As Marxist economist Michael Roberts explains in a recent post, core inflation in Western economies isn't going down:
This is what worries central banks. And what it also shows is that interest-rate hikes have little effect on reducing inflation, which rose because of food and energy prices, something central banks cannot control and are now falling for reasons nothing to do with central banks. Instead, central bank rate hikes are increasing the cost of borrowing to spend for households and invest for companies. Indeed, as ECB chief Lagarde said at her press conference, monetary tightening was being ‘very efficient’ in squeezing the real economy. As I have argued in a previous post, profits are now being squeezed as price inflation abates. And rising interest rates are squeezing companies at the other end.
Sure, if consumer spending and business investment slumps, then core inflation will eventually fall, but only as economies drop into recession. Even then, the major economies may enter a slump in production and a rise in unemployment this year, but still have inflation rates well above the levels of two years ago – the worst of all possible worlds.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.
February 6th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
February 7th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
February 8th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
February 10th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
February 11th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
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. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.
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. Beware of chuddery.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are fairly brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. The Duran, of which he co-hosts, is where the chuddery really begins to spill out.
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 ~ Now rebranded as Battlefield Insights, they do infrequent posts on the conflict.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
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 ~ One of the really big pro-Russian (except when they're being pessismistic, which is often) telegram channels focussing on the war. 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. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
Any Western media outlet that is even vaguely liberal (and quite a few conservative ones too).
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.
Last week's discussion post.
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Yeah, I keep hearing that there is more tension between the US and EU than they let on publicly. It's just that Europe can't afford at this stage to go against the US.
Germany is a great example because there is definitely unease over this war, yet they cannot do anything but farm out there foreign policy to the US.
Since the war in Iraq, the EU is slowly realising that the US is unreliable. And the EU has taking steps (however small) towards autonomy. Russia is essential in that process. Weakening Russia means weakening the EU.
I know there's a contingent in the US that feels they are wasting resources they should be focusing on China. But at the end of the day, the threat to US hegemony is not Chinese hegemony but multipolarity. Weakening Russia and the EU could work to contain China by not allowing them to attempt to pry away Europe.
It's like you said: what situation would allow the EU to switch? Nothing at this point, the Nordstream affair basically solidified this. Even if it makes European capitals feel deeply suspicious of the US. If the Europeans draw down support for this war it will be on the US's terms. It will be because the US has decided to pull back from Ukraine.
Danish news media ran a huge story yesteday about the EU being big mad at the Inflation Reduction Act because Biden uses unfair competition (subsidies) in order to make sure that the US benefits the most from any sort of green transition. Then they had a long and serious talk about a potential trade war between the US and EU, and I wanted to scream at the TV that any tradewar will be won the second the americans just decide to stop exporting gas to us, because we kinda sorta blew up our own leverage against the Americans by sanctioning their main rival who also happens to be a huge exporter of natural ressources.