "neutral" Arab states and even antagonize pro-US countries like India (we should call it Bharat now), Indonesia and Malaysia.
The result is that the BRICS dollar avoidance system keeps growing in the background while the slow drift away from US bonds accelerates just when the US needs to issue more debt than ever. This is an extraordinarily unstable combination which will have to be resolved one way or the other.
And then of course we have the elections in the US in November which will add pressure on Trump. The pressure cooker is set although for a dominant power like the US, it looks very much like, you guessed it: A Thucydides Trap, resulting in more and more disjointed and seemingly absurd aggressive moves, including war? We will know soon enough.
Who cares about the "technical" details of the Internet? Maybe you should!
50 years ago the Internet was invented by scientists for scientists to exchange ideas and documents. The protocols were consequently extraordinarily lax and friendly. No gateways or obstruction to communication. No nothing. Plain and simple.
Corporations and governments around the world have spent the following 50 years correcting what they see as a fatal defect: Freedom!
Initially, the system was in the hands of geeks who pushed back successfully. But the alliance of corporate greed and government dictatorial tendencies is slowly eroding the system and unfortunately the retreat is accelerating.
The worst case is probably Microsoft which went from an innovative product: Windows 3.1 which really opened the desktop world to non technical people to Windows 11 which is a fully on-line, controlled, for pay environment. No option left. So much so that Linux is finally taking off in 2026.
But Microsoft is not alone. Apple, Google and the rest are on its heels to protect their advertising and corporate profits and as discussed below slowly restructuring the infrastructure to fit their needs while destroying privacy and ease of use.
The worst will of course be AI since AI will be able to very precisely adjust to you and if they are controlled by big corporations (the alternative is difficult to envision at this stage) will coerce you to conform to their will. Zero escape possible.
We're not there yet but the pace is accelerating and once in place, it will be impossible to reverse.
I just encountered one of these for the first time. I’m not doing it.
Via: Cybernews:
Verify you’re human – by owning an approved Android or an iPhone. Google’s new reCAPTCHA system forces users to scan a QR code with a “compatible mobile device” and locks out anyone using a privacy-focused OS and device, warns GrapheneOS, a security-hardened OS alternative.
GrapheneOS warns that people without an iOS or Android device might soon be banned from accessing online services, even when browsing on desktop computers or laptops.
A recent change left arbitrary devices and operating systems, such as deGoogled Android smartphones, unable to complete Google’s reCAPTCHA verification, which prompts users to scan a QR code with a mobile device.
Via: PC World:
Firefox says it will keep supporting uBlock Origin even as Microsoft Edge and other Chromium browsers phase it out under Manifest V3.
Firefox recently announced via Bluesky post: “Our support for uBlock Origin isn’t going anywhere.” The moment comes in response to news that Microsoft Edge is soon going to lock out uBlock Origin and other ad-blocking extensions that run on Manifest V2 architecture.
Once Microsoft Edge moves to Manifest V3, ad-blocking extensions won’t have access to the functions needed to properly identify and block ads that occur while browsing websites and watching videos.
Microsoft’s move isn’t surprising, as Edge is based on Chromium, the open-source browser engine that powers most web browsers today, including Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, and Samsung Browser. Google initiated the migration from Manifest V2 to V3 in Chrome/Chromium, and Microsoft Edge is now following Google’s lead.
A great interview of Pr Jiang. What is interesting is not his prediction that the war in Ukraine is lost for the West but his strategic analysis. Then what?
Could Europe pivot towards Russia, realizing that America is not a "friend"? That the strategy of the US of divide and conquer has reached the limit and that the world is crystalizing into a new configuration which leaves the continent in the cold? Or will it double down, with the understanding that otherwise all is lost and the coming crash may be systemic? Pr Jiang reminds us of the Peloponnese War as a precedent. I remain pessimistic but he makes a strong case that everything could still change in unexpected ways. Well worth watching:
Professor Jiang's Shocking Prediction: "Ukraine Is Already Lost"
A dose of Canadian Prepper for the coming weekend. He is of course on the negative side as usual but also relevant and interesting. Three aircraft carriers near the Gulf for an attack on Iran in September? It certainly makes sense in light of no negotiations taking place right now, Iran bombing the Kurds, and the possible popping of the AI bubble in the coming months.
Hard to say. Trump is stuck between a rock (renew the war) and a hard place (The US elections in November). In spite of his bravado, he knows he may well lose badly so his political instinct must be to double down whatever the cost. What's the worst that could happen? The war taking a wrong turn and being obliged to cancel the elections? I wouldn't bet that he is not studying that option very actively right now!
⚡ALERT! ANOTHER AIRCRAFT CARRIER to CENTCOM! SEPTEMBER SURPRISE!
In his book, "The Wealth of Nations" written in 1776, Adam Smith wrote, and I paraphrase, When two rich persons meet, it is usually to conspire against the common wealth and to raise prices. A profound fact that we have discussed at length on this blog.
Fine. Then what is the alternative? The democratic process tells us that it must be populism: Give the people what they want and we'll end up with prosperity in a system everybody loves. The two examples bellow show us that although it usually start that way, it always ends up sooner or later in misery.
The first example is Bolivia where Evo Morales was President from 2006 to 2019 and where he literally gave people what they wanted. Cheap oil and subsidies for almost everyone. The prosperity, this time, (There were many "previous" times including silver earlier on.) was based on gas. Poverty was reduced but Bolivia "forgot" to invest in the future and when the future arrived, there was nothing left to keep the machine humming and avoid bankruptcy which is now starring the country in the eyes. As explained in the great video below:
Bolivia: How To Literally Run Out Of Everything (Video - 14mn)
Japan is a much larger country and the story is therefore far more complex. But in a nutshell, Japan spent the last 3 decades avoiding a reckoning and changing as little as possible to a system which had been so successful before. Why should they?
Over time, the country ended up with a staggeringly huge pile of debt, companies which are the shadow of their former self but amazingly a society still fundamentally sound if far poorer than it was earlier. What is most striking about Japan is the immense amount of mal-investment the country has managed to generate over the years. From bridges to nowhere, Shinkansen stations in the countryside, to the recent crop of super high sky-scrappers now dotting the skyline of Tokyo for armies of salarymen who are on the verge of being replaced by AI. Or by nothing at all considering their low productivity!
Eventually what decides the outcome of an investment is rarely productivity, but the rate of interest you must pay to roll over your debt. And the debt of Japan is so large that soon when interest rates rise as they always do, you end up unable to pay back your debt.
Japan's Collapse (Video - 12mn)
These are two very different example but the outcome will be the same. The only difference is that the world can cope with the bankruptcy of Bolivia, whereas the bankruptcy of Japan will be far more difficult to absorb.
In both cases, as Mencken famously didn't said but implied 100 years ago; Give the ordinary people what they want and watch your country go up in flames. He probably would have been appalled more than thrilled (but Mencken was a pessimist) to be so fundamentally proven right!
Both Evo Morales and Sanae Takaichi, a passionate of... Manga, have done their very best indeed to prove him right.
The world is mostly not going in the right direction but of course this depends very much in which country you reside.
The survey below is to my opinion a rather accurate image of the mood in each country.
South East Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand) and India are top of the list. This is not surprising as it reflects sustained growth over the last few decades, more recent in India, and the optimism that this will last. These countries are nevertheless significantly reliant on the global supply chain. What happens if it sputter and then reverse direction?
Then comes South America and especially the most developed countries on the continent (Chile, Columbia and Argentina) Resources will play in their favor although lack of higher education and investment prevent these countries from truly becoming advanced economies as they should.
Canada and Australia comes next. Huge potential from national resources and their land which should guaranty wealth, f*cked up policies which makes it unachievable for those who are not already wealthy thanks to mining or more generally real estate.
Two countries have seen significant growth in Europe over the last two decades: Ireland and Poland and consequently are ranked much higher than the rest on this list. Ireland is a true miracle, from one of the poorest to the richest in 3 decades while the UK nearby went in the other direction.
Then comes Japan which after 30 years a stagnation is on the verge of government bankruptcy although its society being homogeneous, the country remains stable. It would have been number one in 1990.
The "kind of OK" Europe comes next. The Netherlands, Italy, Belgium and Sweden. Not great but not catastrophic either.
After that, we enter the "not so great" zone where problems are piling up faster than benefits. Turkiye is the prototype. A growing economy but with horrendous inflation. I remember my wife giving me a 50 lira note for a lunch in Istanbul. I couldn't get a cup of coffee with it!
And then finally the core of Europe: Germany, the UK and France gripped by rapid economic decline which after 20 years of relentless shrinkage has become structural, and where the contrast between the have and the have-not is glaringly obvious and growing yearly.
This is also the case for the US but at a higher level with the contrast between clean wealthy city blocks and absolute sh!tholes a few streets away truly disconcerting if you're not used to it.
Overall, note the low average number of 41. It would have been well above 50 in the late 1990s when growth was still positive. Today in almost all the countries below 40, growth is negative. You couldn't tell that based on official and mostly fudged statistics but the people can because the local currency is what they have to go shopping everyday.
The US administration is lying about the war in Iran of course as Scott Ritter explains below. But what if the joke is actually on us? What if what's happening is not about Iran or oil but about hiding what's really going on in the background?
So while we watch this freak show taking place far away, what exactly is going on closer to home? What about the construction of a surveillance society with its ominous data centers which will literally monitor your every action online? Planning to live mostly off-line? No worries, from 2026, your car will reports everywhere you have been among truckloads of data sent back to the manufacturer "for your own safety" obviously.
And when all this is finally in place, anytime now, a "surprise" energy crisis obliges most (all?) governments in the West to implement Covid-like measures to insure the smooth transition to a society of penury, where access is not anymore as "free" both literally and figuratively as it used to be? Added benefit, a financial reset, which by now has become necessary, is engineered at the same time. Far fetched?
Maybe it is. But try to keep this scenario in the back of your mind in the coming year or so and maybe events will suddenly start making more sense than each taken individually. If you believe as I do that the Covid lock-down was a test run, then it is very likely that some people somewhere have learned a lesson from the mock crisis. Now comes the real one! To be continued...
