[Majorityrights News] Trump will ‘arm Ukraine to the teeth’ if Putin won’t negotiate ceasefire Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 16:20.
[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 09 February 2019 07:49.
TruthDig.Org., “The Venezuela Myth Keeping Us From Transforming Our Economy”, 7 Feb 2019:
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is getting significant media attention these days, after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview that it should “be a larger part of our conversation” when it comes to funding the “Green New Deal.” According to MMT, the government can spend what it needs without worrying about deficits. MMT expert and Bernie Sanders adviser professor Stephanie Kelton says the government actually creates money when it spends. The real limit on spending is not an artificially imposed debt ceiling but a lack of labor and materials to do the work, leading to generalized price inflation. Only when that real ceiling is hit does the money need to be taxed back, but even then it’s not to fund government spending. Instead, it’s needed to shrink the money supply in an economy that has run out of resources to put the extra money to work.
Predictably, critics have been quick to rebut, calling the trend to endorse MMT “disturbing” and “a joke that’s not funny.” In a Feb. 1 post on the Daily Reckoning, Brian Maher darkly envisioned Bernie Sanders getting elected in 2020 and implementing “Quantitative Easing for the People” based on MMT theories. To debunk the notion that governments can just “print the money” to solve their economic problems, he raised the specter of Venezuela, where “money” is everywhere but bare essentials are out of reach for many, the storefronts are empty, unemployment is at 33 percent and inflation is predicted to hit 1 million percent by the end of the year.
Blogger Arnold Kling also pointed to the Venezuelan hyperinflation. He described MMT as “the doctrine that because the government prints money, it can spend whatever it wants . . . until it can’t.” He said:
To me, the hyperinflation in Venezuela exemplifies what happens when a country reaches the “it can’t” point. The country is not at full employment. But the government can’t seem to spend its way out of difficulty. Somebody should ask these MMT rock stars about the Venezuela example.
I’m not an MMT rock star and won’t try to expound on its subtleties. (I would submit that under existing regulations, the government cannot actually create money when it spends, but that it should be able to. In fact, MMTers have acknowledged that problem; but it’s a subject for another article.) What I want to address here is the hyperinflation issue, and why Venezuelan hyperinflation and “QE for the People” are completely different animals.
What Is Different About Venezuela
Venezuela’s problems are not the result of the government issuing money and using it to hire people to build infrastructure, provide essential services and expand economic development. If it were, unemployment would not be at 33 percent and climbing. Venezuela has a problem the U.S. does not, and will never have: It owes massive debts in a currency it cannot print itself, namely, U.S. dollars. When oil (its principal resource) was booming, Venezuela was able to meet its repayment schedule. But when the price of oil plummeted, the government was reduced to printing Venezuelan bolivars and selling them for U.S. dollars on international currency exchanges. As speculators drove up the price of dollars, more and more printing was required by the government, massively deflating the national currency.
It was the same problem suffered by Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe, the two classic examples of hyperinflation typically raised to silence proponents of government expansion of the money supply before Venezuela suffered the same fate. Professor Michael Hudson, an actual economic rock star who supports MMT principles, has studied the hyperinflation question extensively. He confirms that those disasters were not due to governments issuing money to stimulate the economy. Rather, he writes, “Every hyperinflation in history has been caused by foreign debt service collapsing the exchange rate. The problem almost always has resulted from wartime foreign currency strains, not domestic spending.”
Venezuela and other countries that are carrying massive debts in currencies that are not their own are not sovereign. Governments that are sovereign can and have engaged in issuing their own currencies for infrastructure and development quite successfully. I have discussed a number of contemporary and historical examples in my earlier articles, including in Japan, China, Australia and Canada.
Although Venezuela is not technically at war, it is suffering from foreign currency strains triggered by aggressive attacks by a foreign power. U.S. economic sanctions have been going on for years, causing the country at least $20 billion in losses. About $7 billion of its assets are now being held hostage by the U.S., which has waged an undeclared war against Venezuela ever since George W. Bush’s failed military coup against President Hugo Chávez in 2002. Chávez boldly announced the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a series of economic and social reforms that dramatically reduced poverty and illiteracy as well as improved health and living conditions for millions of Venezuelans. The reforms, which included nationalizing key components of the nation’s economy, made Chávez a hero to millions of people and the enemy of Venezuela’s oligarchs.
Nicolás Maduro was elected president following Chávez’s death in 2013 and vowed to continue the Bolivarian Revolution. Recently, as Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi had done before him, he defiantly announced that Venezuela would not be trading oil in U.S. dollars following sanctions imposed by President Trump.
The notorious Elliott Abrams has now been appointed as special envoy to Venezuela. Considered a war criminal by many for covering up massacres committed by U.S.-backed death squads in Central America, Abrams was among the prominent neocons closely linked to Bush’s failed Venezuelan coup in 2002. National security adviser John Bolton is another key neocon architect advocating regime change in Venezuela. At press conference on Jan. 28, he held a yellow legal pad prominently displaying the words “5,000 troops to Colombia,” a country that shares a border with Venezuela. Clearly, the neocon contingent feels it has unfinished business there.
Bolton does not even pretend that it’s all about restoring “democracy.” He blatantly said on Fox News, “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” As President Nixon said of U.S. tactics against Salvador Allende’s government in Chile, the point of sanctions and military threats is to squeeze the country economically.
Killing the Public Banking Revolution in Venezuela
It may be about more than oil, which recently hit record lows in the market. The U.S. hardly needs to invade a country to replenish its supplies. As with Libya and Iraq, another motive may be to suppress the banking revolution initiated by Venezuela’s upstart leaders.
The banking crisis of 2009–10 exposed the corruption and systemic weakness of Venezuelan banks. Some banks were engaged in questionable business practices. Others were seriously undercapitalized. Others still were apparently lending top executives large sums of money. At least one financier could not prove where he got the money to buy the banks he owned.
Rather than bailing out the culprits, as was done in the U.S., in 2009 the government nationalized seven Venezuelan banks, accounting for around 12 percent of the nation’s bank deposits. In 2010, more were taken over. Chávez’s government arrested at least 16 bankers and issued more than 40 corruption-related arrest warrants for others who had fled the country. By the end of March 2011, only 37 banks were left, down from 59 at the end of November 2009. State-owned institutions took a larger role, holding 35 percent of assets as of March 2011, while foreign institutions held just 13.2 percent of assets.
Why would Pat Buchanan rail against the “sewer of multiculturalism” and by default thus, in favor of integration?
The answer is that because they are advocating foolery - they cannot get out of their modernist way of thinking and adjust to the obvious requirement of (White) post modernity; that is, if one is to advocate a competent way of looking after our human ecology.
Ibid.
Tom Brokaw, the famed NBC News journalist, is very likely not a racist, as many have accused after comments he made on national television about Hispanic-Americans. I suspect the same is true of Duke University professor Megan Neely. Still, each of them recently proved they are blinded by tradition bias and a belief that being white is the default right, true and wise way to live in America.
During a discussion about immigration on “Meet the Press,” Brokaw said this:
“I also happen to believe that the Hispanics should work harder at assimilation. That’s one of the things I’ve been saying for a long time. You know, they ought not to be just codified in their communities but make sure that all their kids are learning to speak English, and that they feel comfortable in the communities. And that’s going to take outreach on both sides, frankly.”
Neely, who was serving as the school’s director of graduate studies in the biostatistics department before resigning on Saturday, used Brokaw’s logic to tell Chinese students to not speak their native tongue. “I have no idea how hard it has been and still is for you to come to the US and have to learn in a non-native language,” she wrote to the students after a couple of her colleagues were disturbed hearing Chinese being spoken in a common area. “As such, I have the upmost (sic) respect for what you are doing. That being said, I encourage you to commit to using English 100% of the time when you are in Hock or any other professional setting.”
There are legitimate reasons to believe Brokaw and Neely intended their words as guidance more than racist putdown. In the United States, the ability to speak and write clear English is an asset and a near-requirement for anyone aiming for the upper rungs in most high-profile industries, including journalism, academia, business and politics. Can you name a single leader in any of those industries in this country who doesn’t have a solid handle of the English language? Immigrants have long known this, which is why they have always been doing what Brokaw suggested they weren’t—adapting to and embracing some of the cultural norms of their adopted country, including the predominant language.
The sudden erosion of support from Senate Republicans ultimately forced Trump’s hand. “President Donald Trump touted GOP unity for 33 days of a partial government shutdown. But by the 34th day, it was clearly gone — and so was the shutdown by the end of the 35th.
Senate Republicans had finally had it and were struggling to continue to defend the president’s position and heap blame on the Democrats. Perhaps no one illustrated that dynamic more than Sen. Rob Portman.
The Ohio Republican, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), had spent more than two weeks pushing to reopen the government and then negotiate on border security, only to face repeated rejection by the president and Vice President Mike Pence. So when two votes came before the Senate this week, one on Trump’s plan, the other on a stopgap with no new guaranteed wall money, Portman nearly made a rare break with his party.
“I considered it, yes,” he said on Friday after the president finally caved on his position that the government would only reopen with a down payment on his wall.
Portman and most Republicans ultimately stuck with Trump after Pence’s pleas for unity. A sustained rebellion against Trump on Thursday, Portman argued, would mean the government “would not be open right now,“ because Trump would simply veto a Democrat-backed bill. “It would have been a real problem.” …”
So, the partial government shutdown is finally coming to an end.
Trump has been humiliated by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Senate Republicans caved and that forced Trump to cave. He isn’t getting any funding for his wall. The whole episode was nothing but a waste of time to look like he was fighting for the wall funding after two years of avoiding the issue.
I increasingly think it is a waste of time to sit here, day after day, following the news cycle to document the ongoing failure of Trump and American conservatism. It just discourages me from writing. I’ve been doing it for two years now and have grown tired of it. I will probably end up pivoting to history for a while.
Poland – We publish here the translation of Antoni Trzmiel’s editorial about the partnership we started with them.
The dorzeczy.pl website, belonging to the Polish weekly Do Rzeczy, has begun cooperation with the Visegrád Post and with the French independent Web channel TV Libertés.
Let us reclaim our own story!
Journalists from these media were in Poland during the days of national celebration of our regained independence. They were preparing a TV documentary for their viewers. Their perspective is not our perspective. But while it may not be rosy, their narrative differs vastly from the infamous description of “thousands of fascists, neo-Nazis and white supremacists marching 300 km from Auschwitz”.
These were the words of a prominent European politician, Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the Liberal group in the European Parliament. They show how much we have to do to stop such statements being made, including – as was the case here – during a debate on the rule of law in Poland. There is just one way to make this happen, and it is not by prohibiting such lies in Polish law, as such a law could not be enforced abroad anyway. Indeed it is not only Poles that should be outraged, but above all those who vote for the people making such ludicrous claims: French, Dutch, Slovakians, Czechs, Hungarians, Greeks, etc. But for this to happen, first they need to know when their representatives are telling them gross lies.
Conversations with my fellow journalists shed light on many bad things that are happening in their countries, which one would not necessarily notice when travelling there on holiday or for work. This is especially true in the field of freedom of expression. We will be writing about such matters on dorzeczy.pl.
Was it worthwhile for David to fight Goliath?
We have decided to cooperate on a permanent basis. Let’s be honest: from a business point of view, this will bring no benefit. Translations, travel and the time spent are all quite significant costs for independent media, which are low-budget non-profit entities. But we believe that if our journalists prepare more materials about the situation in Poland, there is a chance that in some of the media they know and trust, the Hungarians, Belgians and French will get a different picture than the one reflected by the liberal newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.
For the time being, there is a huge imbalance in forces, resources, and decades of cooperation. They are tied by common interests, while we share our opposition to the current situation (even though much separates us). True, it is a struggle of David against Goliath. However, cheered by that biblical story, we believe in the victory of truth. Let us be frank: there is a long way to go. But, as the Chinese say, a journey begins with a single step.
On November 11 we took that first step
In our case it consisted of three interviews conducted for our media on the eve of November 11. They were published simultaneously on dorzeczy.pl, visegradpost.com and http://www.tvlibertes.com on the following days.
Our journalist Karol Gac spoke with deputy prime minister Jarosław Gowin. Olivier Bault, a writing editor of Do Rzeczy and correspondent of French alternative media in Poland, questioned the Deputy Speaker of the Sejm Ryszard Terlecki, as well as MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski.
Thus, Polish readers and viewers had the opportunity to hear what these politicians wanted to tell people from other countries. This is important. After all, it has become clear lately that they are not heard often enough abroad, given that representatives of foreign voters proved able to compel those who represent a majority of Polish voters to change the law [as was the case with the retirement age of judges sitting in the Polish Supreme Court and Higher Administrative Court].
Our journalists too will regularly prepare materials for what we are confident will be a growing number of partners. At the same time, we will publish materials prepared by our partners on dorzeczy.pl. It is indeed not a normal situation that we know more about Bollywood or Hollywood stars than about the real life of Slovaks or the French. And, as the above examples show, this has a real impact on our own lives.
Antoni Trzmiel is a journalist working for Polish public television (TVP) and is also the head of dorzeczy.pl, the website of the Polish conservative weekly news magazine Do Rzeczy.
Opinion piece originally published in Polish on the Do Rzeczy website. Translated to English by Olivier Bault.
New cases of child rape revealed in Finland – President says asylum seekers brought evil with them
A number of cases of rape and abuse of children, with foreign perpetrators, have been revealed in Oulu in the northern parts of Finland since last autumn, Fria Tider reports.
The police are investigating another four cases with girls under the age of 15, where three perpetrators of foreign background have been arrested suspected of rape and serious sexual abuse of children.
In all cases, the suspects have background as refugees or asylum seekers.
And now the police in Helsinki have arrested several migrants suspected of serious rape and serious sexual abuse of children. The crimes have been committed in the last two months.
No direct link with the cases in Oulu is currently known.
Finland’s Prime Minister Juha Sipilä wrote on Twitter: “As a result of the inhuman and reprehensible events in Oulu and Helsinki, the Government will meet next week in negotiations both on Tuesday and Friday.”
Helsinki police point out the importance of parents informing their children to be cautious on social media, where the foreign rapists find their victims.
Hungary: we will prevent Brussels to implement the UN Migration Pact
Brussels is doing all it can to implement the United Nations Global Migration Pact, Peter Szijjarto, the foreign minister of Hungary, told public television. “But we will prevent this,” he said.
In Spain last year the number of illegal border crossings doubled, Szijjarto told current affairs channel M1. In Turkey, 50 percent more illegal migrants were apprehended than in 2017 and the number of arrivals in Cyprus has doubled. Further, the number of arrivals on the Greek-Turkish land border is rising steadily, he added.
The UN migration pact has put wind in the sails of global migration as it focuses on managing rather than stopping migration, he said. He noted that 40 UN members had not even voted for the compact and so, he argued, it cannot serve as a genuine international reference point. Officials in Brussels made the compact’s adoption a matter of prestige even when Hungary made clear at the outset that there was no single European position to be represented, he said.
Now they are doing everything they can in Brussels to lead the implementation of the global migration package, he said. “We will of course prevent this.” Szijjarto noted that 9 EU member states, or one-third, did not vote for the package. “So it’s not about European countries wanting to implement a global migration package as a united front,” the minister said.
Meanwhile Szijjarto, in a separate interview to Kossuth Radio, noted that the Austria-Hungary border legally can be crossed at 55 points. Fully 19 are major crossings while 36 are smaller, he noted, adding that 10 are subject to restrictions by Austria. Restrictions on crossings now have been lifted at 4 locations and 6 are still in place at the request of the Austrian mayors in question, but only one is paved.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 19 January 2019 06:07.
Jerusalem Post, “U.S. SIGNS ELIE WIESEL GENOCIDE PREVENTION ACT INTO LAW”, 16 Jan 2019:
The law is intended to prevent genocide and other atrocities that threaten national and international security.
Elie Wiesel speaks at a World War II tribute. (photo credit: REUTERS)
US President Donald Trump signed a law on Monday declaring that the prevention of genocide and other atrocities is “a core national security interest” of the United States, adding that it is also “a core moral responsibility.”
The Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, named for the world-renown Holocaust survivor and famed author, was signed into law by Trump after it passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in December.
The law is intended to prevent genocide and other atrocities “which threaten national and international security, by enhancing United States government capacities to prevent, mitigate, and respond to such crises.”
The new law obligates the US to mitigate threats to its national “security by addressing the root causes of insecurity and violent conflict to prevent the mass slaughter of civilians; conditions that prompt internal displacement and the flow of refugees across borders; and other violence that wreaks havoc on regional stability and livelihoods.”
The US will enhance its capacity to “identify, prevent, address, and respond to the drivers of atrocities and violent conflict” as part of its “humanitarian, development and strategic interests.” It also entails the establishment a Complex Crisis Fund that will deal with strengthening local civil society, such as human rights groups, and nonprofit organizations that are already on the ground, working to thwart and deal with atrocities as they occur.
According to the new law, “Appropriate officials of the US government” must consult at least twice a year with representatives of nongovernmental organizations and civil society actors in an effort to “enhance the capacity of the US” to identify the conditions that could lead to such atrocities, “including strengthening the role of international organizations and international financial institutions in conflict prevention, mitigation and response.”
It also “encourages” the National Intelligence director to give a detailed review of countries and regions at risk of genocide in annual testimony to Congress, “including most likely pathways to violence, specific risk factors, potential perpetrators, and at-risk target groups.”
The secretary of state is also expected to write an evaluation report every three years.
Speaking in December, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ben Cardin said that “America’s strength around the world is rooted in our values.”
“It is in our national interest to ensure that the United States utilizes the full arsenal of diplomatic, economic and legal tools to take meaningful action before atrocities occur,” said Cardin. “Earlier this month, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum identified Burmese military actions against the Rohingya as genocide. From Burma to Iraq, South Sudan to Syria, atrocity crimes tragically persist all around the globe.” He added that the Prevention Act will help ensure that the United States does a better job of responding earlier and more effectively to these heinous crimes. “I urge our House colleagues to pass this landmark legislation before the 115th Congress adjourns.”
Sen. Todd Young, an original co-sponsor of the law and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, explained that the US has a moral and strategic imperative to help prevent and respond to acts of genocide and other mass atrocities, and this legislation would ensure that the US government is better prepared to fulfill this serious responsibility.
Prior to the signing, Sara Bloomfield, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum director, said that “senators Young and Cardin’s leadership on the bill honors Elie Wiesel’s vision for the museum as a living memorial that would help save victims of future genocides and in doing so honor the victims of the Holocaust.
“This legislation is an important effort toward developing a bipartisan congressional blueprint for making ‘never again’ real by taking practical steps to mitigate the systematic persecution of vulnerable groups,” she said.
Tom Brokaw, former anchor, NBC Nightly News.
Péter Szijjártó, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Elie Wiesel speaks at a World War II tribute. (photo credit: REUTERS)