Here is today's update!

Links and Stuff

Want to contribute?

RSS Feed

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.


Telegram Channels

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

Pro-Russian

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.

https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.

https://t.me/asbmil ~ ASB Military News, banned from Twitter.

https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.

https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster - crowd-funded U.S journalist, mostly pro-Russian, works on the ground near warzones to report news and talk to locals.

https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it's a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.

https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.

https://t.me/rybar ~ Russian language.

https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.

https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.

https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense.

https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine

With the entire western media sphere being overwhelming pro-Ukraine already, you shouldn't really need more, but:

https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.

https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.


Yesterday's discussion post.


    • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      It is caused by both because it’s essentially just a ratio between the two.

      The money supply was increased by 45% in 2020. There is no way that this did not impact inflation

    • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Interest rates do not affect inflation period, mainstream economics likes to push the theory that monetary policy is effective because frankly it is like the evangelical pastor claiming faith healing works. It is kind of fundamental to keep the whole circus going, but the empirical evidence is against it.

      I like to point to Michael Roberts post on this issue. First I'd point out that inflation is being caused not only by the supply chain but also the skyrocketing corporate profits of the past 3 years. Also at the same time raising interest rates is not going to work unless the rates realy skyrocket over 3 or 4x the current value. Whatever you read in the MSM about inflation and interest rates you can pretty much ignore it.

      As always I recommend the articles completely. Inflation: wages versus profits

      Since the COVID slump, labour’s share of income and real wages have been falling sharply even as unemployment falls. This is the complete opposite of the Keynesian inflation theory and the so-called ‘iron law of wages’ proposed by Weston against Marx. The rise in inflation has not been driven by anything that looks like an overheating labour market—instead it has been driven by higher corporate profit margins and supply-chain bottlenecks. That means that central banks hiking interest rates to ‘cool down’ labour markets and reduce wage rises will have little effect on inflation and are more likely to cause stagnation in investment and consumption, thus provoking a slump.

      The Economic Policy Institute reckons that, since the trough of the COVID-19 recession in the second quarter of 2020, overall prices in the producing sector of the US economy have risen at an annualised rate of 6.1%—a pronounced acceleration over the 1.8% price growth that characterized the pre-pandemic business cycle of 2007–2019. Over half of this increase (53.9%) can be attributed to fatter profit margins, with labour costs contributing less than 8% of this increase. This is not normal. From 1979 to 2019, profits only contributed about 11% to price growth and labour costs over 60%. Non labour inputs (raw materials and components) are also driving up prices more than usual in the current economic recovery.

      and

      The inflation debate

      Central banks have little control over the ‘real economy’ in capitalist economies and that includes any inflation of prices in goods or services. For the 30 years of general price disinflation (where price rises slow or even deflate), central banks struggled to meet their usual 2% annual inflation target with their usual weapons of interest rates and monetary injections. And it will be the same story in trying this time to reduce inflation rates. As I have argued before, all the central banks were caught napping as inflation rates soared. And why was this? In general, because the capitalist mode of production does not move in a steady, harmonious and planned way but instead in a jerky, uneven and anarchic manner, of booms and slumps. But also, they misread the nature of the inflationary spiral, relying as they do on the incorrect theories of inflation.

      The hardline monetarists call for sharp rises in interest rates to curb demand while the Keynesians worry about wage-push inflation as rising wages ‘force’ companies to raise prices. But inflation rates did not rise when central banks pumped trillions into the banking system to avoid a meltdown during the global financial crash of 2008-9 or during the COVID pandemic. All that money credit from ‘quantitative easing’ ended up as near-zero cost funding for financial and property speculation. ‘Inflation’ took place in stock and housing markets, not in the shops. What that means is that US Federal Reserve’s ‘pivot’ towards interest rate rises and reverse QE will not control inflation rates.

    • RonPaulBlart [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Dumbo here: why does increasing interests rates result in debt being harder to pay off? You mean debt accrued after the interest rates have risen?

      • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        It’s not about harder to pay off but actually about discouraging lending, which will cause a recession because then companies can’t/won’t borrow to make payroll and lay people off.

        The inflation is being forced at the top to “balance out” worker’s wages being so high. Fed officials have said as much. Companies are hiring people, every new hire and old hire is demanding higher pay, so companies are raising prices.

        The only way the govt can choose to react to this is force a recession to lay people off.

        A more rational govt planning would just put them to work on a variety of projects.

        • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          Except they can't because we are already in an actual labor shortage in many areas. Normally that is the valve they would release, but it is unavailable. The reason companies have to raise wages is because they have to attract workers in order to remain competitive. I think their hope is to redistribute the population to those labor short areas, which will allow for that pressure to drop, but with housing and rent prices the way they are, most people can't afford to move.

          It really is a total clusterfuck, that will probably be floated by more bad credit.

          • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Govt projects are a fiscal policy and not a monetary one. And the govt. is essentially deadlocked. Otherwise you could offload some of the high wages to govt. largesse and boost consumer demand without affecting private companies. That said, the other factor affecting all this is China; they continue to shut down entire cities to maintain zero covid and American companies are paying the price. I would also blame the Ukraine war, lol.