[JohnRawls]

Colony does as colony does.

That doesn't answer the question though, how come almost all Western countries can print infinite amount of money be it Japan, European Union, US or heck even Switzerland or UK compared to non-Western countries.

[Rancid]

I have pondered this a bit and the answer that I usually come to is rather idealistic and naive. First of all, it simply boils to a simple world "Trust" in the Western currencies or economies. But then it begs the question, why the hell everyone trusts our economies and currencies instead of somebody else and here comes the naive/idealistic part.

Over the centuries we have accumulated this reputation of being "greedy" so to speak, be it in the imperealist times or beyond that. Even Old Man Karl sort of mentioned that we will sell the communists the rope that they will use to hang us. But since somewhere after WW2 we have transitioned to be more pacifistic and even more so after the Cold War that "greed" even further transitioned in to sort of benevolent greed that can be trusted to prioritise the economic outcomes of our people and general society above war, conflict, emotions etc

I know this is an answer that most won't accept since its naive and idealistic and it portrays the evil "Western Capitalism" in a sort of good light but I just don't know what the other answer can be. Its just that over a long period we have done rational decisions when it comes to the economy and already were perceived "greedy but rational and hard working" at the start especially if you read old chronicles or memoires from travelers lets say from early Japan opening up or China opening up back in the 19th century. But then after WW2 we somehow decided that it is nuts fighting among ourselves and also time to be a bit more pacifist and just trade especially after the Cold War. May be Nukes had something to do with it. Sort of like, who do you trust more to keep your money and wealth? Russia? China? Iran? Saudi Arabia? I can see plenty of reasons why people choose European Union or US instead of the named countries. Heck even now, Europe and US are kinda wanting to follow the general legal civic law process of compensation and restitution when it comes to Russia and the war of Ukraine/Rebuilding of Ukraine which is mind boggling. China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc would just confiscate everything which is what Russia essentially is doing right now to fund the war a bit.

My over simplified answer is more simple than what you said.

To me, it's probably related to the predictability and consistency of the American Devil. That is, the US, in the long term, has consistently and steadily created economic growth over the decades. Of course that growth, in part, is related to the misdeeds of this devil. However, if you place money in that devil, you will get a return. From a pure investment standpoint (fuck morality/ethics), it's not a bad place to put money in, because odds are, some sort of innovation will bring the growth back long term. You will come out ahead. Thus, the money printing is tolerated since at least those that place a bet with the devil, will come out ahead eventually.

Further, the US willingly sacrificed its own working class in the name of economic growth. Proving, that money is, in fact above all things on this earth, including its own citizens. Why not invest in a place that places money above all things?

This is probably why you see wealthy foreign investors in the US as well. They trust that the American Devil, will place profit over people, and in some cases, like we see with Trump, over national security. Like you said, the capitalist will sell the rope you plan to hang them with.

So precisely because the US is fucking terrible and untrustworthy, it becomes "trustworthy" (read: predictable) monetarily. Life is fucking weird like that.

[JohnRawls]

My over simplified answer is more simple than what you said.

To me, it's probably related to the predictability and consistency of the American Devil. That is, the US, in the long term, has consistently and steadily created economic growth over the decades. Of course that growth, in part, is related to the misdeeds of this devil. However, if you place money in that devil, you will get a return. From a pure investment standpoint (fuck morality/ethics), it's not a bad place to put money in, because odds are, some sort of innovation will bring the growth back long term. You will come out ahead. Thus, the money printing is tolerated since at least those that place a bet with the devil, will come out ahead eventually.

Further, the US willingly sacrificed its own working class in the name of economic growth. Proving, that money is, in fact above all things on this earth, including its own citizens. Why not invest in a place that places money above all things?

This is probably why you see wealthy foreign investors in the US as well. They trust that the American Devil, will place profit over people, and in some cases, like we see with Trump, over national security. Like you said, the capitalist will sell the rope you plan to hang them with.

So precisely because the US is fucking terrible and untrustworthy, it becomes "trustworthy" (read: predictable) monetarily. Life is fucking weird like that.

That is part of it. But then you also need to answer the question why US or Europe don't steal money from individuals from enemy countries so to speak. If we were just "greedy" or "devil with hunger for money" that would be reasonable. But we don't do it, at least not in the same way as the other who basically take everything away for no reason beyond just "being an enemy". In here, you need to have violated a law or some procedure for that to happen.

[Rancid]

That is part of it. But then you also need to answer the question why US or Europe don't steal money from individuals from enemy countries so to speak. If we were just "greedy" or "devil with hunger for money" that would be reasonable. But we don't do it, at least not in the same way as the other who basically take everything away for no reason beyond just "being an enemy". In here, you need to have violated a law or some procedure for that to happen.

I'm just free flowing thought here:

I'm trying to find some sort of analogy with organized crime. All governments are criminal entities basically. The US government is just a really good organized crime syndicate basically. Better than many other crime syndicates (i.e. nations). They realize, that when you run a protection racket, you shouldn't completely starve out those you are exploiting. They have the discipline to play the long game unlike other nations? Dunno, I'd have to think about this one a bit more.

Toss in some religious beliefs around the capitalist God. Money is sacred, perhaps, the belief is, it must be won in a game, not stolen.

[JohnRawls]

I'm just free flowing thought here:

I'm trying to find some sort of analogy with organized crime. All governments are criminal entities basically. The US government is just a really good organized crime syndicate basically. Better than many other crime syndicates (i.e. nations). They realize, that when you run a protection racket, you shouldn't completely starve out those you are exploiting. They have the discipline to play the long game unlike other nations? Dunno, I'd have to think about this one a bit more.

Toss in some religious beliefs around the capitalist God. Money is sacred, perhaps, the belief is, it must be won in a game, not stolen.

Sure, that is an analogy not far from the truth honestly since we all associate monopoly on violence as a mafia like behaviour. And in feudal times, I would say that feudal lords were local mafia but then again, legal precedent or certainty kinda makes it vaguer.

[Skynet]

There is a mafia saying:" War is bad for business."

[JohnRawls]

There is a mafia saying:" War is bad for business."

If that would be the case then mafia wouldn't fight between each other but they often do. Its much easier to just take what someelses built by force instead of improving what you have or building something new.

[Skynet]

BBC claims 50'000 Russian soldiers died:

Ukraine has according a Polish general up to 1 Million casualties

[JohnRawls]

BBC claims 50'000 Russian soldiers died:

Ukraine has according a Polish general up to 1 Million casualties

Define died first? Are missing in action for months or years dead? Are non recoverable wounded dead?

Also define Russian soldier? Are mobilized soldiers? Are separatists Soldiers? Are PMCs soldiers? Are non combatants logistics NCOs soldiers?

Strictly speaking if you say no to all categories then may be but that would be arbitrary number that doesn't mean anything.

Just Avdiivka and Bakhmut total dead and unrecoverable wounded and missing is 55k. Around 30k for Bakhmut and 25k for Avdiivka.

[Rancid]

Define died first? Are missing in action for months or years dead? Are non recoverable wounded dead?

Also define Russian soldier? Are mobilized soldiers? Are separatists Soldiers? Are PMCs soldiers? Are non combatants logistics NCOs soldiers?

Strictly speaking if you say no to all categories then may be but that would be arbitrary number that doesn't mean anything.

Just Avdiivka and Bakhmut total dead and unrecoverable wounded and missing is 55k. Around 30k for Bakhmut and 25k for Avdiivka.

Saw an article about this story earlier in the morning. It mentioned that the real number is probably much higher than 50k. This is just what could be definitively confirmed. IIRC, they did not count separatists in the Donbas.

[paeng]

Europe has ~1.5m active personnel, and ~2.5m reserves, for the US it is similar. It's about allocating troops to the NATO response force.

That nytimes piece is paywalled, but j.d. vance is a MAGA moron. Go figure.

The rest of your post is the usual weirdo conspiracy drivel.

Most of them don't want to serve, and Europe barely able to provide economic aid to its own people, and much of that aid tied to debt. Meanwhile, the same Europe and US are dependent on China and others for various resources.

Meanwhile, the sources include Foreign Policy and the NYT, which don't exactly provide "weirdo conspiracy drivel."

Given that, I think the only one doing such is you, and it's probably because you're coping.

BTW, about MAGA morons, Biden promotes MAGA:

[paeng]

That's not really it, because if this were true, then all nations could just print forever. The reason the west can print more is simply because its economies are stronger and most all, more reliable.

What do you think the U.S. has been doing since the early 1980s, and to counter continuous trade deficits?

[paeng]

Why is Europe supporting Ukraine then?

According to Stoltenberg, they need to keep the "U.S. dollar-based international financial system" propped up:

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_222258.htm

When people talk too much, the truth is unwittingly revealed.

[paeng]

My over simplified answer is more simple than what you said.

To me, it's probably related to the predictability and consistency of the American Devil. That is, the US, in the long term, has consistently and steadily created economic growth over the decades. Of course that growth, in part, is related to the misdeeds of this devil. However, if you place money in that devil, you will get a return. From a pure investment standpoint (fuck morality/ethics), it's not a bad place to put money in, because odds are, some sort of innovation will bring the growth back long term. You will come out ahead. Thus, the money printing is tolerated since at least those that place a bet with the devil, will come out ahead eventually.

Further, the US willingly sacrificed its own working class in the name of economic growth. Proving, that money is, in fact above all things on this earth, including its own citizens. Why not invest in a place that places money above all things?

This is probably why you see wealthy foreign investors in the US as well. They trust that the American Devil, will place profit over people, and in some cases, like we see with Trump, over national security. Like you said, the capitalist will sell the rope you plan to hang them with.

So precisely because the US is fucking terrible and untrustworthy, it becomes "trustworthy" (read: predictable) monetarily. Life is fucking weird like that.

U.S. average economic growth started to slow down by the early 1970s. During that time, conventional oil production peaked and it started experiencing chronic trade deficits by the mid-1970s. That's why a few years later it started employed financial deregulation, with credit trickling down to the masses, to support both military and consumer spending.

In short, it's a Triffin dilemma: the country that creates the currency that's used as a global reserve eventually experiences trade deficits, as what it can export becomes too expensive for many but what it can buy too cheap. Thus, it has to take on increasing debt to cover costs because it can no longer earn.

Meanwhile, others have to save to earn dollars, but at the same time because they save they find the means to industrialize, which in turn makes them stronger economically and thus less dependent on the U.S. It started with Japan, then spread to the rest of Asia, BRICS, and the Global South.

The most prominent example has been China, which actually follows one of several variants of the East Asian model which was started by Japan. The result has been something like a 7-pct ave. economic growth rate across decades, which allowed them to lift over 800 million of their own people out of poverty.

These countries, including U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia, have become more aggressive towards the U.S. and G-7, and have been answering back. Meanwhile, other allies, like Japan and France, have also been doing similar, preferring to engage in trade with the same.

Finally, this and others have been known since the early 1990s. I recall Reich explaining in Work of Nations how a U.S. car company would have a manufacturing plant in Asia, with the engine designed in Germany, advertising done in France, customer support in Singapore, various components from South America and Asia, and with most of the investors foreigners from the Middle East. In short, it's an American company only in name.

It's more diverse now, with China, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and others taking over. And many of the U.S. brands eventually faded away or bought, and in more cases with companies from BRICS and the Global South taking over.

[paeng]

I'm just free flowing thought here:

I'm trying to find some sort of analogy with organized crime. All governments are criminal entities basically. The US government is just a really good organized crime syndicate basically. Better than many other crime syndicates (i.e. nations). They realize, that when you run a protection racket, you shouldn't completely starve out those you are exploiting. They have the discipline to play the long game unlike other nations? Dunno, I'd have to think about this one a bit more.

Toss in some religious beliefs around the capitalist God. Money is sacred, perhaps, the belief is, it must be won in a game, not stolen.

One Chinese expert was asked to explain, briefly, the difference between China and the U.S. He said that China is ruled by the Communist Party while the U.S. is ruled by Wall Street.

The implication is that the U.S. government and both political parties work for Wall Street, which manages the 70 pct of the wealth of the U.S. but owned by only 10 pct of its people.

Given that, it will always promote a combination of neoconservatism and neoliberalism to protect the dollar, and thus the interests of the few who own most of the U.S. That's why the military industrial complex, or "conspiracy drivel" first raised by Eisenhower is still seen as such only by the stupendously blind, is critical for its existence, as without the use of the dollar as a global reserve debt creation cannot increase considerably.

And the U.S. has to take on more debt even to pay the increasing amounts of interest just for previous debts.

https://www.usdebtclock.org/

[JohnRawls]

Saw an article about this story earlier in the morning. It mentioned that the real number is probably much higher than 50k. This is just what could be definitively confirmed. IIRC, they did not count separatists in the Donbas.

Ah, so like just the confirmed ones through social media is always a small number. Actually 50k confirmed is a huge number for the method. You usually get confirms on high ranking officers or officers in general. Regular soldiers are much harder to find and majority is not even posted on social media. Then there is a question of missing in action.

[noemon]

That doesn't answer the question though, how come almost all Western countries can print infinite amount of money be it Japan, European Union, US or heck even Switzerland or UK compared to non-Western countries.

I 've been genuinely wondering John, are you okay?

That answered the question that was asked by Rancid, his previous question, the one that you refer to was quoted & responded to in the previous post. Both of his questions were quoted and answered.

Lastly, Western countries cannot print infinite money, please do not peddle nonsense. Any country that prints money devalues its currency, except for the US because the dollar is global reserve currenty. Whatever it is you are imagining, exists solely in your imagination.

[JohnRawls]

I 've been genuinely wondering John, are you okay?

That answered the question that was asked by Rancid, his previous question, the one that you refer to was quoted & responded to in the previous post. Both of his questions were quoted and answered.

Lastly, Western countries cannot print infinite money, please do not peddle nonsense. Any country that prints money devalues its currency, except for the US because the dollar is global reserve currenty. Whatever it is you are imagining, exists solely in your imagination.

Sure, i do agree that we can't print money infinitely BUT you know yourself that lets say less than honest people use this argument as a sort of a shot at the West that we are collapsing or defaulting for decades now. Sort of like "Look at the debt", "Look at the money printing" etc etc etc

Well decades after we are still here. So for all intents and purposes of the argument "The West can print infinite amount of money", correcting this statement will just go in to a Too Long Didn't Read category nor anybody even cares or listens ever.

And the reasons were explained above by me or Rancid I suppose.

As for me being okay, I will be okay when Russia looses the War but before that, me and my compatriots need to continue the fight.

[noemon]

Well decades after we are still here. So for all intents and purposes of the argument "The West can print infinite amount of money", correcting this statement will just go in to a Too Long Didn't Read category nor anybody even cares or listens ever.

And the reasons were explained above by me or Rancid I suppose.

As for me being okay, I will be okay when Russia looses the War but before that, me and my compatriots need to continue the fight.

The only reason why the west has a lot of debt without defaulting on it, is because the US rating agencies give credit card passes to "allies" as long as these allies behave.

See what happened to Liz Truss when she announced 4 billion subsidies in a 1.5 trillion economy, the rating agencies almost killed the British economy in less than 24 hours the bonds had spread to worse than Greek bonds during the crisis, to get Liz removed to prevent 4 billion in subsidies while the US announced 1 trillion via the Inflation Reduction scheme. What became of Liz? She became "Liz the Vegetable" for suggesting households get help to pay their energy bills as per Labour's proposals. Look at what happened to Greece after the 2008 NATO Summit when Ukraine was invited to join and Greece vetoed FYROM from joining, less than 3 months later, Greece was bankrupt and branded in western front pages as a PIG for years, look how well behaved Greece is now. TIMES Country of the Year 2022 and 2023.

This is now starting to make it very obvious that even Britain is a US financial colony directly administered by Wall Street. That the US gives some of us its credit card as long as some of us are good sugarbabies does not mean that the west has something special the east doesn't, except for a sugah daddy that is.

This all goes to show that Europe, not even the old empires have any agency, they are all largely US colonies and follow US policy even more aggressively than Americans, like yourself and Rugoz constantly remind us.

Hence why it's better for Trump to get us out of Ukraine instead of our countries openly questioning US policy, like some other people who have already been branded "crazy dictators", like Orban whose country genuinely has a gas issue as does Slovakia.

All these have been simplifled into good and bad guys in Hollywood+ narrative.

[Tainari88]

That is a great question with a complicated answer.

It would require more work than I feel like to doing, but I can get you started. We are simply different from Europe. Our energy prices are lower, and our main trading partners are Mexico and Canada. Which means we are less dependent on exports to places like China, which has reduced imports of nonessential goods.

There is an election coming, and Biden has been fighting the impression people have that this could have been handled better. That would be insane, if it was an actual opinion, but it's just the suspicious and reactionary nature of American voters. So Biden is limited in what he can do to help Europe. Europe is going through a tough time, most of which is not our fault (demographic problems and rising costs) so it's not clear to me what we could do that would have a big impact.

Anyway, here's Zeihan:

I think I saw that man filming in Boulder once when I was walking around the mountain trails there. Anyway, there is the concern of the coming elections. It looks like Claudia Sheinbaum from the Morena party is going to be the next six year term president of Mexico. All the polls have her pulling ahead strongly. They look like they will have a clean sweep of the senate and the legislature, the governorships too of the 32 states of Mexico. So Morena will be fully in charge for the next six years.

She is a progressive socialist woman Mexican president. A scientist with degrees and an academic background and was a professor as well. How is she going to get along with a divided US government run by either Trump who does not get along with socialist women in general, or a Biden president that really alienated the Mexican AMLO with his summit of the Latin American nations were he was told the US does very little and does not help any of our economies in general in Central America, the Caribbean and South America. That the US wants the ability to send military troops into Mexico searching for fentanyl and drugs and they want Mexico to cut off a lot of relations with the PRC in trade and other aspects of trade.

It is also come to the attention to the Mexican press that the US government is plotting to outright lie on the Mexican government and paint it as a drug dealing government in collusion with drug dealers. That is an absolute lie. But if they can get away with it they might want to justify another invasion. It is outrageous the amount of smearing, lying and outright propaganda that is done by the US press to justify illegal wars and invasions. No one believes that crap over here.

In the 60 minutes interview with AMLO there was an entire segment that was cut out where AMLO discussed the connection between the Cartels and a previous Mexican president Felipe Calderón. The CIA were caught redhanded selling arms to the cartels. In fact, all the guns they use and military grade equipment like infrared, helicopters, and even heavy equipment is all from US based Arms dealers in the DC area. The CIA coordinates with them all the time. It was left out of the report in the US version but not in Mexico. It is politically embarrassing as hell.

People are believing lies about what is going on in other nations. And it is a justification for the US government to invade, and do all kinds of bad press for anyone whom opposes some kind of neoliberal pro wall street economic agenda. They even wrote in the US government (the Pentagon) that raising Mexican minimum wages, pensions, scholarships, beefing up health clinics, and many other measures that the AMLO government has done will cut into the US corporations bottom line profits and that it is a good idea to prepare attacks against them. That they need someone who won't give the Mexican worker any room to fight for better conditions. Who the fuck are these crazy people? Who think they have a right to rule other nations policies?

If they are smart they better cooperate with Mexico about immigration. Because Mexico is having to give visas, feed people, house people, and find them jobs when they are out of their native societies and are on a border and never can get entry into the USA and are either deported or sent back....many foreigners from Central America, the Middle East, Russia, China, etc all arrive in Mexico and often can't make it across into the USA. They wind up in Mexico for years and years and Mexico has to deal with it to the tune of millions of dollars and a lot of paperwork and problems.

The US is not the only one with immigration crisis. I have met tons of Venezuelans here and Cubans, and Guatemalans and Hondurans, and all kinds of people in Mexico. And they are not separated from their children and they are not told they got to leave in four days or something. it is a long drawn out process. I listen to them every time I go to the SER office and have to deal with Immigration here in Mexico.

The Mexicans will not like having to deal with millions of US citizens caught in a civil war fleeing the US.

Mexico has a lot of people 120 million plus, and Canada is not that numerous. Mexico is way larger in population that Canada. It also provides labor to both Canada and the USA. In large quantities. Alienating the Mexican government, and smearing them and lying on them and then wanting them to absorb the costs of all the caravans and not do shit to help the Mexicans deal with the costs of housing millions of refugees is terrible. The US can send people to Canada. But Canada is cold and few people compared to Mexico. It is cheaper to live in Mexico. An American fleeing a civil war is going to stretch their dollar much farther in Mexico than in Canada. And they will wind up in Mexican territory.

It is ridiculous that amount of mess that is going on politically in the US government. Threats of overthrowing people for what??

A civil war over some lousy politicians who are egomaniacs? It is not worth it.