Yves here. Michael Hudson was interviewed Thursday on MEGA, a German news radio program, focusing on the economic impact of the war with Russia on major players, particularly Europe. We have a translated transcript below and will embed the YouTube version (in German) which is expected to be posted early next week.
You talked about crisis for German companies in the production of fertilizer. This just hit the headlines weeks after our interview.
You also said: “What you characterize as “blocking Nord Stream 2” is really a Buy-American policy.” This now also became more than clear after the destroyed Nord Stream pipelines.
Could you comment that?
MH: U.S. foreign policy has long concentrated on control of the international oil trade. This trade is a leading contributor to the U.S. balance of payments, and its control gives U.S. diplomats the ability to impose a chokehold on other countries.
Oil is the key supplier of energy, and the rise in labor productivity and GDP for the leading economies tends to reflect the rise in energy use per worker. Oil and gas are not only for burning for energy, but are also a basic chemical input for fertilizers, and hence for agricultural productivity, as well as for much plastic and other chemical production.
So U.S. strategists recognize that cutting countries off from oil and its derivatives will stifle their industry and agriculture. The ability to impose such sanctions enables the U.S. to make countries dependent on compliance with U.S. policy so as not to be “excommunicated” from the oil trade.
U.S. diplomats have been telling Europe for many years not to rely on Russian oil and gas. The aim is twofold: to deprive Russia of its major trade surplus, and to capture the vast European market for U.S. oil producers. U.S. diplomats convinced German leaders not to approve the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and finally used the excuse of the NATO war with Russia in Ukraine to act unilaterally to arrange the destruction of both Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.
(2.) For our audience, our listeners: In your new book “The Destiny of Civilization: Finance Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism, or Socialism”
You state that the world economy is now fracturing between two parts, the United States and Europe is the dollarized part.
And this Western neoliberal unit is driving Eurasia and most of the Global South into a separate group. You just stated this in an interview from November.
https://michael-hudson.com/2022/11/the-rentier-economy-is-a-free-lunch/
Could you explain this for our outlet?
MH: The split is not only geographic but above all reflects the conflict between Western neoliberalism and the traditional logic of industrial capitalism. The West has deindustrialized its economies by replacing industrial capitalism with finance capitalism, initially in an attempt to keep its wages down by moving abroad to employ foreign labor, and then to try and establish monopoly privileges and captive markets or arms (and now oil) and high-technology essentials, becoming rentier economies.
A century ago, industrial capitalism was expected to evolve into industrial socialism, with governments providing subsidized basic infrastructure services (such as health care, education, communication, research and development) to minimize their cost of living and doing business. That is how the United States, Germany and other countries built up their industrial power, and it also is how China and other Eurasian countries have done so more recently.
But the West’s choice to privatize and financialize its basic infrastructure, dismantling the role of government and shifting planning to Wall Street, London and other financial centers, has left it with little to offer other countries – except or the promise not to bomb them or treat them as enemies if they seek to keep their wealth in their own hands instead of transferring it to U.S. investors and corporations.
The result is that when China and other countries build up their economies in the same way that the United States did from the end of its Civil War to World War II, they are treated as enemies. It is as if U.S. diplomats see that the game is lost, and that their economy has become so debt-ridden, privatized and high-cost that it cannot compete, that it simply hopes to keep making other countries dependent tributaries for as long as it can until the game finally is over.
If the U.S. succeeds in imposing financial neoliberalism on the world, then other countries will end up with the same problems that the United States is experiencing.
(3.) Now the first terminals for LNG from the US are opened in Germany. How will this effect trade and interdependence / dependency between Germany and United States?
MH: The U.S. sanctions and destruction of Nord Stream 1 and 2 have made Europe dependent on U.S. supplies, at so high a cost of LNG gas (about six times what Americans and Asians have to pay) that Germany and other countries have lost their ability to compete in steel making, glass making, aluminum and many other sectors. This creates a vacuum which U.S. affiliates home to fill from their investments in other countries or even from the U.S. itself.
The expectation is that German and other European heavy industry, chemical and other manufacturing will have to move to the United States to obtain oil and other essentials that they are told not to buy from Russia, Iran or other alternatives. The assumption is that they can be blocked from relocating in Russia or Asia by imposing sanctions, fines and political meddling European politics by U.S. NGOs and National Endowment for Democracy satellites in, as has been the case since 1945. We can expect a new Operation Gladio to promote politicians willing to sustain this Global Fracture and the shift of European industry to the United States.
One question is whether Germany’s skilled labor will follow. That typically is what occurs in such situations. This kind of demographic shrinkage is what the Baltic states have experienced. It is a byproduct of neoliberal policies.
(4.) What is your view on the current military situation in the Russian/Ukrainian war?
MH: It looks like Russia will easily win in February or March. It probably will create a Demiliarized Zone to protect the Russian-speaking areas (probably incorporated into Russia) from the pro-NATO West in order to prevent sabotage and terrorism.
Europe will be told to continue to boycott Russia and its allies instead of seeking mutual gains by reciprocal trade and investment. The U.S. may urge Poland and other countries to “fight to the last Pole” or Lithuanian, emulating Ukraine. It will put pressure on Hungary. But most of all, it will insist that Europe spend an immense sum to re-arm, mainly with U.S. arms. This expense will crowd out social spending to help Europe cope with its spreading industrial depression or subsidies to revive its industry. So a militarized economy will become a rising overhead – while consumer and industrial debt increase, along with government debt.
As this occurs, Russia may demand that NATO roll back its borders to pre-1991 boundaries. That is the most likely flash point of conflict.
(5.) What is your view on the current financial situation in this war. The G7 and EU governments talk already about rebuilding and reconstruction of Ukraine after the war. What does this mean for Western businesses and finance capitalism?
MH: Ukraine hardly can be rebuilt. First of all, much of its population has left, and is unlikely to return, given the destruction of housing and infrastructure – and husbands.
Second, Ukraine is owned mainly by a narrow group of kleptocrats – who are trying to sell out to Western agricultural investors and other vultures. (I think you know who they are.)
Ukraine is already debt-ridden, and has become a fiefdom of the IMF (meaning in practice, of NATO). Europe will be asked to “contribute,” and the foreign reserves seized from Russia may be spent on hiring U.S. companies to make a financial killing rebuilding a pretense of an economy in Ukraine – leaving the country even more debt ridden.
A new Democratic Party secretary of state will echo Madeline Albright and say that the killing of Ukraine’s economy, children and soldiers “was all worth it” as the cost of spreading democracy U.S.-style.
(6.) I’ve read lots of background reports on the sanctions against Russia. It seems more and more the sanctions hit Russia hard, because they cannot produce all products, esp. technology, by themselves. On the other hand Russia have now more stable business and buyers with and in China, India.
What real effect do the sanctions have according to your analysis?
MH: The U.S. sanctions have turned out to be an unanticipated godsend for Russia. In agriculture, for instance, sanctions against Lithuanian and other Baltic dairy exports has led to a flowering of a domestic Russian cheese and dairy sector. Russia is now the world’s largest grain exporter, thanks to the Western sanctions that have had much the same effect as protective tariffs and import quotas of the sort that the United States used in the 1930s to modernize its agricultural sector.
If President Biden were a secret Russian agent, he hardly could have helped Russia more. Russia needed the economic isolation of protectionism, but was still too entranced by neoliberal free-trade policy to do this by itself. So the U.S. did it for it.
Sanctions oblige countries to become more self-reliant, at least in basic needs such as food and energy. This self-reliance is the best defense against U.S. economic destabilization to force regime change and similar compliance.
One effect is that Russia will need to buy much less from Europe even after the fighting in Ukraine ends. So there will be less need for Russia to export raw materials to Europe. It can work these up themselves. The industrial core that was Europe may end up more in Russia and its Asian allies than in the United States.
That is the ironic result of NATO’s new Iron Curtain.
(7.) How would you describe China, Russia and India: Do you see Industrial Capitalism or Socialism there?
MH: RIC was the original core of the BRICS, now greatly extended to include Iran and much of Central Asia and the roads involved with China’s Belt and Road initiative. The goal is for Eurasia no longer to have to rely on Europe or North America.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld often referred to “Old Europe” as a shrinking dead zone. It failed to follow its plans a century ago to evolve into an increasingly socialized economy with government subsidy of rising living standards and labor productivity, science and industry. Europe rejected not only Marxism but the basis of Marxist analysis in the classical economics of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and their contemporaries. That path has been followed in Eurasia, while the right-wing anti-government liberalism of the Austrian and Chicago Schools has destroyed the NATO economies from within.
As the locus of industrial and technological leadership moves eastward, European investment and labor probably will follow.
The Eurasian countries will still visit Europe as tourists, as Americans like to visit England as a kind of theme park of post-feudal gentry, the posting of the palace guards and other quaint memories of the days of knights and dragons. European countries will look more like that of Jamaica and the Caribbean, with hotels and hospitality becoming the main growth sectors, with Frenchmen and German waiters dressed in their quaint quasi-Hollywood costumes. Museums will do a thriving business as Europe itself turns into a kind of museum of post-industrialism.
(8.) Currently we saw the collapse and bankruptcy of the crypto exchange FXT. The management of this company seems to be highly criminal. How do you judge that?
MH: Crime is what made crypto a growth sector for the past few years. Investors bought crypto because it is a vehicle for the fortunes being made in international drug dealing, the arms trade, other crime and tax evasion. These are the great post-industrial growth sectors in Western economies.
Ponzi schemes often are good investment vehicles in their take-off stage – the pump-and-dump stage. It was inevitable that criminals would not only use crypto to transfer funds, but actually set up their own currencies “free of oppressive government regulation.” Criminals are the ultimate Chicago School free market libertarians.
Anyone can create their own currency, much as U.S. wild-west banks did in the mid-19th century, printing currency at will. When one went shopping in the early 20th century, the stores still had lists of the shifting valuations of various bank notes. The best designed ones tended to be the most successful.
(9.) Do you have any knowledge about business relations between FTX and Ukraine, the government in Kyiv? There were some rumours and press articles in the alternative media about it?
MH: The IMF and Congress have paid large amounts of money to the Ukraine government and its kleptocrats in charge. Newspapers report that much of this money has been turned over to FTX – which has become the second largest funder of the Democratic Party (behind George Soros, who also is said to be trying to buy up Ukrainian assets). So a circular flow seems to be at work: U.S. Congress votes for funding for Ukraine, which puts some of this money in FTX crypto to pay or the political campaign of pro-Ukrainian politicians.
(10.) Some months ago there were articles in the US press about plans by the FED: They are planning to establish a digital Dollar, a Central Bank Digitcal Currency (CBDC). Also in Europe ECB president Madame Lagarde and the German minister for finance, Lindner, talk about an introduction of the digital Euro.
Here in Germany some critical experts are warning this will only push the total surveillance of the population and customers.
What is your take on digital currencies?
MH: It’s not my department. All banking is electronic, so what does “digital” mean? To libertarians, it means no government oversight, but in government hands, the government will have a record of everything that anyone spends.
(11.) What is your view on the current weakness or strength of the US dollar, the Euro, the British Pound, Gold and Silver?
MH: The dollar will remain in demand, thanks to its success in making the Eurozone dependent on it. The British pound has little means of support, and little reason for foreigners to invest in it. The euro is a junior satellite currency to the dollar.
Without a dollar or other currency to hold their monetary reserves in, governments will continue to increase the proportion held in gold, because it doesn’t have government liabilities attached to it – so U.S. officials can’t simply grab it, as they did with Russia’s foreign reserves. Eurozone countries cannot be trusted not to follow U.S. orders to grab foreign countries’ reserves, so it will be shunned.
As the euro’s exchange rate declines against the dollar, foreign investment will decline, because investors will not want to invest in (1) a shrinking market, and (2) companies that earn domestic euros that are worth fewer and fewer dollars or other hard currency for head offices.
Of course, gold will have to be kept at home, so that it can’t simply be grabbed, as the Bank of England grabbed Venezuela’s gold and gave it to the right-wing U.S. proxy. Germany would be wise to accelerate its airlift of its own gold supply from the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank vaults in New York City.
(12.) What is your current analysis of the energy and financial crises in the world?
MH: No real crisis as much as a slow crash. Rising prices paid for what America exports: oil, food and IT monopoly goods, with living costs for consumers rising faster than wages. So there will be a tightening squeeze or most families. The middle class will discover that it really is the wage-earning class after all, and will go deeper into debt – especially if it tries to protect itself by taking out a mortgage to buy a home.
I’ve been studying the 11th and 12th centuries for my history of debt, and I came across a story that may have relevance to the questions that you’ve asked. NATO keeps claiming that it is a defensive alliance. But Russia has no desire to invade Europe. The reason is obvious: No army can invade a major country. More important, Russia does not even have a motive to destroy Europe as a U.S.-puppet adversary. Europe already is self-destructing.
I am reminded of the battle of Manzikert in 1071, when the Byzantine Empire lost to the Seljuk Turks (largely because its general on whom the emperor had depended, Andronikos Doukas, defected, and then overthrew the Emperor. Crusade of Kings, a game supplement, covers the battle extensively, and claims the following conversation took place between Alp Arslan and Romanos:[52]
Alp Arslan: “What would you do if I were brought before you as a prisoner?”
Romanos: “Perhaps I’d kill you, or exhibit you in the streets of Constantinople.”
Alp Arslan: “My punishment is far heavier. I forgive you, and set you free.”
That is the punishment that Europe will receive from Eurasia. Its leaders have made their choice: to be a U.S. satellite.
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Another banger! Thank you Professor Hudson!
This excerpt caught my eye:
> What is your take on digital currencies?
MH: It’s not my department. All banking is electronic, so what does “digital” mean?
Exactly my sentiment.
Really sums it up quite well.
“To live outside the law, you must be honest.”
The money in your pocket is not electronic. With a CBDC it will be.
This is the best line. “Criminals are the ultimate Chicago School free market libertarians.”
i fixed it,
“Criminals are the ultimate Chicago School free trade free market libertarians.”
Or, its corollary: Chicago School free market libertarians are the ultimate criminals.
Nobel laureate Gary Becker said as much. Paraphrasing–“Criminals are rational actors who make assessments of probabilities of upside and downside just like entrepreneurs.” Like many VC, they make their own rules, or hire politicians to revise them for their benefit.
Along these lines, if you look for Milton Friedman’s manifesto — Free to Choose — you’ll find it’s still in print, and the Amazon link offers several other books…and videos!
But if you look for Friedman student Elton Rayak’s Not So Free to Choose you’ll see it all by its lonesome, costing $80+ … so clearly not in print.
Not So Free to Choose debunks Friedman’s economics so thoroughly I even felt a little embarrassed for Milton. Apparently he never made a declaration that wasn’t a (plausible) lie. It’s much worse than I imagined…
Adam, thank you for this title. In searching for more on Rayack, I found this interesting excerpt from a reader on Lars Syll’s blog[1]
[1] https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/hayeks-endless-love-for-pinochet/#comment-5568
Criminals are continually arbitraging the difference between what’s moral and what’s possible, thus maintaining the phishing equilibrium.
Yes. Does this account for the enormous popularity of mob and mafia films, e.g., ‘The Godfather,’ over the past few decades? They tell us the truth about our society, but masked in a thin veneer of ‘otherness’ that makes the horrific crimes acceptable. How could we tolerate having real politicians and CEO’s as the protagonists. The mind will simply not accept that our leaders are corrupt.
On the same note, I wonder about the prevalence of superhero films. Do they persuade us that we are weak and must wait for all-powerful heroes to vanquish the forces of evil? And, there’s the spate of assassin films, where the killers off only the bad guys, of course.
Exactly: Trump as superhero.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/us/politics/trump-nft-trading-cards-superhero.html
Let’s remember Trump gliding down his golden escalator to announce his presidential run as if he was descending from Valhalla.
thanks Yves. MH is awesome as always
When Operation Gladio was mentioned, I had to wonder how much blackmail is playing into many decisions being made.
And I wonder how much access to positions of power, and being able to stay in that position for a long period of time, is dependent on someone already being compromised and controlled.
See, for example, Whitney Webb on “One Nation Under Blackmail”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D3rhlXhvf-c
Michael Hudson has profound understanding of historical and contemporary economics that allows him to express issues succinctly understandable to the proletariat.
Long Live Michael Hudson.
Good grief, Professor Hudson. Reading this is like spending 20 minutes with the knowledgeable and clear-eyed physician who has diagnosed the patient with an incurable, and particularly loathsome, disease, and is clinically detailing the downward progress of his/her last days.
I think this analysis is spot on.
As a British person, I wish it were not. But I can find no way to fault it unless we find some brave European politicians who genuinely crave independence and act accordingly.
Subservience though seems now to be internalized. The fact that the US has not even bothered to try to frame Russia for the blowing up of the pipelines but just moved on, sums that up.
Michael as ever on the right side of history.
Working in finance in London, it is fascinating to see how colleagues and clients alike have no clue on what is happening geopolitically or economically; or what is about to hit. For them, the music is still playing. Will be intriguing to see what happens when the music stops; or will the can be kicked down the road a bit further?
I heard Michael conclude elsewhere that it is not possible to reform the system as it is so entrenched; and with a uni-party / corporate state in control of the economy, jobs, education and the media. Democracy an utter fabrication – so no real hope for an independent politician. Hard to disagree, given Corbyn.
I agree. I just opened Linked In and a post from someone in my network (a British consultant) hit me immediately. It’s a week old but he is extolling the fact that he went to the opening of some Russian “war crimes” exhibition in London. Ms Zelenska was the star speaker apparently.
These are intelligent people but they fail to see the hypocrisy, given western past and on going war crimes.
They also choose not to question that what they are being told is propaganda but are totally eager to believe the “Putin is evil” message.
I now understand how societies commit evils such as the Holocaust. The people doing so convince themselves that their actions are virtuous. The career seeking and self justifying PMC are also always at the vanguard, as noted by Hannah Arendt in her depiction of Eichmann.
There was indeed a Russian “war crimes” exhibition in London which I read about in the news a coupla days ago-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11482973/Olena-Zelenska-opens-exhibition-Russian-War-Crimes-Westminster.html
There’s even a Russian War Crimes website online that started at – wait for it – the World Economic Forum 2022 at Davos-
https://www.russianwarcrimeshouse.org/
This is why I absolutely despise those who are on some sort of moral crusade. They consider their causes so rughteous that its pursuit justifies practically any evil–the more righteous they think they are, the more evil they are willing to do because “my cause is righter.” Root of “really evil” is (self-)righteousness, imho.
“I now understand how societies commit evils such as the Holocaust. The people doing so convince themselves that their actions are virtuous. The career seeking and self justifying PMC are also always at the vanguard, as noted by Hannah Arendt in her depiction of Eichmann.“
Exactly. As an aside consider why India fails in comparison against China. The problem with Gandhi’s approach was that it simply facilitated a brown elite to step into the shoes of the departing English. No real change for the masses, but a few more self-absorbed billionaires. Ditto Mandela and S Africa.
I happen to be in South Africa right now. Go to Sandton, the richest Johannesburg suburb, and what you say is precisely right. One extractive elite exchanged for another but most ordinary people see only limited change.
Re: Mandala enabling a Black elite: It has been over ten years since I read Naomi Klein’s ‘Shock Doctrine,’ but I believe she has a section on Mandala and South Africa. Mandala was ‘persuaded,’ i.e., leaned on heavily by the US and others, to implement neo-liberalism, counter to his wish to implement a more socialist model. Commenters may wish to agree / disagree with her version.
RE: Union Pacific railroad shipping embargoes raise complaints Freight Waves
So, just in case there was any doubt that “precision railroad scheduling” is a capitalist “innovation” beneficial to no one but the railroad robber barons 2.0,
I wonder just how much more “innovation” and “robustness” can this nation take before it explodes?
Biden’s bid to sacrifice Ukrainians, German & Chinese AGW mitigating industry & trade (along with US citizens, red-lined amidst scores-of-thousands of leaky, quick to kick, impossible to plug fracked wells, pipelines & ethane gathering systems, crackers, coal, bitumen infrastructure & decaying reactors) is not working. Any number of pipelines are available & oilgarchs tend to get their way?
https://apnews.com/article/business-pennsylvania-state-government-climate-and-environment-politics-778fffd63ac1db58ab7df86fe1958ffa
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-13/us-gas-leak-at-equitrans-well-in-pennsylvania-adds-climate-pressure
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/is-us-shale-oil-revolution-over-kemp-2022-11-22/
https://t.co/mAgn4u0hG6
Thanks for this post. Calm and measured.
This line made me think it’s working the same in the US where local communities are learning to find local sources in place of global supply chains which are unraveling.
“Sanctions oblige countries to become more self-reliant, at least in basic needs such as food and energy. This self-reliance is the best defense against U.S. economic destabilization to force regime change and similar compliance.”
an aside, this is a great description of the Chicago School’s adherents wrt crypto.
“Criminals are the ultimate Chicago School free market libertarians.”
I’d add that if you aren’t willing to kill some people to keep your capital, you’re no capitalist.
sry if this appears to some a dumb question, but in detail what does MH mean by reference to Gladio?
The historic Operation Gladio is one thing but in how far does it contribute to current major economic “restructuring” via influence on politicians as described above? (And how did it, according to MH at least, did have economic impact in the past?)
after all Gladio was a “static military option”. Not a fluid one meddling in financial policies a far as I remember.
or did I get something terribly wrong?
thx.
I think Prof. Hudson would be right to suggest that the Azov Battalion and the Ukrainian coup of 2014 are the present manifestation of Operation Gladio, the modern fruit of Hytler’s Angels, Prescott Bush and Averell Harriman.
https://historyheist.com/ny-herald-tribune-exposes-hitlers-angels-the-us-bush-harriman-thyssen-funding-of-hitler-later-quietly-revealed-in-2003-foia-docs/
Prescott Bush is well-known by his progeny, but note that in his memoir Biden refers to Harriman as his mentor in attacking the USSR from southeastern Europe.
thx for the links and names to look up.
Some I know superficially only.
I didn´t think he would be referring to the Ukrainians as new Gladio.
That sort of makes sense.
However I am not convinced by his economics shortcut between Ukrainian Gladio and it´s indirect significance for economic decisions in the EU.
Those are two different pairs of shoes.
While Gladio is formally a reference to organizing stay behind guerrillas for a potential hot war between capitalism and communism, there are claims that various people trained and equipped that way went on to attack left wing groups in western Europe during the cold war.
yes that´s the part of Gladio I am referring to and that I have read about many times.
But how does that fit into the particular reference Hudson is giving:
“(…) The assumption is that they (THE GERMAN AND EUROPEAN HEAVY INDUSTRY) can be blocked from relocating in Russia or Asia by imposing sanctions, fines and political meddling European politics by U.S. NGOs and National Endowment for Democracy satellites in, as has been the case since 1945.
We can expect a new Operation Gladio to promote politicians willing to sustain this Global Fracture and the shift of European industry to the United States.(…)”
Emphasis added by me is about economics or is it not?
But how does a secret military organization promote politicians who wish to push European heavy industry to the U.S. ?
I would be eager to hear an explanation because that´s a highly interesting intepretation/speculation. But of course such things don´t just work that simple (so many various levels and branches of power would be involved). It´s way more complicated.
And I have never come across this non-military role of Gladio.
Sry for being so particular on this one.
By having Gladio style groups target those that favor European/national interest over US interests, in order to keep them away from positions of power.
Effectively turn Europe into the same kind of political basket case that South America became during the cold war, under the pretext of averting a communist domino effect.
I saw a tweet the other day that shows the split between the two world orders-
‘₦₳V𝚜𝚝é𝚟𝚊 🇷🇺 ᴢ
@Navsteva
Russian economist Mikhail Khazin on Scott Ritter’s show today makes an excellent point: US “economists” are not qualified to analyze the Russian economy. Russia’s economy is based on real economic activity i.e. physical production, the US economy is based on speculation.’
https://twitter.com/Navsteva/status/1603171881212747777
And really, what was FTX all about?
In other words “WTF was FTX all about?”
Good analysis.
Anyone for tulips?
How far will the US go in Europe? Let’s not forget what the US imports from Europe – aerospace components (for F-16, F-35, Boeing), another components for defence industry, fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, machinery. China doesn’t make all of that and the US wants to divorce itself from China. The US lacks 10 million people in labor force to industrialize again and lacks the ability to produce machinery for new factories. When crisis in Europe pushes companies to stop production and pushes employees to strike then the above goods stop coming to the US. White House knows this (they do crazy things but they are not stupid) an that’s why UKR-RUS conflict will be frozen next year to keep Europe alive to supply the US based on energy and raw materials sourced from the US and its satelites. Europe will be saddled with dollar debt and kept as a debt slave, half dead, half alive to supply the US forever, to work for pennies. Western alliance is becoming COMECON as this is the way COMECON worked under Soviet Union. To simplify it, the US (financial empire) has acquired industrial empire (Europe). That’s what Soviet Union did after 1945 in Eastern Europe. Europe is not going to become an open air museum but a sweatshop producing all types of goods for the US.
The article with these Baker-words is nowhere where anyone can comment on it (these days not even at CEPR dot net?). Counterpunch doesn’t even post it on facebook? But all the tweaks Baker recommends to render future production actually meaningful, practical, and ongoing seem to me blotted out by a mass misperception of how battling Russia by proxy or otherwise will end up (ditto tangoing with China, or with both at the same time).
from the Hudson interview above…
I could be wrong, but Baker’s route to helping “technologies to generate wind and solar power” seems a little involved given the pace of climate disruption. Sorry to sound too rad, but maybe trains hauling NOT-Gatesian-gmo dried grains, and horse carts disseminating said goods further along…seems like a more realistic scenario to shoot for (with concomitant diagnosis of the MICIMATT Complex).
Or dried beans, or flour. For most veggies you’d need a very organized horse cart delivery system.