Bombshell GPT-4 - 'Sparks of AGI' (Video - 13')

 As discussed yesterday, the box of AI is open and won't close back. The problem is that a quantum leap has been achieved by Open AI, the creators of GPT-4 and now that we know what can be done, the race is on.

 The video below explains clearly that the next steps will be incremental and therefore relatively easy ones. Consequently, the day to stop and thing as proposed by Elon Musk was "yesterday". Now, it's too late. By just tweaking the parameters, the system will be improved. 

 We have not yet solved the mystery of consciousness but is it has complex as we want to believe? What would happen if you just added the ability to seek goals, the necessity to avoid destruction and to ask questions? These are not very difficult modules to create. True we will only simulate consciousness just as GPT-4 simulates intelligence...  but then how exactly do you differentiate the simulation from reality if they are exactly alike? 

 

Musk, Wozniak Call For Pause In Developing 'More Powerful' AI Than GPT-4

  Interesting idea but too late! Competition guaranties that someone will develop a AI with military applications. It is unavoidable. This is how arm races work. We can't even negotiate a  truce in Ukraine. How could anyone renounce a weapon which will give a significant advantage?

Musk, Wozniak Call For Pause In Developing 'More Powerful' AI Than GPT-4

Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio and others have signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause in developing new AI tools more powerful than GPT-4, the technology released earlier this month by Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks, and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders. Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable. -futureoflife.org

"We’ve reached the point where these systems are smart enough that they can be used in ways that are dangerous for society," said Bengio, director of the University of Montreal’s Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, adding "And we don't yet understand."

Their concerns were laid out in a letter titled "Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter," which was spearheaded by the Future of Life Institute - a nonprofit advised by Musk.

The letter doesn’t call for all AI development to halt, but urges companies to temporarily stop training systems more powerful than GPT-4, the technology released this month by Microsoft Corp.-backed startup OpenAI. That includes the next generation of OpenAI’s technology, GPT-5. 

OpenAI officials say they haven’t started training GPT-5. In an interview, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company has long given priority to safety in development and spent more than six months doing safety tests on GPT-4 before its launch. -WSJ

"In some sense, this is preaching to the choir," said Altman. "We have, I think, been talking about these issues the loudest, with the most intensity, for the longest."

Goldman, meanwhile, says that up to 300 million jobs could be replaced with AI, as "two thirds of occupations could be partially automated by AI."

So-called generative AI creates original content based on human prompts - a technology which has already been implemented in Microsoft's Bing search engine and other tools. Soon after, Google deployed a rival called Bard. Other companies, including Adobe, Salesforce and Zoom have all introduced advanced AI tools.

"A race starts today," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in comments last month. "We’re going to move, and move fast."

One of the letter's organizers, Max Tegmark who heads up the Future of Life Institute and is a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, calls it a "suicide race."

"It is unfortunate to frame this as an arms race," he said. "It is more of a suicide race. It doesn’t matter who is going to get there first. It just means that humanity as a whole could lose control of its own destiny."

The Future of Life Institute started working on the letter last week and initially allowed anybody to sign without identity verification. At one point, Mr. Altman’s name was added to the letter, but later removed. Mr. Altman said he never signed the letter. He said the company frequently coordinates with other AI companies on safety standards and to discuss broader concerns. 

“There is work that we don’t do because we don’t think we yet know how to make it sufficiently safe,” he said. “So yeah, I think there are ways that you can slow down on multiple axes and that’s important. And it is part of our strategy.” -WSJ

Musk - an early founder and financial backer of OpenAI, and Wozniak, have been outspoken about the dangers of AI for a while.

"There are serious AI risk issues," he tweeted.

Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, didn't sign the open letter because he says he disagrees with its premise (without elaborating).

Of course, some are already speculating that the signatories may have ulterior motives.

Stanford Virality Project EXPOSED (Video - 9mn)

  At this level of censorship, can the US still be called a free country?

 

The Ruination of Children

  On this site we have exposed endlessly the false statistics and narrative of the Covid pandemic over the last 3 years. But what about the terrible effects the lock-downs had on younger children and adolescents? Have we inadvertently created a lost generation? This to my opinion would be a crime beyond the direct casualties of the vaccines. Here's the report of a teacher on this subject.

Guest Post by Christine Black

 

Imagining the worlds of an 11, 14, or 16-year-old in one of my classes over the last three years strikes me with grief at times. Suddenly, with the flip of a switch, everything these children held onto in the world outside their immediate homes ended.

Friends they laughed and gathered with each day in middle school went away; teachers who greeted them or hugged them in high school or posted their artwork or essays in the classroom disappeared; the Dungeons and Dragons club they attended every Friday night with dozens of high school friends stopped; the young musicians they played with each day at school were ordered to stay home; soccer practice and games stopped; church youth groups did not meet.

Teachers appeared on computer screens and tried to act cheerful and normal as computer assignment lists accumulated. No friends came over; no study groups met. Some parents would not let their children gather with friends until a vaccine came out. Spider-Man did not arrive to pluck them out of a devastated city. Superman did not swoop down to open all the doors to let them back out into parks and playgrounds and ball fields.

Week after week, then month after month, children and teens waited for the isolation to abate, for the crisis to be over. But it went on and on, month after month. When schools did open, masks were mandated and adults ordered students to pull the mask up over their noses as though the small bit of their breath, escaping from the corner of their nostril, would endanger others’ lives. A fully masked face was the rule, and they had to follow. They could not eat with their friends. When they did eat together, they were spaced six feet apart at tables.

School was so bizarre and sad that many students did not want to attend anymore. When school resumed in Virginia, in schools where I taught, children endured seeing their friends disappear suddenly for a government-prescribed number of days. An empty desk appeared beside them because a bureaucratic policy dictated the removal of a child with a positive Covid test or the removal of a child being near another child with a positive test. It was all very confusing.

“I miss Lexi,” one of the sixth graders I taught wrote in her journal. “I hope she comes back to school and doesn’t die.” At another school where I taught, students were given a questionnaire after returning, and almost 30 percent noted that they had seriously considered suicide in the past two years; absentee rates have been as high as 30 percent. The Wall Journal recently reported that 30 percent of teen girls have considered suicide in the past two years. School shootings, fights, and drug use seem to be increasing in schools. A six-year-old shot his first grade teacher in the classroom a few weeks ago.

In classrooms, I have watched the light go out in children’s eyes. Teachers try to control students’ cell phone and screen addictions, yet we constantly struggle. They sneak them, hide, text and scroll. As soon as class is over, devices come out, and their eyes attach to them. Smiles creep onto their faces with dopamine shots to their bodies as they scroll and type. Many play hours of computer games at home. They turn to screens that this culture supplied them, to those other worlds — and why wouldn’t they experience those worlds inside screens as better than this one, after what was lost, after what was forced upon them?

With the flip of a switch, the real world they knew ended. When they were confined to their rooms and houses, friends and music, color and life, humor and competition, all lived inside screens. Why wouldn’t they turn there to those worlds when this world could collapse in an instant? No wonder screen worlds seem better than this one. Are fake worlds better? How will we repair this one?

Children and young people will have to make meaning from what happened. They will have to live with the reality that the world could suddenly collapse as it did — and they, understandably, may wonder if it could happen again. Could someone again flip the switch? How do they rebuild trust? I have had students in my classes who have become visibly muted — as though they are still wearing a mask when there is no mask there any longer. The muteness remains. When I assigned an essay for students to write on someone they admire, a teenaged girl said quietly that there is no one she admires.

And yet, most people are not talking with each other about what happened over the past three years. Children and teens are not talking about it. A friend recently said that she sought a therapist to talk to about her doubts on the Covid period, her confusion and anger and heartbreak. She wanted a therapist who would not admonish her for questioning government and medical establishment actions. But there are no therapists like that, she said. And how would there be when Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a psychiatrist and professor at a major California university, who led the Medical Ethics Department there, was fired for declining a Covid shot because he had recovered from Covid and knew natural immunity was stronger and better? And when Dr. Mark Crispin Miller, an NYU Professor, specializing in modern propaganda, was bullied, vilified relentlessly, and his job was threatened for doing what good teachers have always done, assigning his students readings to explore different sides of an issue — in his case, articles on the effectiveness of face masks.

In this environment, how can any of us find therapists and psychiatrists to honestly process lockdown trauma, to explore Post Traumatic Stress symptoms caused by it, or to discuss our cognitive dissonance when our perceptions and instincts conflict with government or other institutional lies? How can a child or teenager?

We make meanings from our lives, especially traumatic events, by telling our stories, by sharing them with others. Perhaps children are silent about what happened because they are afraid, because there are two stories, very different and not yet reconcilable.

One story might go like this:

A terrible disease broke out in spring of 2020. Thousands died, and millions more would have if populations everywhere did not make painful sacrifices. Governments around the world ordered businesses, restaurants, churches, bars, schools, libraries, and parks closed. Experts told us to stay apart, even outside, and to submit to regular Covid tests and to test children regularly as well.

We could not travel or gather with friends or family for holidays, club meetings, funerals, birthdays, weddings, or reunions; children’s Little League teams disbanded, and their bands and orchestras ceased playing. Loneliness, losses, disorientation, and trauma spread, but the American people endured the sacrifices, stepped up, and met the challenge, banding together to sew cloth masks, to meet on Zoom, to not leave their houses, and to have groceries and other items delivered to minimize human contact.

When we ventured out, we wore masks, as instructed by the CDC, and we put masks on children, even very small children, and pulled them up over their noses. We told others, sometimes sharply, that masks saved lives. Signs and commercials everywhere reminded us to mask our faces. We stepped away from people passing on the street, turned our faces away, and told our children also to turn away, “to social distance,” even on a hiking trail. Restrictions were severe, but necessary. Children and teens’ lives were especially affected.

We saved millions of lives with these strict measures, which were needed and necessary and made sense. We stayed apart, clamped down, remained extremely vigilant, as experts advised, until a vaccine could be developed, and we could get vaccinated against this terrible disease and have our children vaccinated as well. The vaccines required three to four, and perhaps more, injections. Injections were necessary to stop the spread of the disease, to protect others we came into contact with, and to prevent the disease from becoming even more life-threatening should we contract it.

We got through this terrible period doing what we had to do. We may reassure an 11-year-old sixth grader or a 16-year-old high school sophomore or a 20-year-old college student that these sacrifices and losses were necessary for the health of us all. Events would have been much worse if our country did not lock down, if schools did not close, if our government, many employers, and many colleges did not mandate vaccines for people to go to work or school.

We may tell children the above story in the aftermath of this crisis. Or they may discover another one:

Early death projections from Covid were inflated and wrong. Politicians said millions of people would die if we didn’t stay apart and close schools, businesses, churches, and all gathering places. However, this was wrong. States and counties in the US where people continued living relatively normal lives fared no worse, and some better, than states and counties with the severest restrictions. We could argue this point, but studies and reports continue to be published, showing these realities. Time will continue to reveal truths.

Further, the infection-to-fatality ratio for this disease was very low, meaning that the infection may have been widespread, even before spring of 2020, and continued spreading rapidly across the population, but most people with the infection would not get seriously ill or die from it. Additionally, the test for this disease didn’t work reliably from the beginning and wasn’t intended for the ways it was used, so all the alarming red numbers flashing regularly on screens, proclaiming “cases,” which meant positive test results, didn’t mean much.

Many studies have shown that masks do not work to stop the spread of a virus. Forcing healthy people to wear them made no difference, with lots of knowledgeable health professionals commenting on their ineffectiveness. However, this information, or other information, will not change the minds of those who have already made them up When advertising works, and masks were aggressively and relentlessly advertised, it does not matter what facts are or what the truth may be.

Intuitively, we might conclude that air passes through and all around a cloth or paper mask. Air and breath are everywhere. We can’t control or legislate breath or germs or viruses. Billions of viruses fill our bodies and the world around us. We can wash our hands as a normal health habit — and stay home, take medicine when we are sick, go outside in the sun, but probably didn’t need signs and stickers everywhere, advertising these directives.

Many have taken the Covid shots, but now government bureaucrats and even the vaccine manufacturers have said that the shots do not prevent Covid infection or spread. Most people who get Covid these days have had the shots, and many who have been hospitalized with Covid have had the shots. Sadly, Covid shots seem to be causing harms and deaths, many sources report. Furthermore, many doctors, especially from the Frontline Covid Critical Care Alliance, have studied and offered early treatment, such as Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, with Azithromycin, as well as other protocols to treat this virus from the onset.

Yet, sadly, governments and other institutions barred doctors from prescribing early treatments, while officials, reporters, and members of the public ridiculed, threatened, bullied, and fired doctors for doing what doctors commit to do – treat sick people and try to make them well. Pharmacists have refused to fill prescriptions for these medicines. Many writers have commented that thousands of Covid deaths may have been prevented with early treatments, proven to work.

Vaccines companies and government bureaucrats aggressively promoted and advertised Covid shots when many critics noted that the shots did not go through all the safety testing protocols that vaccines have historically gone through before public use. An Emergency Use Authorization for the Covid shots would not have been possible if governments had acknowledged available early treatments that worked.

Finally, perhaps one of the saddest parts of this story is that children and teens probably do not need these shots for an illness that poses almost no risk to them, and the shots may even harm them. Several European countries ceased recommending Covid shots for healthy children. Pharmaceutical companies and their investors made billions of dollars in profits from these shots that do not work.

I wish the first story above were true, that we had all been in this together, rallying against a common enemy, persevering like refugees, escaping a war-torn county, because that story would be easier for young people and children to assimilate – if it were true. I wonder about the cognitive dissonance children and young people will endure when lies are continually revealed, as they always are. Truths will come clearer in time as light shines on what actually happened.

I am not sure how young people will make meaning from what happened, from what they saw could happen to our culture and to their young lives. How will they make meaning from this if the devastation and losses were betrayals and, in fact, did not make sense? How will they assimilate this time and its aftermath into the stories of their lives when the adults with supposed wisdom and experience perpetrated these acts upon them — and for what reasons? How will we help them?

Is Japan's Population Really Going To Fall By A Third

  Here's a great example in the article below of the Dunning Kruger effect where a little knowledge leads to poor conclusions. In this case it is data without understanding the context which unfortunately is what we see almost everywhere nowadays as data has become easily available while context still takes time to grasp,

 Japan and the UK have very little in common but fine, historical parallels can indeed be helpful to understand the past. But can past data help us understand the future? Mostly no but to some extant population data is the exception. 

 In the case of Japan. Reality is unfortunately far worse than the data suggests.

 In most countries birth rates are much higher in the countryside than in the cities. Not in Japan mostly thank to the very high average age outside the urban areas, often above 60. This means that whatever incentives the government proposes the effect will be minimum.

 Likewise in the city centers, birth rates are extremely low, below 1 child per women just as in Hong Kong or in Korea. There too, incentives will have little effect because the high price of real estate is a natural limitation that few young couples can overcome. 

 We are left with the endless suburbs where most younger people live. But even there, high incentives will change little, maybe a few percents at most. If people saw an increase of purchasing power, which is very unlikely in the current inflationary environment, they would either move closer to downtown or upgrade their home to a larger one before having a second child. 

 So the downward trend of the Japanese population will not slow but will conversely accelerate which is by the way already what we are seeing. The number of birth in Japan in 2022 was below 800,000 which is the number which was expected for 2030 not so long ago.

 To some extent, this diminution of the population will necessarily be compensated by an increase of immigration. This is already the case although because Japan does not offer easily long term residency to foreigners, all the recent arrivals from China and Asia are not counted in official statistics. Still, whatever the number of immigrants is, it won't be able to compensate the dramatic fall of the population which will soon be above 1 million per year!

 Japan has a problem of excessive debt as well as of having exported abroad too much of its industrial infrastructure. To this, we will soon have to add a crashing population. So Japan's GDP which already shrank from 15.6% of the world GDP in 1992 to 5.9% in 2020 will see a further decline in the years ahead. This is unavoidable.

By Russell Clark, author of the Capital Flows and Asset Markets substack,

Japanese demographics is often cited in the secular stagnation story, and particularly by bond bulls.

The UN’s Population Division has a forecast for Japanese population to fall below 80m by the end of the century.

I think it is unlikely that Japanese population falls that far, but first of all you need to understand how unusual Japan is demographically. Japan only has a land mass 50% greater than the UK. In arable land terms, the UK has 50% more than Japan, reflecting the far more mountainous terrain in Japan. 120 years ago, Japan and the UK had similar sized populations, but then Japanese population grew rapidly, while the UK stagnated. If you ever visit Japan, you will notice on train trips between cities that ever single bit of flat land is used. This really gives the impression that Japanese overpopulated their island, and now need to see their population fall.

I can get Japanese population and birth statistics back to 1900, and assuming relatively low (to none) immigration, work out births and deaths by year. A few surprising features is how Japanese births peaked soon after WWII. While there was another rise in the 1970s, it was very low compared to number births before WWII. Intriguingly, 1947 and 1972 show negative deaths. This is reflecting the repatriation of 6 million Japanese citizens from former colonies in Taiwan, Korea and Manchuria, and the return of Okinawa respectively. So after the trauma of World War II, mainland Japanese population actually grew at the end of World War II due to repatriation.

For comparison, the UK saw peak births, in 1901. If there is a demographic crisis, its has been brewing for a very long time. The rise in the UK population is mainly due to net migration. Both Japan and UK saw a countertrend rise in the 1960s and 1970s, which I think was due to pro-labour policies - but I will leave that aside for the moment.

The first part of my argument for a change in birth rates is that changes in technology means that women can have children later. In this area, Japan is a leader. In the last available data I have, 6% of all Japanese births, which is far higher than any other large country.

For me ART births take away age as a constraint on fertility rates. Technology means that women well into their 40s and even 50s can now have children if they want and can afford it. And here we see another positive trend in Japanese fertility rates. Working mothers are having more children are having more children than non-working mothers, after being the minority for years.

Another possible pro-labor shift that could reverse fertility trends is the work-from-home shift. I speak from personal experience that working from home is far more conducive to raising children than office based working. I also know that childcare in Japan is both expensive, and culturally women were expected to quit work to have children, as the above chart shows (at least until relatively recently). As we have seen with recent government actions on green energy, once a crisis is declared, governments can quickly accelerate trends. At some point, fertility rates in Japan will be declared a “real crisis”, and policies of free IVF, and free childcare will transform fertility rates. I very much doubt Japanese population will fall below 100 million people.

G7 Vs BRICS - Off To The Races

 

   The Russia-China multi-level but especially financial agreement and a "peace" treaty between Iran and Saudi Arabia on the one side.

  Derailments in the US and fires and manifestations in Europe on the other side.

  No wonder few people talk about the economy these days. But we should. Behind the daily news, the world is being restructured as we speak. When this is over, a new paradigm will be in place. Let's hope we can go from here to there without a major conflagration.

Authored by Scott Ritter via ConsortiumNews.com,

An economist digging below the surface of an IMF report has found something that should shock the Western bloc out of any false confidence in its unsurpassed global economic clout...

G7 leaders meeting on June 28, 2022, at Schloss Elmau in Krün, Germany. (White House/Adam Schultz)

Last summer, the Group of 7 (G7), a self-anointed forum of nations that view themselves as the most influential economies in the world, gathered at Schloss Elmau, near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, to hold their annual meeting. Their focus was punishing Russia through additional sanctions, further arming of Ukraine and the containment of China.

At the same time, China hosted, through video conference, a gathering of the BRICS economic forum. Comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, this collection of nations relegated to the status of so-called developing economies focused on strengthening economic bonds, international economic development and how to address what they collectively deemed the counter-productive policies of the G7.

In early 2020, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov had predicted that, based upon purchasing power parity, or PPP, calculations projected by the International Monetary Fund, BRICS would overtake the G7 sometime later that year in terms of percentage of the global total.

(A nation’s gross domestic product at purchasing power parity, or PPP, exchange rates is the sum value of all goods and services produced in the country valued at prices prevailing in the United States and is a more accurate reflection of comparative economic strength than simple GDP calculations.)

Then the pandemic hit and the global economic reset that followed made the IMF projections moot. The world became singularly focused on recovering from the pandemic and, later, managing the fallout from the West’s massive sanctioning of Russia following that nation’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The G7 failed to heed the economic challenge from BRICS, and instead focused on solidifying its defense of the “rules based international order” that had become the mantra of the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.

Miscalculation

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an ideological divide that has gripped the world, with one side (led by the G7) condemning the invasion and seeking to punish Russia economically, and the other (led by BRICS) taking a more nuanced stance by neither supporting the Russian action nor joining in on the sanctions. This has created a intellectual vacuum when it comes to assessing the true state of play in global economic affairs.

U.S. President Joe Biden in virtual call with G7 leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Feb. 24. (White House/Adam Schultz)

It is now widely accepted that the U.S. and its G7 partners miscalculated both the impact sanctions would have on the Russian economy, as well as the blowback that would hit the West.

Angus King, the Independent senator from Maine, recently observed that he remembers

“when this started a year ago, all the talk was the sanctions are going to cripple Russia. They’re going to be just out of business and riots in the street absolutely hasn’t worked …[w]ere they the wrong sanctions? Were they not applied well? Did we underestimate the Russian capacity to circumvent them? Why have the sanctions regime not played a bigger part in this conflict?”

It should be noted that the IMF calculated that the Russian economy, as a result of these sanctions, would contract by at least 8 percent. The real number was 2 percent and the Russian economy — despite sanctions — is expected to grow in 2023 and beyond.

This kind of miscalculation has permeated Western thinking about the global economy and the respective roles played by the G7 and BRICS. In October 2022, the IMF published its annual World Economic Outlook (WEO), with a focus on traditional GDP calculations. Mainstream economic analysts, accordingly, were comforted that — despite the political challenge put forward by BRICS in the summer of 2022 — the IMF was calculating that the G7 still held strong as the leading global economic bloc.

In January 2023 the IMF published an update to the October 2022 WEO,  reinforcing the strong position of the G7.  According to Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, the “balance of risks to the outlook remains tilted to the downside but is less skewed toward adverse outcomes than in the October WEO.”

This positive hint prevented mainstream Western economic analysts from digging deeper into the data contained in the update. I can personally attest to the reluctance of conservative editors trying to draw current relevance from “old data.”

Fortunately, there are other economic analysts, such as Richard Dias of Acorn Macro Consulting, a self-described “boutique macroeconomic research firm employing a top-down approach to the analysis of the global economy and financial markets.”

Rather than accept the IMF’s rosy outlook as gospel, Dias did what analysts are supposed to do — dig through the data and extract relevant conclusions.

After rooting through the IMF’s World Economic Outlook Data Base, Dias conducted a comparative analysis of the percentage of global GDP adjusted for PPP between the G7 and BRICS, and made a surprising discovery: BRICS had surpassed the G7.

This was not a projection, but rather a statement of accomplished fact:

BRICS was responsible for 31.5 percent of the PPP-adjusted global GDP, while the G7 provided 30.7 percent.

Making matters worse for the G7, the trends projected showed that the gap between the two economic blocs would only widen going forward.

The reasons for this accelerated accumulation of global economic clout on the part of BRICS can be linked to three primary factors:

• residual fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic,

• blowback from the sanctioning of Russia by the G7 nations in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a growing resentment among the developing economies of the world to G7 economic policies and

• priorities which are perceived as being rooted more in post-colonial arrogance than a genuine desire to assist in helping nations grow their own economic potential. 

Growth Disparities

It is true that BRICS and G7 economic clout is heavily influenced by the economies of China and the U.S., respectively. But one cannot discount the relative economic trajectories of the other member states of these economic forums. While the economic outlook for most of the BRICS countries points to strong growth in the coming years, the G7 nations, in a large part because of the self-inflicted wound that is the current sanctioning of Russia, are seeing slow growth or, in the case of the U.K., negative growth, with little prospect of reversing this trend.

Moreover, while G7 membership remains static, BRICS is growing, with Argentina and Iran having submitted applications, and other major regional economic powers, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, expressing an interest in joining. Making this potential expansion even more explosive is the recent Chinese diplomatic achievement in normalizing relations between Iran and Saudia Arabia.

Diminishing prospects for the continued global domination by the U.S. dollar, combined with the economic potential of the trans-Eurasian economic union being promoted by Russia and China, put the G7 and BRICS on opposing trajectories. BRICS should overtake the G7 in terms of actual GDP, and not just PPP, in the coming years.

But don’t hold your breath waiting for mainstream economic analysts to reach this conclusion. Thankfully, there are outliers such as Richard Dias and Acorn Macro Consulting who seek to find new meaning from old data.

Tucker: This is infuriating (Video - 15')

   “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the  American public believes is false.” William Casey, CIA Director 1981-1987

   Well, are we there yet? Listening to these few examples from Tucker Carlson, we definitively must be getting very close!

 

 

Douglas Macgregor: Ukraine is crumbling under Russian offensives (Video - 30')

  Listen to this video of Douglas Macgregor if you need to be convinced that there are indeed brilliant people in the US. The analysis is profound and technical... They are unfortunately not in charge anymore. But how could it be surprising that obese, ignorant people vote for people who represent them and therefore display similar characteristics? Is this how democracy dies? Or is it already dead?

 PS: Listen especially to the last 5mn about China. I could not agree more! Brilliant!

 

The World Economic Forum And The West's Next Act?

  Whatever you may think of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, they do look and behave like world leaders. Not so for the empty suits reading their teleprompter lines in Western countries. Go figure why the rest of the world is not impressed.

Authored by J.B.Shurk via The Gatestone Institute,

If you are a consumer today, inflation is only one of the problems harming you.

As prices go up, quality continues to go down.

What most stores have to offer you might crassly be called "cheap crap." In fact, economic writer Charles Hugh Smith has repeatedly warned that the "crapification" of the U.S. economy is the natural result of a "neoliberal-hyper-financialization-hyper-globalization model," in which quasi-monopolist manufacturers mass-produce goods with the cheapest possible components, while customers with scant other buying options are forced to accept that few purchases will last.

"Planned obsolescence," combined with a free market "in name only," creates a rigged system in which downstream consumers are forced to pay more over time, while owning little that will maintain value for long. Appliances that used to work for decades now barely make it through legally required warranty periods. Metal tools that could be passed from one generation to the next now tend to rust before they can be used on more than a handful of jobs. When expensive electronic devices survive more than two years, cash-strapped households breathe a sigh of relief. Just about anybody who is old enough to remember the 9/11 terrorist attacks can tell a story about some product that was so much cheaper, yet so much more reliable, when it was purchased long ago.

Likewise, customer service is more pitiful than it has ever been. Try to speak with a real human on the phone. It is nearly impossible. Automated assistance has eliminated personal interaction from most buying experiences. Gas stations, fast-food restaurants, and convenience stores have replaced human cashiers with camera-equipped machines designed for self-service. Even a visit to a grocery or home goods store now routinely requires the use of a self-checkout kiosk when making a purchases. It has become entirely normal to witness people struggling through the routine of lifting everything out of their shopping carts, scanning each item, and placing the load into bags, before throwing everything back onto carts, paying, and shuffling away. It is somewhat perplexing to consider that not so long ago, helpful, smiling employees worked hard to take care of all those services as part of the ordinary relationship maintained between a business and its customers.

Cutting out the cost of extra employees whose hourly wages have been pushed higher and higher by minimum wage laws that try to keep workers aligned with the rising cost of everything might help prevent already inflated prices from rising even further, but it is difficult to watch shoppers performing jobs once done by paid workers without concluding that "progress" has taken the market experience to a place that feels closer to "regress."

Politicians seem to be heading in a similar direction.

Pictured: National leaders, including US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau strike a deep, contemplative pose at the G20 summit on November 16, 2022 in Nusa Dua, Indonesia. (Photo by Hebestreit/Bundesregierung via Getty Images)

Politics, as a profession, has always been known to attract at least as many ambitious "empty suits" as it does leaders of substance.

Still, the great writers, orators, and thinkers that occasionally rose to political prominence in the past seem to have left the stage for good.

Winston Churchill not only led the United Kingdom to victory during WWII but also won the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values."

Daniel Patrick Moynihan not only represented New York as a U.S. Senator but also drew on his own sociological expertise while serving in the Labor Department to produce a thorough report on the endemic causes of, and potential remedies for, systemic poverty in America.

President Abraham Lincoln not only was instrumental in preserving the Union but also a dedicated student all his life; he kept the works of William Shakespeare on his White House desk.

In contrast, few deep thinkers rise to high office today.

There are no great statesmen whom the broader public see as towering above the herd of self-centered and cynical political lemmings. Few professional politicians, especially those in the United States, are even capable of speaking extemporaneously before an audience for any stretch of time. Too many rely on the assistance of teleprompters or similar devices to provide an exact script for every publicly spoken utterance, no matter how trivial or informal — suggesting that either they or their staffs cannot trust just what might otherwise escape their lips.

Rather than pursuing political office after having accomplished great things in other fields, the vast majority of today's officeholders choose politics as a vocation for life. The end result is that Western governments are filled to the brim with people entirely lacking in real-world experience or specialized knowledge.

In recent decades, a noticeable trend in the West has been to elevate politicians, as young and inexperienced as possible, into offices as high as possible.

Many of the most famous politicians today no sooner secure a single election victory than their colleagues began pushing them into government roles at the top of the political hierarchy. Former U.S. President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and her successor Chris Hipkins all ascended to the zeniths of national power exceptionally early in their careers.

Looking around at the legislators, presidents, and prime ministers today who are leading Western nations on the world stage, you could be forgiven for extrapolating that the quickest path to political power is to accomplish little in the real world, while scrambling up the political pyramid before there is time to make or learn from mistakes. Such a system -- in which those who have proven themselves the least are given responsibilities that would test even those who have proven themselves time and again -- hardly looks ideal.

On the flip side is someone such as U.S. President Joe Biden, the oldest to have ever held the office. Whereas Biden's near half-century in national elected office has surely afforded him the chance to make and remedy many mistakes, he is now so "seasoned" that few weeks go by when some publication does not question either his mental competency, ability to keep up with the rigors of such a demanding job, or the wear and tear on the "influence" possibly peddled.

Two stories, embodying the "crapification" of products, recently emerged, concerning the authenticity of a presidential speech. In the first, a fake video created through the use of artificial intelligence showed Biden announcing the implementation of the Selective Service Act and the imminent drafting of young Americans born on a certain date into military service. Amid heightening tensions with Russia and China, many Americans who came across the video mistakenly assumed that the United States had officially gone to war.

In the other video, Biden's quite real but somewhat confusing and meandering storytelling during a speech about health care was mistakenly labeled as "doctored" or "fake" by enough viewers that Twitter actually added a certification label attesting, "This is in fact unedited legitimate footage from a Joe Biden speech which took place on 2/28/23." Clearly, in a world where fake videos have become remarkably easy to construct, everyone's credibility and reputation are now at risk.

Chintzy products and tinpot politicians are nothing new. Whether spending money or casting votes, the same caveat emptor principle applies: Let the buyer beware. Still, it is worth considering whether the political and economic knockoffs flooding Western markets today have something in common.

A Nigerian proverb warns against small singing birds with loud voices, because they almost always have much stronger protectors hidden behind thicker leaves. What today's Western political leaders might lack in lengthy experience or trustworthy rhetoric, they certainly make up with bombastic pronouncement.

Ever since the dawn of COVID, "Build Back Better" has been repeated by "young global leaders" flocking to Klaus Schwab's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. When Schwab and his WEF companions turned COVID tragedy into an opportunity for unleashing a "Great Reset" that would transform global markets, governance and power, nearly every Western political leader agreed. The synchronicity is enough to make you wonder whether it is your nation or the World Economic Forum that actually leads. Perhaps as the Nigerian proverb warns, today's Western political leaders chirp about "Build Back Better" so loudly because Klaus Schwab's financial predators stand directly behind them in the bush.

If so, then the West has become an oligarchy of financial "elites," no matter how many times its political leaders extol the virtues of "democracy."

A financial oligarchy over political power is like a manufacturing monopoly over economic power: In both markets, goods are mass-produced with the cheapest possible components. The end result is that things break easily, and systems do not last. If Western politicians seem just as second-rate these days as what customers all too often find in stores, there may be a simple reason why: International financial titans make, sell, and own both... and may be planning to own you, too.

FedNow launched in midst of banking crisis, is it a precursor to CBDCs, 'totalitarian' control?

  It is said that if people understood about money, there would be a revolution.
With, CBDC, they won't need to understand to see the results through abusive control policies.
As explained very clearly by Richard Werner, it is the difference between a Soviet style centralized system and the decentralized flexible economies we used to have until recently in the West. #money #covid #cbdc #digitalcurrency #centralbanks #finance

 

FedNow Instant Payments Are Coming And CBDCs Will Follow

  What will the ides of March bring us?

  Another more pointed question is: Is the current financial crash managed?

  The Central Bankers are not imbeciles. They understand better than anybody that raising interest rates will devastate the banks so the extinction of smaller banks has to be part of their plan. 

  But they are not all powerful either. The current high level meetings between Xi Jinping and Putin are not about Ukraine. They know perfectly well that any plan favorable to Russia will be shot down by the US faster than a skud missile. But building up a viable exchange mechanism between Russia, China and the rest of the world may be a valid reason for the Chinese leader to jump on a plane accompanied by hundreds of civil servants and business men in short order. Likewise, it is very unlikely that so many African heads of state decided to visit Moscow to enjoy an early March Spring. 

 Clearly time is running short. Covid bought a couple of years under the pretense of reflating the economy to counter the terrible effects of the lock-downs. But no virus of UFO will save the financial system this time. We are not talking about a few trillions dollars or Euros here and there as for Covid but a concerted effort including guaranties of 20, maybe 50 trillion dollars. In other words, a full takeover of the financial system based on CBDC. Nothing less!

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

There’s absolutely no doubt that our financial system is in flux right now. We’re watching a storm approach, and it’s about to envelop the entire nation in chaotic conditions. If you think things are crazy now, just hang on to your halo…it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

Remember how we talked about CBDCs a few weeks ago, and lots of people in the comments said never, no way, and heck no? Well, unfortunately, it’s being rolled out and soon.

Of course, they’re not calling it CBDCs. Not yet.

It’s under another name, and it’s not quite a federal digital currency. I’m sure this, too, will be called a conspiracy theory, but the Federal Reserve is launching FedNow, an instant digital payment system. This in itself is not a Central Bank Digital Currency, but it puts into place the framework needed to make the idea a reality.

FedNow will be launched in July, according to a press release from the Federal Reserve.

What is FedNow?

On March 15th, in the midst of the banking collapses, the Federal Reserve issued a press release detailing a new instant payment system that will be launched in July. That system is called FedNow. Here’s what they said about it.

The first week of April, the Federal Reserve will begin the formal certification of participants for launch of the service. Early adopters will complete a customer testing and certification program, informed by feedback from the FedNow Pilot Program, to prepare for sending live transactions through the system.

Certification encompasses a comprehensive testing curriculum with defined expectations for operational readiness and network experience. In June, the Federal Reserve and certified participants will conduct production validation activities to confirm readiness for the July launch.

“We couldn’t be more excited about the forthcoming FedNow launch, which will enable every participating financial institution, the smallest to the largest and from all corners of the country, to offer a modern instant payment solution,” said Ken Montgomery, first vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and FedNow program executive. “With the launch drawing near, we urge financial institutions and their industry partners to move full steam ahead with preparations to join the FedNow Service.”

Many early adopters have declared their intent to begin using the service in July, including a diverse mix of financial institutions of all sizes, the largest processors, and the U.S. Treasury.

This has all the hallmarks of a government strategy. First, they offer it as a “convenience” or a “safety measure.” Lots of people will jump on board in order to take advantage of this.

Of course, we’ve heard this song before.

Next, it will be pushed harder, and those who don’t adopt it will be mocked, thought of as backward, and treated with suspicion. After that, it’ll be darn near impossible to do anything without it. Sound familiar?

The Federal Reserve Banks are developing the FedNow Service to facilitate nationwide reach of instant payment services by financial institutions — regardless of size or geographic location — around the clock, every day of the year. Through financial institutions participating in the FedNow Service, businesses and individuals will be able to send and receive instant payments at any time of day, and recipients will have full access to funds immediately, giving them greater flexibility to manage their money and make time-sensitive payments. Access will be provided through the Federal Reserve’s FedLine® network, which serves more than 10,000 financial institutions directly or through their agents.

You can find more of the Fed’s sales pitch at FedNowExplorer.org.

This is NOT the digital dollar…yet.

So let me be perfectly clear. This, in itself, is not the implementation of CBDCs. Instead, it’s the payment network needed to implement CBDCs. An infrastructure, in a manner of speaking.

There’s a clear benefit to the system that will make people want to participate, especially those who do business online or who transfer large amounts of money. Who wouldn’t want the proceeds from the sale of their home to be instantly available?

This is just the system that allows payments to be made via a federal government network using existing banks. FedNow could quickly lead to FedCoin and it wouldn’t take much effort at all.

There is a precedent for federal payment networks turning into federal digital currency.

Just last week, Marie wrote about the digital identity service that is funded by the US and is being used in Ukraine. It’s a mechanism of digital control, plain and simple, being portrayed as something to make the lives of Ukrainians easier.

But that’s not the only digital program out there we need to be concerned about as a precedent. A writer for the website BeinCrypto reported several other incidences that could show us our future:

According to global data, the instant payments ecosystem was valued at $100 trillion in 2021. And Asian countries like India and China are leading the sector, with the U.S. slightly late to join the club.

India employs a payment infrastructure based on the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) and Unified Payment Interface (UPI) to offer instant payment services to customers and merchants. Global data show India is the most active market, with transaction volume hitting $39.8 billion in 2021. With that, India has expanded its e-rupee pilot as part of its CBDC trials.

China, which ranks second in that category, has widely used Alipay and WeChat for instant mobile payments. The nation has also pushed to adopt a digital yuan as its centrally-backed digital currency.

So, to be clear…they instituted instant payment services, then a federal digital currency followed shortly thereafter.

Infrastructure.

Introduction.

It’s a pattern.

Here’s what The Department of the Treasury says about CBDCs.

The Department of the Treasury has a “CBDC Working Group” exploring the feasibility of the project. It is coming. And they’re being completely open about it. Here’s some information from the Dept. of Treasury website:

CBDC is one of several options for upgrading the legacy capabilities of central bank money.  Another is real time payment systems:  The Federal Reserve has indicated that it expects to launch the FedNow Service this year, which will be designed to allow for near-instantaneous retail payments on a 24x7x365 basis, using an existing form of central bank money (i.e., central bank reserves) as an interbank settlement asset.  In contrast, a CBDC would involve both a new form of central bank money and, potentially, a new set of payment rails.  Both real time payment systems and CBDCs present opportunities to build a more efficient, competitive, and inclusive U.S. payment system.

In the United States, policymakers are continuing to deliberate about whether to have a CBDC, and if so, what form it would take.  The Fed has also emphasized that it would only issue a CBDC with the support of the executive branch and Congress, and more broadly the public.[3] Even as policy deliberations continue, the Fed is conducting technology research and experimentation to inform design choices so that it is positioned to issue a CBDC if it were determined to be in the national interest.

The entire article bears reading. You will have no further doubt this is the plan when you do.

They also mentioned that this will help us to do business with other countries that have CBDCs.

…jurisdictions around the world are exploring CBDCs.  According to the Atlantic Council’s tracker, 114 countries, representing over 95 percent of global GDP, are exploring CBDC.  11 countries have fully launched CBDCs, while central banks in other major jurisdictions are researching and experimenting with CBDCs, with some at a fairly advanced stage.  The Bank of England (BOE) and HM Treasury (HMT) recently published a consultation paper assessing the case for a retail CBDC and outlining a proposed technological model.[12]  BOE and HMT now are entering the design phase of their work, estimated to take two to three years, after which the BOE and the UK government will decide whether to build a “digital pound.”  In addition, there are multiple cross-border CBDC pilots, which involve central banks, international organizations such as the Bank for International Settlements, and private financial institutions.

Global currency, anyone?

Here’s what has to happen to make this widely accepted.

The banking crisis of the past few weeks feels like part of the plan to me. While I know we had many poor economic decisions that have led us to this point, pulling the plug now seems rather timely.

To make CBDCs widely accepted and even welcome, a few things have to happen first.

1.) Cryptocurrency has to fail. Several of the banks involved in this crisis have been highly invested in crypto. Silvergate, which hasn’t been mentioned as much, advertises itself as having “industry-leading banking and payments solutions for innovative digital currency and fintech companies.” The banking crisis is devastating cryptocurrency, which is one of the most anonymous and regulation-free payment methods in the modern world. Anything outside of government control has to go. This video talks more about “killing crypto.”

2.) Inflation has to continue. Keeping the “value” of digital dollars stable would be a way to “fight inflation.” Do you want to buy a box of mac and cheese for $3 cash? Or would you rather pay 1 FedCoin instead? Making a FedCoin an option that “fights inflation” would get a lot of people to adopt it voluntarily.

3.) People have to be desperate. If your bank account was suddenly emptied and you had nothing left – no retirement fund, no savings, no checking, nothing – what would you agree to in order to restore it all? What if you were offered a bailout but it was in the form of a different kind of dollar – a CBDC to replace the dollars you lost, but that you can only use digitally? I’d say yes, and I think that most of us would. We’ve got bills to pay, we owe on our mortgages and our taxes, we need groceries, our kids have tuition due…hell, yes, we’d nearly all say “yes” no matter how grudgingly.

If those three things happen, we’re in a perfect position for CBDCs to be forced upon us. It could very likely turn into our only legal tender, as I’ve written before.

Steve Forbes shares his rather terrifying thoughts on the potential abuses in a country based on CBDCs, calling it a “formula for tyranny.”

And if it’s our only legal tender, we’re looking at a cashless society and all the controls that such a thing allows. I wrote about it here. It would affect nearly every facet of our everyday lives, and every dime we spend would be subject to surveillance. The potential for abuse of power and lack of privacy is breathtaking. The government would literally hold a monopoly on money and financial transactions.

Iran-Saudi Rapprochement Will Deal A Deathblow To The Dollar

  The American Empire was built on oil, it will die with the end of the petro-dollar. How far are we from the end? Difficult to say but the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a giant step towards a multi-polar world!

Authored by Andrew Korybko via The Automatic Earth blog,

Eurasia’s geo-economic integration took a great leap forward as a result of the Iranian–Saudi rapprochement, which unlocks the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) trade potential with Russia and China. Its wealthy members can now tap into two series of Iranian-transiting megaprojects in one fell swoop through this deal, with the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) connecting them to Russia while the China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor (CCAWAEC) will do the same vis-à-vis China.

The bloc’s de facto Saudi leader has been prioritizing a comprehensive economic reform policy known as “Vision 2030” that was introduced by Crown Prince and first-ever Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) upon his rise to power in 2015. It regrettably stumbled as a result of the disastrous Yemeni War that he’s been waging since that same year, but everything is now back on track and more promising than ever after securing $50 billion worth of investments from China last December.

The People’s Republic regards Vision 2030 as complementary to its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) due to MBS’ focus on real-sector investments for preemptively diversifying the Saudi economy away from its presently disproportionate dependence on oil exports. His country’s location at the crossroads of Afro-Eurasia also makes investments there extremely attractive from the perspective of China’s logistical interests, hence its massive commitment to his comprehensive economic reform policy.

Without last week’s Beijing-brokered deal, China would have had to rely on maritime routes under the control of the powerful US Navy to facilitate the forthcoming explosion in bilateral real-sector trade, but now everything can be conducted much more securely via the Iranian-transiting CCAWAEC. Looking forward, there’s also a theoretical possibility of Chinese energy investments in Iran connecting the Gulf to Central Asia and thenceforth to the People’s Republic, thus fully securing its strategic interests.

That’s still a far way’s off, if it even happens at all that is, but it nevertheless can’t be ruled out. Saudi Arabia’s desire to join BRICS and the SCO, which are the most influential multipolar organizations in the world right now, could turn this scenario into a reality a lot sooner than even the most optimistic observers might have expected. All of this in and of itself will herald a revolution in geo-economic affairs, and that’s even without Saudi Arabia having yet to throw its full support behind the “petroyuan”.

Once this major oil exporter begins to sell its resources in non-dollar-denominated currencies like China’s, then the petrodollar upon which the economic-financial aspect of the US’ unipolar hegemony is predicated will be dealt a deathblow. The global systemic transition to multipolarity and the impending trifurcation of International Relations that will precede the final inevitable form of this process would unprecedentedly accelerate once this happens, thus further hastening America’s ongoing demise.

About those aforementioned processes, they were already made irreversible by the special operation that Russia was forced to commence in defense of its national security red lines in Ukraine after NATO clandestinely crossed them there and subsequently rejected Moscow’s security guarantee requests for politically resolving their resultant security dilemma. Over the past year, the New York Times was forced to admit that not only did the sanctions fail, but even the plot to “isolate” Russia did too.

These outcomes were largely the result of Russia’s example inspiring the Global South to rise up against neo-colonialism by refusing to comply with the demands placed upon them by the US-led West’s Golden Billion to unilaterally sacrifice their own interests simply to serve that de facto New Cold War bloc’s. India played the leading role in this respect due to its status as the world’s largest developing country, which gave comparatively medium- and smaller-sized ones the confidence to follow in its footsteps.

That globally significant Great Power, which sits on the South Asian end of the NSTC that transits through Iran en route to Russia, also scaled up its purchases of discounted oil from Moscow to the point where its decades-long strategic partner is nowadays its largest supplier. Of crucial significance to the present analysis, a growing number of its deals are in non-dollar-denominated currencies, which sped up de-dollarization processes to such an extent that even Reuters felt compelled to write about this.

Considering this newfound financial context, there’s no doubt that upcoming Saudi moves in support of the petroyuan that are taken in coordination with Iran and Russia would catalyze the next natural phase of de-dollarization. Russian-GCC real-sector trade that’ll be carried out via Iran across the NSTC will be conducted in national currencies and thus prepare those three for the moment when they finally decide to deal a deathblow to the petrodollar.

All in all, it’s not hyperbole to declare that the dollar’s prior dominance is done for as a result of the Iranian-Saudi rapprochement. That Beijing-brokered deal makes this outcome an inevitability unless some subversive black swan event takes place such as a US-backed coup against MBS, though that’s unlikely to happen after he successfully consolidated his power in late 2017. With this in mind, it can confidently be declared that that last week’s development will be seen in hindsight as a game-changer.

Macgregor: The Gathering Storm

  The war in Ukraine has of course nothing to do with Ukraine and everything to do the American hegemony. As the Chinese challenge is gathering steam with support for Russia, the agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia or bypassing SWIF and the dollar denominated system, history is about to accelerate...

Authored by Douglas Macgregor via TheAmericanConservative.com,

America’s self-inflicted trouble in Ukraine aggravates our dangerous trouble at home...

The crisis of American national power has begun. America’s economy is tipping over, and Western financial markets are quietly panicking. Imperiled by rising interest rates, mortgage-backed securities and U.S. Treasuries are losing their value. The market’s proverbial “vibes”—feelings, emotions, beliefs, and psychological penchants—suggest a dark turn is underway inside the American economy.

American national power is measured as much by American military capability as by economic potential and performance. The growing realization that American and European military-industrial capacity cannot keep up with Ukrainian demands for ammunition and equipment is an ominous signal to send during a proxy war that Washington insists its Ukrainian surrogate is winning.

Russian economy-of-force operations in southern Ukraine appear to have successfully ground down attacking Ukrainian forces with the minimal expenditure of Russian lives and resources. While Russia’s implementation of attrition warfare worked brilliantly, Russia mobilized its reserves of men and equipment to field a force that is several magnitudes larger and significantly more lethal than it was a year ago.

Russia’s massive arsenal of artillery systems including rockets, missiles, and drones linked to overhead surveillance platforms converted Ukrainian soldiers fighting to retain the northern edge of the Donbas into pop-up targets. How many Ukrainian soldiers have died is unknown, but one recent estimate wagers between 150,000-200,000 Ukrainians have been killed in action since the war began, while another estimates about 250,000.

Given the glaring weakness of NATO members’ ground, air, and air defense forces, an unwanted war with Russia could easily bring hundreds of thousands of Russian Troops to the Polish border, NATO’s Eastern Frontier. This is not an outcome Washington promised its European allies, but it’s now a real possibility.

In contrast to the Soviet Union’s hamfisted and ideologically driven foreign policymaking and execution, contemporary Russia has skillfully cultivated support for its cause in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The fact that the West’s economic sanctions damaged the U.S. and European economies while turning the Russian ruble into one of the international system’s strongest currencies has hardly enhanced Washington’s global standing.

Biden’s policy of forcibly pushing NATO to Russia’s borders forged a strong commonality of security and trade interests between Moscow and Beijing that is attracting strategic partners in South Asia like India, and partners like Brazil in Latin America. The global economic implications for the emerging Russo-Chinese axis and their planned industrial revolution for some 3.9 billion people in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are profound.

In sum, Washington’s military strategy to weaken, isolate, or even destroy Russia is a colossal failure and the failure puts Washington’s proxy war with Russia on a truly dangerous path. To press on, undeterred in the face of Ukraine’s descent into oblivion, ignores three metastasizing threats: 1. Persistently high inflation and rising interest rates that signal economic weakness. (The first American bank failure since 2020 is a reminder of U.S. financial fragility.) 2. The threat to stability and prosperity inside European societies already reeling from several waves of unwanted refugees/migrants. 3. The threat of a wider European war.

Inside presidential administrations, there are always competing factions urging the president to adopt a particular course of action. Observers on the outside seldom know with certainty which faction exerts the most influence, but there are figures in the Biden administration seeking an off-ramp from involvement in Ukraine. Even Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a rabid supporter of the proxy war with Moscow, recognizes that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s demand that the West help him recapture Crimea is a red line for Putin that might lead to a dramatic escalation from Moscow.

Backing down from the Biden administration’s malignant and asinine demands for a humiliating Russian withdrawal from eastern Ukraine before peace talks can convene is a step Washington refuses to take. Yet it must be taken. The higher interest rates rise, and the more Washington spends at home and abroad to prosecute the war in Ukraine, the closer American society moves toward internal political and social turmoil. These are dangerous conditions for any republic.

From all the wreckage and confusion of the last two years, there emerges one undeniable truth. Most Americans are right to be distrustful of and dissatisfied with their government. President Biden comes across as a cardboard cut-out, a stand-in for ideological fanatics in his administration, people that see executive power as the means to silence political opposition and retain permanent control of the federal government.

Americans are not fools. They know that members of Congress flagrantly trade stocks based on inside information, creating conflicts of interest that would land most citizens in jail. They also know that since 1965 Washington led them into a series of failed military interventions that severely weakened American political, economic, and military power.

Far too many Americans believe they have had no real national leadership since January 21, 2021. It is high time the Biden administration found an off-ramp designed to extricate Washington, D.C., from its proxy Ukrainian war against Russia. It will not be easy. Liberal internationalism or, in its modern guise, “moralizing globalism,” makes prudent diplomacy arduous, but now is the time. In Eastern Europe, the spring rains present both Russian and Ukrainian ground forces with a sea of mud that severely impedes movement. But the Russian High Command is preparing to ensure that when the ground dries and Russian ground forces attack, the operations will achieve an unambiguous decision, making it clear that Washington and its supporters have no chance to rescue the dying regime in Kiev. From then on, negotiations will be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

VDH: Are We The Byzantines?

 

  As it is said: History does not repeat but it rhymes. But understanding human nature, how could it be otherwise?

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

When Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans on Tuesday, May 29, 1453, the Byzantine Empire and its capital had survived for 1,000 years beyond the fall of the Western Empire at Rome.

Always outnumbered in a sea of enemies, the Byzantines’ survival had depended on its realist diplomacy of dividing its enemies, avoiding military quagmires, and ensuring constant deterrence.

Generations of self-sacrifice ensured ample investment for infrastructure. Each generation inherited and improved on singular aqueducts and cisterns, sewer systems, and the most complex and formidable city fortifications in the world.

Brilliant scientific advancement and engineering gave the empire advantages like swift galleys and flame throwers—an ancient precursor to napalm.

The law reigned supreme for nearly a millennium after the emperor Justinian codified a prior thousand years of Roman jurisprudence.

Yet this millennium-old crown jewel of the ancient world that once was home to 800,000 citizens had only 50,000 inhabitants left when it fell. 

There were only 7,000 defenders on the walls to hold back a huge Turkish army of over 150,000 attackers.

The Islamic winners took over the once magical city of Constantine and renamed it Istanbul. It had been the home of the renowned Santa Sophia, the largest Christian church in the world for over 900 years. Almost immediately, this “Church of the Holy Wisdom” was converted into the then largest mosque in the Islamic world, with minarets to follow.

So what happened to the once indomitable city fortress and its empire?

Christendom had cannibalized itself. Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy fought endlessly. Westerners often hated each other more than they did their common enemy.

In the final days of Constantinople, almost no help was sent from Western Europe to the besieged city.

In fact, 250 years earlier, the Western Franks of the Fourth Crusade had detoured from the Holy Land to storm the supposedly allied Christian City of Constantinople. 

Then they ransacked the city and hijacked the Byzantine Empire for a half-century. Constantinople never quite recovered.

The 14 th-century Black Plague killed tens of thousands of Byzantines and scared thousands more into moving out of the cramped city. 

But the aging and dying empire battled more than the challenges of internal divisions, or an unforeseen but deadly pandemic and the empire’s disastrous responses to it.

The last generations of Byzantines had inherited a global reputation and standard of living that they themselves no longer earned.

They neglected their former civic values and fought endless battles over obscure religious texts, doctrines, and vocabulary.

They did not expand their anemic army and navy. They did not reunite their scattered Greek-speaking empire. They did not properly maintain their once life-giving walls.

Instead of earning money through their accustomed nonstop trade, they inflated their currency and were forced to melt down the city’s inherited gold and silver fixtures.

The once canny and shrewd Byzantines grew smug and naïve. Childlessness became common. Most now preferred to live outside of what had become a half-empty, often dirty, and poorly maintained city.

Meanwhile they underestimated the growing power of the Ottomans who systematically pruned away their empire. By the mid-15th century Islamic armies were ready to exploit fatal Byzantine weaknesses.

The Sultan Mehmed II grandly announced the Ottomans were now the real, the only world power. Ascendent Ottoman armies would eventually move on to the very gates of Vienna in an effort to rule all the lands of the ancient Roman empire. 

We should take heed from the last generations of the Byzantines.

Nowhere is it foreordained that America has a birthright to remain the world’s preeminent civilization.

An ascendent China seems eerily similar to the Ottomans. Beijing believes that the United States is decadent, undeserving of its affluence, living beyond its means on the fumes of the past—and very soon vulnerable enough to challenge openly.

Left and Right seem to hate each other more than they do their common enemies.

Like the Byzantines, Americans gave up defending their own borders, and simply shrugged as millions overran them as they pleased.

Our once iconic downtowns, like end-stage Constantinople before the fall, are now dirty, half-deserted, dangerous, and dysfunctional.

America prints rather than makes money, as its banks totter near bankruptcy.

Americans similarly believe they are invincible without ensuring in reality that they are. Our military is more worried about being woke than deadly.

Like Byzantines, Americans have become snarky iconoclasts, more eager to tear down art and sculpture that they no longer have the talent to create. 

Current woke dogma, obscure word fights, and sanctimonious cancel culture are as antithetical to the past generations of World War II as the last generation of Constantinople was to the former great eras of the emperors Constantine, Justinian, Heraclius, and Leo.

The Byzantines never woke up in time to understand what they had become.

So far neither have Americans.