20,000 plus plus sanctions against Russia by the USA…
I guess stupid really never learns and stupid has only one brain thought and that is a fart to begin with…
WtR
Category: Russia
I get newsletters from “Tricontinental” and they are well written and they are insightful. But they do mot load upon the home page very often. In fact more often than not the site is dead. Thus so that we can get some more good info out. I will post a few now and then to carry the word farther…
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https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/a-new-development-theory/
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Dear friends,
Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
For decades now, there has been a clear understanding that the models of development proposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Washington Consensus – debt, austerity, structural adjustment – simply have not worked. The long history of adversity experienced by the former colonial countries remains intact. A glance at the numbers from the Maddison Project Database 2023 shows that global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms has risen by 689.9% between 1980 and 2022 (from $18.8 trillion to $148.5 trillion). However, during this same period, global poverty rates did not decrease at a commensurate pace, which indicates that the benefits of global economic growth have not been rationally distributed. The only exception to this trend is China. The most recent report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), titled A World of Debt, shows us that global public debt is at a ‘record high’ of $97 trillion (2023) and that public debt in developing countries ‘has grown twice as fast as in developed countries’ since 2010. Not surprisingly, for decades, Global South countries have been told by institutions like the World Bank and the IMF that the only way to climb out of debt is to borrow – i.e., take on more debt. In 1998, the Wall Street Journal wrote bluntly that the IMF ‘has not been fighting financial fires, but dousing them with gasoline’.
In 1980, under the leadership of President Julius Nyerere, the government of Tanzania organised the South-North Conference on the International Monetary System and the New International Order. That conference produced the Arusha Initiative, which called for the creation of a new international monetary authority that would be under democratic management and control, with an international currency unit that would serve as both the international means of exchange and a primary reserve asset. ‘The world cannot continue to afford a situation’, the Arusha Initiative argued, ‘where one country imposes its own currency to play this role and uncontrolled international money creation and transnational speculative movements are allowed to occur’. This conference was one of many in that period, when the Third World Debt crisis was on the horizon, and it seemed clear that the IMF’s policy prescriptions would only enable suffering – not development. ‘When did the IMF become an International Ministry of Finance?’, Nyerere asked in his remarks at the conference. ‘When did nations agree to surrender to it their power of decision making?… The problems of my country and other Third World countries are grave enough without the political interference of IMF officials. If they cannot help, at the very least they should stop meddling’.
Yet, despite the opposition of Third World leaders like Nyerere, IMF ‘meddling’ continued. Nyerere ended his remarks with his hands in the air: ‘I believe they will bear the further sacrifices, and further burdens, which present conditions impose upon us just as long as they are assured that we are doing our best to share the burdens equitably and continuing to pursue our own policies’. But what policies were ‘our own’? This was neither sketched out at the conference nor clearly articulated in the five remaining years of Nyerere’s tenure as president. In 1986, the year after Nyerere left office, Tanzania’s new government went to the IMF and adopted the Economic Recovery Programme, which slashed public spending and liberalised foreign exchange controls. With no alternative in sight, Tanzania had to surrender to the IMF and leave behind the cooperative development policies of Ujamaa that Nyerere had implemented.
Every few years, countries in the Global South go through the same cycle. After surrendering to the IMF and its debt-austerity regime, a deep crisis inevitably takes hold and leads to political turmoil. New forces then emerge that promise a way out of the crisis, new governments take power, and, after several experiments, these countries again return to the IMF and the cycle continues once more. Despite the creation of ‘our policies’, as Nyerere noted, the balance of forces has been so adverse that no such independent agenda has been possible. Any appetite for a new international economic order has been suppressed, and there has been a lack of sufficient concessionary financing available for policies outside the recipe of the IMF.
In his last speech as president of the United States, Joe Biden said, ‘This is a fierce competition underway – the future of the global economy, technology, human values, and so much else’. This ‘worldwide competition’, he said, is between the United States and its allies on one side and ‘Iran, Russia, China, North Korea’ on the other, and the United States is ‘winning’ it. There is something juvenile about this speech. No other country has talked about a ‘competition’. When an Agence France–Presse reporter asked the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun about these remarks, he answered calmly, ‘During the past four years, China-US relations have gone through ups and downs but have remained stable on the whole’. There was no belligerence. The key words in the rest of the speech were ‘consultation’, ‘dialogue’, and ‘cooperation’. But Biden has a point. The emergence of China, and other Asian countries, as a source of demand for goods as well as finance for industrialisation in the Global South has tilted the balance of forces for developing countries. Now, they no longer have to rely on the IMF. The centre of gravity of world trade and technology is shifting.
It is precisely because this shift is disadvantageous to the United States – and the monopoly capital it represents – that it has begun to see the situation as a ‘competition’, whereas the countries that have emerged as major economic powers see this as their right to development. We, at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, do not see the current world situation as a ‘competition’ in the way that Biden describes it, but as an opportunity. As new sources of finance and investment emerge, the countries of the Global South will have another opportunity to ‘pursue our own policies’, as Nyerere put it a half century ago. What will those new policies be?
In our latest dossier, Towards a New Development Theory for the Global South (produced in partnership with Global South Insights), we argue that there is an ultra-high correlation between the share of net fixed capital formation in GDP and economic growth. Put simply, what is fundamentally needed to grow an economy is investment in new fixed assets (be they buildings, infrastructure, or industrial machinery). Moreover, we show a statistically significant correlation between GDP per capita and life expectancy. These findings make it clear that the entry of foreign direct investment and speculative financial flows alone will not improve social indicators. The quality of financing is key to the development agenda, and at the centre of this is the process of industrialisation. No country has developed without a modern machine industry, and – as far as we can tell in our time – it is not possible for any country to develop without building up its industrial capacity. We must invest in order to build, build in order to grow, and grow in order to improve people’s lives.
Our institute will spend the next few years exploring the different aspects of a new development theory. We believe that this opportunity, which Biden calls a ‘competition’, is too important to squander. There is poetry in the last lines of the dossier:
The African revolutionary Amílcar Cabral taught us that the goal of national liberation is ‘the freeing of the process of development of the national productive forces’. Therefore, the formulation of a new development theory for the Global South is also a return to the source of our struggles for freedom from imperialism and neocolonialism. With it, we will chart the path for the Promethean aspirations of the darker nations.
Warmly,
Vijay
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https://muckrack.com/media-outlet/thetricontinental
WtR
Does the US think they have found a country they can win a war against? Yes, our neighbor to the south, Mexico!
Nah, the real war with Mexico is the death of the American empire…
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Fight Canada, no, just swear by the fact that the USA is the greatest country in the world, that Canada will stand up and run to like a puppy…
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Iceland Same No, they just have to hide so American Ass can freeze solid. This place compared to Alaska which is like Alaska to Miami Beach. Just like Greenland, ask about nuclear power plants. The reactors that the US military left at the US military base under the ice can see Greenland’s thoughts glowing in the dark, on the US…
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The French Mongols in the north have not yet been declared terrorists. Give it some time…
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Zombies are on the rise in the EU…
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A new GM truck in Germany will cost you over €200k due to “customs specifications”, so people don’t buy it, can’t and won’t buy it, it’s a useless luxury… (Maybe Yugo could make a comeback?)
WtR
For the record…
WtR
https://tass.com/science/1902509
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune will align in the night sky, joined later by MercuryNOVOSIBIRSK, January 21. /TASS/. Six planets will line up in the skies on Tuesday, and those residing in Russia will have an opportunity to observe this rare cosmic event until March 2025, the Novosibirsk State University’s press service has told TASS.
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WtR
https://abakcus.com/directory/chaos-theory/
Chaos theory models how a population of living creatures changes from one generation to the next, when there are limits to the available resources.
West no resources and East all resources…
Thus Chaos…
WtR
Looks like Resources are getting very very thin in the Western Coalition…
It will be interesting to watch for the final decision of many countries, who will have to choose between free trade and respect for their sovereignty, or remain under the control and influence of the United States, never building their own economies, never being sovereign or being unable to compete fairly without American consent within their every component of their country…
The world must rise up and turn its back on Western repression and, if necessary, fight for its sovereignty and come together. The Western Empire must be forced out, and the people of the world must say no to America’s endless wars and endless malicious interference in the affairs of their countries to satisfy America’s greed and desires…
The USA is the BOOT & BRICS is the way forward…
WtR
Russian Defence Ministry reports on the progress of the special military operation (21 January 2025)
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Kharkov direction, the Sever Group of Forces hit formations of a motorised infantry brigade of the AFU close to Volchansk (Kharkov region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 60 troops, one tank, one armoured fighting vehicle, two motor vehicles, and four field artillery guns.
The Zapad Group’s units captured more advantageous lines and positions, inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades and one infantry brigade of the AFU close to Novoyegorovka (Lugansk People’s Republic), Drobyshevo, Kolodezi, Seversk, Yampol (Donetsk People’s Republic), Dvurechnaya, Glushkovka, Zeleny Gai, and Lozovaya (Kharkov region).
The AFU losses amounted to more than 510 troops, seven armoured fighting vehicles, including one U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carrier. Seventeen motor vehicles, ten field artillery guns, including five Western-made guns, and two field ammunition depots of the enemy were eliminated.
The Yug Group of Forces improved the tactical situation and engaged the units of two mechanised brigades, one motorised infantry brigade, and one assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine close to Konstantinovka, Druzhkovka, Izhevka, Predtechino, Belogorovka, Verkhnekamenskoye, Ivano-Daryevka, Orekhovo-Vasilyevka, Yantarnoye, and Chasov Yar (Donetsk People’s Republic).
The enemy sustained losses of up to 290 troops, two motor vehicles, seven field artillery guns, with four of them made by NATO countries. One ammunition depot and one electronic warfare station were destroyed.
The Tsentr Group of Forces continued advancing to the depths of the enemy’s defence and liberated Volkovo (Donetsk People’s Republic).
Strikes were delivered at manpower and hardware of four mechanised brigades, one motorised infantry brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, one National Guard brigade, two territorial defence brigades close to Shcherbinovka, Petrovka, Dzerzhinsk, Lysovka, Baranovka, Slavyanka, Novoyelizavetovka, Solenoye, Novoaleksandrovka, and Novovasilevka (Donetsk People’s Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 580 troops, seven armoured fighting vehicles, including one French-made VAB armoured personnel carrier, six motor vehicles, and nine artillery guns.
The Vostok Group of Forces advanced into the depths of the enemy’s defence, defeated units of two mechanised brigades of the AFU, one marine brigade, and one National Guard brigade close to Otradnoye, Novopol, Zeleny Kut, Velikaya Novoselka, Konstantinopol, Novy Komar, and Bogatyr (Donetsk People’s Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 120 troops, one tank, one armoured fighting vehicle, one motor vehicle, and three artillery guns, including a UK-made FH-70 howitzer.
The Dnepr Group of Forces has engaged manpower and hardware of one mechanised brigade of the AFU, one marine brigade, and one territorial defence brigade near Kamenskoye (Zaporozhye region), Daryevka, Mylovoye, Pridneprovskoye, and Antonovka (Kherson region).
The enemy losses amounted to up to 100 troops, 11 motor vehicles, and three field artillery guns. One electronic warfare station and one ammunition depot have been neutralised.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, and Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces struck a power facility ensuring operation of a Ukrainian defence industry enterprise, infrastructure of military airfields, fixed-wing UAV workshops, as well as engaged manpower and armoured hardware clusters of the enemy in 148 areas.
Air defence systems shot down four Hammer guided aerial bombs, six U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles, and 156 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles, with 55 of them out of the special military operation area.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 652 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 41,034 unmanned aerial vehicles, 590 anti-aircraft missile systems, 20,702 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,510 MLRS combat vehicles, 20,845 field artillery guns and mortars, and 30,540 units of support military vehicles have been neutralised.
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WtR
As Russians learned the hard way: “Garbage leaders in and out comes garbage!”
Very simple…
Works for computers, politicians, cities, countries, plebs, everyday life and etc…
Garbage in and garbage out!
WtR
Just another election end and beginning within the USA. Remember just four years of next election propaganda, massive money waste and we get a new stooge…
Truth is so easy to post upon when the USA is around. Eastern news has so many tidbits to post. The airwaves are smoking this morning as Trump plays his fiddle…
WtR