No update today, apologies. I intended to make one today but then numerous events and happenstances occurred. Tomorrow will be a return to your daily scheduled programming.

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Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Add to the above list if you can, thank you.

Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins

Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.

Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)

Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.

Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.

On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Yesterday's discussion post.

  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]M15•2 years ago

    Paradigm and Nervous Breakdown: Globalization Goes Into Reverse as Inflation/Scarcity Crisis Accelerates Naked Capitalism

    The headline for the upcoming Davos (in person! gah!) is Business leaders warn that three-decade era of globalisation is ending. However, this group sees a reduction in trade as vexing rather than catastrophic:

    > The three-decade era of globalisation risks going into reverse according to company executives and investors, as world leaders prepare to meet in the Swiss town of Davos for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began.

> The geopolitical fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine, combined with the disruption to global supply chains caused by the virus, recent market turmoil and the rapidly worsening economic outlook leave corporate leaders and investors grappling with vital strategic decisions, several told the Financial Times in interviews….

> Onshoring, renationalisation and regionalisation had become the latest trends for companies, slowing the pace of globalisation, he [osé Manuel Barroso, chair of Goldman Sachs International and a former president of the European Commission] added: “[Globalisation faces] friction from nationalism, protectionism, nativism, chauvinism if you wish, or even sometimes xenophobia, and for me, it is not clear who is going to win.”…

> Christophe Weber, chief executive of Takeda, which is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, said drugmakers would continue to seek growth in international markets, particularly China because of its high potential. But corporate focus had shifted to a more sustainable form of globalisation, he said: “It’s a question of de-risking your supply chain.”…

> Consumer industries are also experiencing a shift away from globalisation, according to Rachid Mohamed Rachid, chair of Valentino and Balmain.

> Some luxury companies are rethinking their strategy, which tended to rely heavily on global branding, selling to tourists and shipping goods around the world, he said: “The business has gone local . . . Stores today in London or Paris or Milan are now catering for their local residents more than they used to before.”

    There’s a whistling-past-the-graveyard quality to this discussion. Maybe they don’t want to spook investors, but they act as if they can’t see the train bearing down on them. Capitalism in advanced economies is at real risk of not delivering on its promise of provisioning at least adequately for the majority of people, particularly those who work.

    There’s also a failure to admit to the political and economic fault lines between the US and Europe, and their Asian protectorates, Japan and South Korea, versus China, Russia, India, the Middle East, and the Global South. That schism is made worse by Russia’s strong market position in many key commodities and the West having allowed China to become the factory of the world. If things get really ugly, China and India overwhelmingly dominate the production of active ingredients for the pharmaceutical industry, as well as making many end products. China also has a virtual monopoly in the production of Vitamin C, which among other things is an important food preservative.

    Let’s look at the UK, which admittedly is serving as an advanced economy canary in the coal mine. It’s official inflation rate is already 9% YoY.

    The headline story tonight is how by October (as in before winter cold really sets in), 40% of UK households will be facing fuel poverty, which is a polite way of saying you are like to have to choose between having a full belly and being warm.

    Mind you, the UK also had a petrol shortage last year and could have one again in as soon as a month if workers at the UK’s biggest refinery vote to strike.

    And we have coming global food shortages, which will hit the UK hard by virtue of relying significantly on imports. Last week, Bank of England described them as “apocalyptic”

    Bailey singles out Russia for a “blockade” allegedly preventing Ukraine’s wheat and sunflower oil from getting to market. But experts were predicting food shortages for 2022 even before the conflict erupted. Ukraine is the #5 grain exporter, at just under 7% of global supply. The #2, #3, and #4 exporters are in order Canada, the US, and France. France is expected to have a very poor year due to drought. US winter wheat output is projected to be down 8%. Canada’s is projected be up due to very high prices leading farmers to shift acreage to wheat.

    And the blockade charge is a fabrication. It’s Ukraine that mined Black Sea ports and is continuing to blockade them. The International Maritime Organization confirms Russia’s claims that it has established “humanitarian corridors” that remain open daily but that Ukraine that is preventing them from operating properly.

    Oh, and on top of that, the UK might have a rail strike in coming weeks. The Sky News headline gives a good overview: Fears ‘biggest rail strike in modern history’ will create ‘serious challenges’ in keeping goods moving and supermarkets stocked.

    There’s other fresh evidence of globalization breakdown. China’s house organ Global Times noted Unilateral sanctions add to evidence that it’s no longer safe to hold assets in US. While that may seem obvious, it’s one thing in China to think it and quite another to start making policy statements/official warnings.

    China having reservation about holding assets in the US is far more serious that it seems. The US runs ginormous sustained trade deficits with China. That means China accumulates US financial assets. The usual approach for a country in China’s position is hold a combination in pretty liquid form, as a defense against a run on the currency, and to invest the rest in the importer’s economy, ideally in productive investment like companies (foreign operations of Chinese companies, or “foreign direct investment” such as buying all or parts of US companies) or real estate, or if push comes to shove, buying stocks and making loans. Being restricted to holding liquid assets in Chinese or other friendly countries’ banks considerably lowers the attractiveness of trading with the US. It would not be crazy for China to start imposting export tariffs on shipments to the US to give preference to safer trade partners.

    And to keep this post to a manageable length, we will only mention in passing that we can’t imagine the big news of the evening has made China any more trusting of the US. Recall that Biden himself in his last call to Xi reaffirmed that the US respected the “one China” policy. That just went out the window. See CNBC’s Biden says U.S. willing to use force to defend Taiwan — prompting backlash from China for one of many accounts.

    Now of course WTO rules won’t allow China to do anything so crude as selective export tariffs (Japan in the old days had the wonderfully effective whisper and nod of “administrative guidance”). But in another smaller sign of how globalization is breaking down, India just imposed 15% “export taxes” on steel products, which will hit European buyers. Note they are already suffering due to the fall in Ukraine and Russian steel imports, as updated in the Financial Times a week before the surprise India tax imposition.

    • star_wraith [he/him]20•2 years ago

      I agree with Michael Roberts' thesis (my paraphrasing): that global captalism was saved from self-destruction during the Great Depression by WW2. The rebuilding of the capital stock of the west kept things going into the 70s, when capitalism began to enter into another free fall. Then, capitalism was only saved because of globalized supply chains and markets, just-in-time production, and offshoring. It's the tendency of the rate of profit to fall in action, only with capitalism saved at the last minute. Had the capitalists not found ways to keep the plane flying, I do think we could have seen a massive wave of socialist revolutions across the globe.

      I don't think these capitalists and the economic sorcerers of their court (even the cream of the crop, the ones who show up in places like Davos and Jackson Hole) realize they just can't undo globalization and expect capitalism to survive. I mean, of course they don't see it. They all think capitalism is the only option for the world. They think it's this inherently stable system and pulling back from globalization would mean maybe a minor, manageable drop in profits. Going back on globalization means capitalism would enter a massive profitability crisis (it's already approaching crisis levels as-is!) that IMO would dwarf the 2008-9 financial crisis.

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]M19•2 years ago

      And on a pettier note, Poland is demanding that Norway sell oil and gas to them on the cheap….because Poland is having a very big hissy! That is not much of an exaggeration.

      Funny but I have yet to see anyone in Europe complain about US energy profiteering, particularly on the LNG it has promised to Europe….or admitting that the reason energy prices have spiked since the war started is not the direct impact on the conflict, which is actually not a very big war by war standards, but the sanctions, which the West did to itself.

      Mind you, that’s only one of the “Things aren’t going the way they are supposed to” stories at the Financial Times tonight. Another is of Saudi Arabia continuing to reject US dictates regarding Russia: Saudi Arabia signals support for Russia’s role in Opec+ as sanctions pressure mounts. The IMF whistles past the graveyard in a global growth forecast that oddly does not mention sanctions blowback or even high energy prices and commodity, erm, sourcing issues. It’s a wee bit too oblique.

      The upside, one supposes, is at least the IMF is not making Russia, oh, Putin, responsible for everything bad happening in the world right now.

      Although there were other sobering stories on the landing page, we’ll round out our Financial Times cheery sightings with Overdue reality check for Fed and markets has barely begun.

      I must admit that I lacked the imagination to foresee that the ripple effects of the crisis could extend to the geopolitical realm, even though the neoliberal economic model depended on globalization to discipline worker wages in advanced economies. The fix to give the appearance of rising living standards was asset price inflation and rising levels of consumer borrowing. That hit its limit when subprime borrowers, on a widespread basis, were engaging in Ponzi finance: getting teaser loans that presumed they could refi attractively due to home price appreciation, and often extracting equity by refi-ing more than the old loan balance (we’re skipping over the derivatives turbocharging for now).

      But how we got where we are, into what we’ve now admitted is a proxy war with Russia (and if you look back to 2014, we’ve worked hard to stymie Russia’s efforts to de-escalate the civil war in Donbass), the US could be argued to have had colossal bad luck in terms of how events played out. Obama’s failure to engage in adequate post-crisis reforms, and then give the banks a second bailout via a “get out of jail nearly free” for mortgage chain of title liability, deepened and extended the damage of the crisis via millions of otherwise preventable foreclosures. That widened inequality, particularly by destroying black wealth. Making the Fed primarily responsible for stimulus, as opposed to having the Federal government focus on increasing productive capacity, made matters worse by inflating asset values and promoting rampant speculation.

      Widening inequality and a very slow recovery contributed to the hemorrhaging of Democratic party representation at all levels of government, resulting in a weak and geriatric bench. It also paved the way for the unanticipated rise of Donald Trump, due to the him having the unexpected break of running against an unappealing Hillary Clinton, who managed to make herself even more so over the campaign.

      Hillary, via her tenure as Secretary of State and her warmongering (recall that Obama checked her worst schemes; she still campaigned on launching a hot war with Russia, coded as a no-fly zone in Syria), was deeply enmeshed with the Blob. Had she not been the candidate, the plan to mix things with Russia might not have been front burner. But we learned when she lost how many college tuitions in the Beltway depended on intensifying that conflict. Recall how the defense-intel state quickly and frontally attacked Trump, with its press stooges suggesting that he should not be President because the military did not support him (openly saying America should run on third world authoritarian lines), then trying to flip electors, then running unfounded RussiaRussia! allegations that went splat when investigated.

      This is a very long digression on how outcomes are path dependent. If Obama hadn’t given Hillary the consolation prize of being Secretary of State, setting her up for another run, we probably would not have wound up at this juncture. America would never give up its hegemony gracefully, but it’s hard to imagine, absent nuclear war (which is not out of the picture) a more ferocious self-immolation.