Yes and no. In the most recent US financial crisis, there were developed countries who didn’t have very much exposure to the kinds of toxic assets the US did; and they were basically fine.

Now, there are more material ways other nations could suffer from a US collapse. The worst would be countries that are heavily invested in the US market. If all my biggest corporations make their profit in the US, that could seriously hurt. Countries that export to the US would be hurt, too.

But ultimately, I think enough countries in the world have enough economic distance from the US that they’d be fine. The ones that are tied to the US financial system could get cooked, but that’s really just the US vassals and frankly they deserve it.

But let’s think though what happens to China. The worst that would happen is their Treasuries would be worthless and their exports to the US dry up. That’s a massive hit, no doubt. But I also think it would be transient. All it does is, after a period of painful readjustment, shift a lot of production to domestic consumption. Hell, it might actually cause them to push the socialism button a lot faster because you can’t really have an overcapacity problem in centrally-planned socialism like you can under capitalism.

If this was a board game, and the goal is to maximize the welfare of the Ukrainian people, and I was in charge of the Ukraine side I would

*1. Call for a cease fire immediately so a peace deal can be worked out.

*2. Make said deal with Putin, give Russia the territories they hold and agree to never join NATO or the EU.

*3. Tell everyone in the west who holds Ukrainian debt or claims on Ukrainian assets to get fucked.

*4. As a part of #2 above, tie the country economically to Russia and BRICS, and even see if you can get some help financially in rebuilding.

Instead, the war is going to drag on and kill so many more people, Ukraine will still lose all the territory Russia holds, and the economy is gonna be fucked for decades because of the debt; and now foreigners own all of Ukraine’s most valuable assets.

That’s the thing, Putin would accept being allowed “into the club” in a heartbeat. These euros see Putin as an existential threat but they refuse to do the one that thing would actually defuse the situation - bring Russia closer to them. Neoliberalism can’t allow Russia to be an equal - they’re too much of a threat to US hegemony just by sheer size and power, even if they earnestly want to play ball with the west. It took Putin a while to realize this but I think he gets it now.

By the way isn’t Borrell the guy who made that infamous “garden” comment?

COVID was kinda the test case, but really anybody could have seen how that was going to go. The US is simply not set up institutionally, structurally, etc to weather even a modest crisis (at least one that it can’t simply buy its way out of like 2009). The whole thing was built and perfected to funnel money to capitalists. When it’s faced with any problem that’s beyond that scope, it simply can’t handle it. Even if a major crisis worse than COVID came along, and it was in the capitalists’ interests to thoroughly and decisively deal with it, they wouldn’t be able. This car ain’t built for off-roading.

I love Ansar Allah so much.

gun safety reforms such as a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and a universal background check requirement

I really hope this part is tied together with the $37 billion for the pigs, because if so then they’re not getting a cent because no Republican and quite a few Dems too will never vote for that gun stuff.

China might not get in involved, but Russia 100% will.

From Resistance News Network on Telegram:

The Islamic Resistance in Bahrain - Saraya Al-Ashtar - announces the targeting of a vital target in the city of Umm Al-Rashrash in occupied Palestine (“Eilat”), on Thursday, May 2, 2024, by drone, in victory for our resisting people in Gaza.

We affirm that our operations will not stop until the siege is lifted and the aggression ceases against the resisting Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

Issued by: The Drone Air Force of the Islamic Resistance in Bahrain – Saraya Al-Ashtar

We’re all shocked at the psychotic rage displayed by so many people in Israeli leadership (like their UN rep talking about how college kids protesting are actually Hamas). On some level that was always there, sure. But I think what we are seeing now in all levels of Israeli society is something new. It’s like a society-wide mass psychosis. What they are displaying is not normal behavior and is beyond just fascism. I was in college when 9/11 happened. In the immediate aftermath, yeah some people expressed some bravado “let’s turn the Middle East into glass” attitudes but that was extremely rare. I think the social fabric of Israeli society is ripping apart, and in the grand scheme of things Oct 7 was basically a paper cut. The Israelis are out of their goddamn minds and I don’t see how bringing the current genocide to a conclusion will change that.

Now contrast that with the social fabric of the Palestinian people. I cannot imagine what it is like to live in Gaza right now. The Gazans who survive will be scarred for life, no doubt, both physically and mentally. And yet, all I see are attitudes of hope and defiance. They are living through hell on earth, and in the face of it all they are expressing a strength and revolve that is almost super human.

So take those two different mental states, and tell which society you have more hope for in the long run?

The following is a comment left by user Emma under the Naked Capitalism story about Türkiye cutting off trade to Israel. Sharing it because it makes me hopeful, and I think we all appreciate having some hope:

I will say that I don’t think there’s going to be a real day after for Israel or the West, even if they ethnically cleanse all of Gaza or put it under some sort of PA led Vichy regime.

Ilan Pappe said that he thought the next 12 to 24 months will be very hard, but then Israel will break from its internal contradictions. People will leave, the struggles in the West Bank and with Hezbollah will intensify, and there won’t be a sustainable Jewish entity on the other end.

The external factors will also be very harsh on Israel. Once Russia is done in Ukraine, it and China will look to help Syria recover its territory and economy. Iran and China will also want to bring Iraq fully into the BRICS system and out of American domination. The salvo from this new Bahraini resistance organization suggests that Iran’s Axis of Resistance is spreading into places ruled by Western placed emirs and kings. The actual positions of ISIS and other regional players has been unveiled by their actions. All in all, an Israel that is now clearly intolerable to basically all Arabs is not going to last in a sea of Arabs.

Yes there are the nukes and the Samson option, but I don’t think Israelis have it in them to die for the land. Look how quickly the fanatical settlers in the north and around the Gaza envelop abandoned their homes. Look at how quickly the ultra orthodox deeply implicated in pogroms in the West Bank and lies of Zaka, threatened to leave the country if they’re called up for conscription. Look at the desertions of reservists in the latest call ups.

Would any of these people, who can still have comfortable lives in the Levant or in the West, really give up their lives for a land that they’re only willing to kill for (and in many cases, brainwash the young into killing for them)?

Especially now that their finally waking up somewhat from their October 7 freakout and are confronting the fact that Mass Hannibal was likely responsible for the majority of civilian deaths, and that their ‘most moral army in the world’ shot 3 white flag waving defenseless hostages in cold blood.

The Afrikaans didn’t use their nukes, even though their ties to the land go back centuries and their ancestors did die in large numbers in the Boer War. So while the chances of the Israelis using nukes is not zero, I hope and think its quite unlikely

Ok fine, how do you “protest” Darfur, then? What are the objectives? These people act like protesting is just “I am against this thing” and not something you do to take specific actions happen. Like the campus protests are seeking their universities take specific action (divestment). Ok fine, if any companies are profiting off the situation in Darfur, they can be divested too, whatever. It’s just a bad faith deflection tactic.

I have the 1922-1945 one

I have seen many Palestinian people talk about how their plight makes them feel hopeless. On top of all the horrible things done to them by the Zionist entity (or for Palestinians living in places like Lebanon or Syria, the local situation can also be very unwelcoming), it’s easy to feel like they are suffering alone and no one else in the world cares about them. It keeps them feeling hopeless.

These campus protests - along with the earlier solidarity protests around the world and Aaron Bushnell - get such a warm reception from Palestinians and the Resistance is because it shows them that someone cares and they are not alone. Don’t underestimate how much that can mean to someone and how powerful hope is.

I know it’s easy to be jaded about what actual impact the protests will have. But if the people who you advocate for are telling you to go on, you go on, goddammit. Every step forward is a step forward.

They just say “we are only targeting Hamas, we are not targeting innocent people” and no one in western media challenges them on that or even follows up with another question.

A book I read many years ago is The Nazi Seizure of Power by William Sheridan. It’s a day by day account of one small town in Germany, and how Nazis slowly took it over. It was a pretty good read, I may need to go back and read it again soon.

I am sorry we reached this point

“Look at what you made me do”

Reminder that Israel prefers to try and damage buildings beyond repair rather than completely flatten them, because it actually involves more time and effort to remove a damaged building that can’t be used than to clear out a flattened one.

This article highlights a number of blind spots that the American ruling class and the MIC have.

1. The MIC exists to funnel money to the capitalist class, not to provide optimum national defense. So it’s no surprise they are used to thinking “just throw money at the problem” will make things magically work.

2. The ruling class looks back to the massive industrial output that occurred in WW2 and thinks that can be replicated. They are ignoring the fact that in WW2, that was mostly due to underutilized capacity made idle by the Great Depression being maxed out. Industrial capacity in the US has been destroyed by neoliberalism and outsourcing, and that can’t just be utilized on short notice.

3. Combining #1 and #2 into this, the ruling class I’m sure views factory work as “monkey work” that anyone can learn in a day; because I have been around too many c-suite executives, capitalists, and politicians and they have uniformly expressed this very view. But that’s really not the case at all, especially when you’re talking about relatively high-tech military equipment. It takes a while for people to get trained and get properly skilled. And that assumes there’s even slack in the workforce that can do this work. And if you try and go the route of automation, that only increases the amount of time to get up to speed (and btw, who’s even building all the robots to do the manufacturing?). All in all, by the time the US could even build industrial capacity from scratch and get the work force trained up, years have passed and a conflict is already over (because no one seems to be suggesting that this capacity be built in advance of a conflict. Whenever I read about replacing used missiles and the like, it’s always about how many years it will take given current capacity instead of looking to expand production capacity).

It’s like if Indigenous Peoples Day was the original holiday, then the US government decided “nah, we’re making it Columbus Day now”.

Just found out the president of Columbia is literally a baroness in the UK and has a life peerage in the House of Lords, jfc.