Bernanke-Summers Debate II: Savings Glut, Investment Shortfall, Or Monty Python? Forbes (CL)
Dimon, now Summers: There’s a liquidity problem CNBC (Furzy Mouse)
Dear Fellow Shareholders [PDF] Jamie Dimon. “We have meaningfully simplified the company.”
Nomura and RBS accused of ‘deceit’ in mortgage securities trial FT
Deutsche Bank Said Close to $1.5 Billion Settlement on Libor Bloomberg
How Wall Street captured Washington’s effort to rein in banks Reuters. Such as it was.
US warns of ‘increasingly unbalanced’ global economy FT
U.S. Growth Seen Slower Amid Dollar Headwinds WSJ
Factories Be Warned: U.S. Wholesalers Face an Inventory Glut Bloomberg
Cirque du Soleil in advanced deal talks with private equity: sources Reuters. We’ll hope private equity doesn’t do for Le Cirque what it did for Guitar Center.
FAA Calls Out ‘Systemic’ Hazard at United WSJ. (Cf. this recent link from Jacobin on “pilot problems,” i.e. workplace issues).
A cryptocurrency fit for Wall Street Gillian Tett, FT
Royal Dutch Shell Deal Is More Evidence Of Corporate America’s Lost Bragging Rights Forbes (BH)
Oil
Oil discovery near Gatwick airport ‘significant’ BBC
Friends of the Earth: Oil site near Gatwick will face ‘huge opposition’ Crawley and Horley Observer
“If We Dig Out All Our Fossil Fuels, Here’s How Hot We Can Expect It to Get” NYT. Author bio: “Milton Friedman professor of economics at the University of Chicago.”
‘Warm blob’ in Pacific Ocean linked to weird weather across the US Science Daily
200 Years Ago This Week: Tambora’s Eruption Causes a Planet-Wide Climate Emergency Weather Underground
Grexit?
Greece made its big IMF debt repayment Business Insider, and Greece makes IMF payment, gets bank funds, but doubts remain Reuters
Putin gives visiting Greek prime minister Tsipras an ancient Greek icon once stolen by Nazis FOX. Ouch.
ECB president ‘blew up’ at plan that could have solved the Greek crisis in 2010 Business Insider
Greece’s Achilles’ Heel WSJ. Capital flight.
Syraqistan
Obama is waging an all-out campaign for Iran deal McClatchy
Iran says no deal without ‘immediate’ sanctions relief Al Jazeera
Lausanne: Is there really much Disagreement between US, Iran on those Talking Points? Juan Cole
Blaming Iran for Shi’ite Unrest Throughout the Middle East Counterpunch (GF)
Nobody will win the war in Yemen Al Jazeera
Desperation for Americans in Yemen as U.S. refuses to mount rescue McClatchy
Pentagon Moves More Communications Gear into Cheyenne Mountain Defense One (GF). “I would guess that dwelling space for several hundred thousands of our people could easily be provided.”
How China Can Perfect Its ‘Silk Road’ Strategy The Diplomat
China TV host’s mocking of Mao Zedong draws fire, applause Asian Correspondent
China Bears on Wrong End of $4 Trillion Rally Refuse to Go Away Bloomberg
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
Same Surveillance State, Different War The Atlantic. First, the war on drugs. Then, 9/11.
Lobbyists for Spies Appointed To Oversee Spying The Intercept
Amazon gets green light from U.S. regulators for new drone tests Reuters
Class Warfare
Why Is the “Middle Class” Stressed?: An interesting New Hypothesis from Emmons and Noeth Washington Center for Equitable Growth
U.S. States Aren’t Prepared for the Next Fiscal Shock Bloomberg. That’s not a bug; it’s a feature. More privatization, more pension looting, racing to the bottom all around.
Can SEPTA Key unlock financial services for the underbanked? Plan Philly (PT)
Hillary Clinton expected to announce presidential run as soon as this weekend Reuters. Sunday? Yes, Sunday.
Why Pope Francis could be facing a Catholic schism The Spectator
Jesus Christ the family man? Why the church won’t buy it Guardian (Furzy Mouse)
Montreal’s Student Austerity Protests : Everything You Need To Know But Were Too Afraid To Ask MTL Blog
Does Economics Make Politicians Corrupt? Empirical Evidence from the United States Congress Kyklos. Abstract only, but what an abstract!
Tangles of pathology Interfluidity
Antidote du jour, and thanks to reader pdooley for suggesting the snail!
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
63 comments
Comments are closed.
attention amurkins:
what you believe of canada is now long gone. what is left is a combination of duckdynasty, the stepford wives, general dynamics and costco.
help!
When is your election? Not that Trudeau is much better than Harper tbh.
Actually, I’m old enough to remember when Canada had the reputation in the US–fairly or not–as a more conservative, culturally stodgy place. I used to hear jokes about Toronto nightlife–it was so bad Torontoans would drive to Buffalo to party. I think that image changed with Trudeau and the refuge that Canada offered to Vietnam-era draft resisters. But this latest reversion of Canada back to conservatism seems to be accompanied by a belligerent and aggressive foreign policy which I think is something new.
It’s been said before–the good news is that Canada is a few years behind the US in social and political degradation. That’s also the bad news.
Yes, in another few years, even Canadians won’t recognize Canada! I am astounded at all the changes he has wrought without popular support (he achieved only 39% of the popular vote in the 2011 election).
Harper has re-made Canada in his own image and that image is very ugly: his character is made up of equal parts loathing, mean spiritedness, hostility, animosity, revulsion and contempt for all social policies, for news media, for the protection of the environment and for anyone who disagrees with him; and alongside those qualities he has equal parts warmth, lust and worship for war, chaos, and anyone who agrees with him.
That is our leader and Woe to Canada!
Harper’s rise coinciding with the tar sands is strikingly similar to Thatcher and north sea oil
What if all the anti-Harper parties were to get together and draw straws as to which party would run the anti-Harper officeseekers? With the promise made and kept that all members of all anti-Harper parties would vote for whichever Party drew the lucky straw? Would that provide an additive majority against the Harperites?
Funny to think of a Toronto/Montreal axis, but stranger things have happened!
I hadn’t even thought of the Quebec Factor. I must have just assumed the the officeholders of Quebec are so cynically opportunistic and narrowly focused on Francophone Quebekistan that they are beside themselves with glee at seeing the Harperites pursue the attrition and degradation of Canada to its logical conclusion. Which would be a bunch of countries flying apart saying “we can’t live like this anymore”. Quebec would envision itself as one of those countries and the Quebecqistas would say “who gives a shit what happens to the rest of ex-Canada so long as we get to stand Tall And Pround over Quebec?” So any Quebecqist officeholders agreeing to join a “defeat Harper” coalition would be too strange for me to believe.
But as you say . . . stranger things have happened. Why I remember one time a professor of African History told me that Kenya would never have a non-Kikuyu President. Well . . . Kenya would get a non-Kikuyu President when the Catholic Church got a Polish Pope. And not long afterward, Kenya got a Kalenjin President and the Catholic Church got a Polish Pope. So we’ll see . . .
Re: A cryptocurrency fit for Wall Street Gillian Tett, FT
Understandable that you dropped the “prosecution futures” tag in this instance, but why not “settlement futures”?
Refreshing to see some objective reporting on Bitcoin from the FT. I get a sense that slowly, slowly, people are coming to terms with Bitcoin (at least insofar as they recognise it isn’t going anywhere and it might even be useful). Also interesting (though not touched upon in the article), the numerous start-ups pushing “permissioned” ledgers i.e. those where security, validation of transactions and issuing of new tokens are controlled by specified entities. Banks sharing a ledger, for example. Query whether there is enough of a benefit in using the underlying crypto (i.e. a blockchain of sorts, but without decentralised consensus) in this way over e.g. existing database systems, but that is their argument to make. My feeling is people, corps and even government entities will come to realise there is already a cheaper, global, vastly more secure system up and running and available for all to tap into. Bitcoin.
unbroken link:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/04/09/262695/desperation-for-americans-in-yemen.html
thanks. article answers my question.
it’s sad when a country is afraid to bring home its own citizens
What is sadder is the thought that the Obamazoids may not be scared. They may just simply not give a rat’s ass about those particular American citizens because those particular American citizens are ethnically Yemeni. President Dog Shit Obama may well have said quietly to his people something like . . . . ” well, they’re all potential Anwar al-Awlaqis. And you know what we did to Anwar al-Awlaqui. And then did to his kid for shits and giggles. So just let them all die there.”
That seems more likely to me than that the Obamazoids are “afraid”. I mean, if the Obamazoids WANTed to evacuate our citizens, they could order the military to drop something a lot bigger and better than barrel bombs on any Yemeni or Saudi who dared to interfere.
Larry Summers and Jamie Dimon should quit beating around the bush and explain in concrete terms what the real problem is; there’s not enough Treasuries and similar safe instruments to grease the wheels of finance, ie, NOT ENOUGH GOVT DEBT…brought on by the sequester and austerity worldwide, it’s the same problem that Greenspan saw in 2001 that brought us the Bush tax cuts…it ties into the FIrestone piece on sector balances as well; for the private sector to run surpluses, the government must run deficits..
After how many years of QE, they have the nerve to complain about “not enough liquidity”???…astounding. Check out the big balls on Jamie….
It’s not a liquidity problem. The world is thirsty for government debt. Triple-AAA stuff. Has been since this right wing balanced budget crap took hold a quarter century ado, A place for wealth to stuff their money without default risk. (This is why the world snapped up Wall Street’s mortgage crap prior to the crash. Everyone knew it was crap, but thanks to crooked raters, it flew the AAA flag. Mr. Market NEEDED more triple-AAA.)
As you say, these people are thirsty for government debt.
Unfortunately, they have captured the government, so the government will no doubt quench their thirst, even if we hope they remain parched.
Well, the article was pretty clear. 90% of today’s major economists can’t see what’s happening because they are all stuck inside of one model which doesn’t allow them to see anything else.
His comment “Inbred Bernanke Summers Debate on Secular Stagnation” was spot on. Thank you Steve Keen!
Re: Tangles of Pathology
Apparently SRW thinks inequality is a desirable thing. Strange.
Liberal and nonpathologic…but equal too–ahh, what a bummer!
Seriously, why does SRW think inequality is something to be desired (and obviously there are many different levels of inequality)? I’m assuming because he holds some version of the “inequality as motivator” belief or something like that. Anyway, despite his points, of which he has a few, this whole privileging of inequality as some kind of social good makes if difficult for me to take him too seriously. As so often happens when dealing with Academics, I find myself wondering, which world do you live in, again, exactly?
hey luv. “privileging of inequality”…isn’t that what religion was created for?
a few of my favorite privilege quotes:
“Why are you not smarter? It’s only the rich who can’t afford to be smart. They’re compromised. They got locked years ago into privilege. They have to protect their belongings. No one is meaner than the rich. Trust me. But they have to follow the rules of their shitty civilised world. They declare war, they have honour, and they can’t leave. But you two. We three. We’re free.”
Ondaatje, The English Patient
“Without knowing it, the adults in our lives practiced a most productive kind of behavior modification. After our chores and household duties were done we were give “permission” to read. In other words, our elders positioned reading as a privilege – a much sought-after prize, granted only to those goodhardworkers who earned it. How clever of them.”
Mildred Armstrong Kalish, Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression
“Privilege implies exclusion from privilege, just as advantage implies disadvantage,” Celine went on. “In the same mathematically reciprocal way, profit implies loss. If you and I exchange equal goods, that is trade: neither of us profits and neither of us loses. But if we exchange unequal goods, one of us profits and the other loses. Mathematically. Certainly. Now, such mathematically unequal exchanges will always occur because some traders will be shrewder than others. But in total freedom—in anarchy—such unequal exchanges will be sporadic and irregular. A phenomenon of unpredictable periodicity, mathematically speaking. Now look about you, professor—raise your nose from your great books and survey the actual world as it is—and you will not observe such unpredictable functions. You will observe, instead, a mathematically smooth function, a steady profit accruing to one group and an equally steady loss accumulating for all others. Why is this, professor? Because the system is not free or random, any mathematician would tell you a priori. Well, then, where is the determining function, the factor that controls the other variables? You have named it yourself, or Mr. Adler has: the Great Tradition. Privilege, I prefer to call it. When A meets B in the marketplace, they do not bargain as equals. A bargains from a position of privilege; hence, he always profits and B always loses. There is no more Free Market here than there is on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The privileges, or Private Laws—the rules of the game, as promulgated by the Politburo and the General Congress of the Communist Party on that side and by the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve Board on this side—are slightly different; that’s all. And it is this that is threatened by anarchists, and by the repressed anarchist in each of us,” he concluded, strongly emphasizing the last clause, staring at Drake, not at the professor.”
Robert Anton Wilson, The Golden Apple
Thanks so much for the quotes, aby! Yer the bestest! (especially love the RAW (and Shea)…re-reading the whole Illuminatus! trilogy now, so synchronicity :-)
Great quotes! Thanks.
This is the money quote in that piece:
“(Social) pathology… enables a reconciliation of equal opportunity with persistently skewed outcomes by claiming that persistent losers simply fail to seize the opportunities before them, as a result of their individual and communal deficiencies. Conflict within and between communities and the chaos of everyday life reduce the likelihood that even a very numerous pathologized underclass will effectively dispute the question politically. Conflict and “broken institutions” also serve as ipso facto explanations for sub-par outcomes. If the losers are sufficiently pathologized, it is possible to reconcile a liberal society with severe inequality. If they are not, the contradictions become difficult to paper over.”
I don’t see him as rationalizing inequality himself. He’s trying to elaborate one key means by which that happens in the US today, (and for as long as I can remember). He also suggests that personally secure liberals like to ignore the whole issue because they themselves benefit from its effects–they’re winners! As winners, they also benefit from loose mores because they can better afford them. This leaves us with nasty punitive conservatives posing as moral arbiters. I agree with him that this is not a good thing.
Where I disagree is where he says people can’t mount an opposition to this pathologization. One way of looking at racism is to say that it is the systematic pathologization of black people both in fact, through the systematic destruction of black families and communities, both historically and ongoing, and in terms of the projection of pathologies onto those black people who manage(d) to escape that destruction. ie., you may have escaped, but there’s still gotta be something wrong with you. (ie., Biden on Obama– OMG he clean and he talk nice!) Some of his links, later on in the piece delve into this a bit. People do contest this, all the time. It’s true this hasn’t been entirely successful, but that’s because as he says it’s so useful to (some) people..
I don’t agree with everything he says. I was particularly perplexed by the same passage commenter #4 flagged. Some sort of magical automatic thinking thing. I really don’t “get” all the hydraulic/ mechanical/ mechanistic imagery people resort to when it comes time to talk economics– an aggregate tide lifts everybody in dress whites or some kind of krap like that. And let’s face it, the US’s most Keynesian era was exactly that– and no more.
So, I think it’s an important piece of the overall picture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylkOAtifuJ0
Yep.
Oh look, Repubs decided it would be a great idea to sell off the National Parks and public lands (via amendment attached to Budget bill, the amendment passed).
http://unofficialnetworks.com/2015/04/republican-senators-just-voted-to-sell-off-your-national-forests
May I propose we sell off some senators instead. Just a thought.
But who would pay for them?
Maybe the Chinese will scoop up some choice Nat seashore and parks before all their UST-bills turn to dust. Or maybe the Koch Bros will buy some and start drilling.
“You don’t peg me.”
“I peg you.”
You think one day we will do the same to them what they are doing to us today – accumulate trillions of yuans?
Probably a wealthy Dominatrix market we can tap. Oprah maybe? Madonna fer sure.
Not enough discipline to make sure they stay sold, unfortunately. Have to use a rental model instead.
“We” cannot sell off any Senators. Someone else already owns them.
Ha. Ain’t that the pathetic truth.
Importing or exporting humans, including human senators, is immoral, unfortunately. :<
The Greeks had a good idea with ōstrakon — a ten- or twenty-year forced deportation, for those who just need to not be seen in town for a while. Seems downright moral compared to what Socrates got.
A libertarian take on corruption, from a comment at Marginal Revolution:
This type of thinking is the norm in the U.S. tech industry. No action is unethical if it maximizes income and profit, “even if it meant violating a social or legal norm”.
That’s actually closer to the personality of a sociopath and the general attitude of a person who who lacks empathy. Morals and essentially social rules are an attempt to compensate for lack of empathy as overall, it’s better for the greater good and stability of society as a whole to lean away from selfishness. Promoting greed is not in a society’s best interest as it undermines social cooperation which is the glue that holds together a community.
There’s a reason all of the worlds major religions have always warned against such lawlessness, it destroys communities.
The trick is the commenter rayward has been conditioned to see rational [atomistic rationality – not socialistic rationality] benched marked – defined by two metrics “maximizing income and profit” as the ***only*** measurements in its ethos.
This makes sense from a neoliberal [because markets] perspective as there is no society [TINA – gawd has spoken].
Skippy… oligarchic aristocratic tyranny as expressed by the – best – numbers….
Gatwcik strike already looking a little iffy (hat tip Richard Smith).
So now I can make the joke that if this were a Canadian gold mine, the word “salting” would come to mind.
As the old prospectors say, ‘He’s a legend in his own mine.’
Gatwick oil: What you need to know about UK Oil and Gas Investments Greenpeace.
Looks like the News Desk didn’t check with the Finance Desk at the Beeb.
‘Her Turn’ Hillary’s impending declaration has pushed poor Matt Drudge (who broke the Monica Lewinsky story) over the edge. His juxtaposition of top-left corner subheads:
Oh, my …
Yikes. Someone needs to let Matt Drudge know that the 90s are very much over. There’s a whole big world out there he should consider exploring.
Where’d Drudge come up with a copy of the Obot joke book?
Does economics make politicians corrupt?
Do corrupt politicians make economics dismal?
Amazon new drone tests.
One day, babies will be delivered by drones as well.
Stork drones.
Which multinational corporation will be the first to corner that market? Solar-powered stork drones.
It would be fun to have a drone of my own. I wonder how hard it would be to net an Amazon drone. With some modifications it could be used for all kinds of cool stuff. I could send the drone “brains” to that guy who figured out how to modify the firmware in his hard drive and see what he can come up with.
You won’t like the price of the Amazon drone.
Here’s the hottest thing going in the consumer aerial photography drone class. Sells for around $3000.
http://www.dji.com/product/inspire-1
So Banks and Rizzo are charged as drone murderers. All we need to close the case is indictments of the NSA targeteers.
Mocking the Great Helmsman Mao.
The article doesn’t have anything about applause…and a mysterious reference to ‘a vulgar phrase,’ and that the guy said ‘he has ruined us all.’
Is China ruined now? Maybe the guy is a crypto-Westerner, speaking as one holding a Western passport and he’s referring Mao ruining the West?
What was the vulgar phrase he used?
This article emphasizes just how antiquated is the U.S. financial system, even compared to some developing countries:
The federal government has ‘taken heed’ … the Federal Reserve has ‘produced a study’ … oh, my!
Fasten your seat belts, folks. This could be neck-snapping, as these giant, dim-witted tortoises lurch forward from the starting line to catch up with Mexico!
“The federal government has taken heed, initiating talks over what to do to either overhaul or replace the ACH system that has been in place since the 1970s.”
I hope the feds find somebody better than the people who did the Obamacare software. Imagine what those guys could do for banking.
BBVA Compass’s assets is $65 billion. In the rankings of the Top 50 banks (34), this is basically nothing more than a flea fart. Curious that you didn’t notice that the top 5 banks have already set up their own payment network.
Even if all the oil at Gatwick airport proved recoverable at a profit (hilariously doubtful), it would extend the world’s oil supplies by only three years. The reality is likely to be much, much less than that, if anyone tries to drill it at all.
Snail Male.
Translated by William Cowper from the Latin verse of Vincent Bourne.
To grass, or leaf, or fruit, or wall,
The snail sticks close, nor fears to fall,
As if he grew there, house and all
Together.
Within that house secure he hides,
When danger imminent betides
Of storm, or other harm besides
Of weather.
Give but his horns the slightest touch,
His self-collecting power is such,
He shrinks into his house, with much
Displeasure.
Where’er he dwells, he dwells alone,
Except himself has chattels none,
Well satisfied to be his own
Whole treasure.
Thus, hermit-like, his life he leads,
Nor partner of his banquet needs,
And if he meets one, only feeds
The faster.
Who seeks him must be worse than blind,
(He and his house are so combin’d)
If, finding it, he fails to find
Its master.
are we gonna get a report from the Institute for Numerically Eidetic Tautologies (INET) conference? I sure hope so. What good is economics if it can’t refresh itself with new equations you can memorize in a few seconds? Nothing. That’s what. I wonder if anybody over there has Edward Green shoes? I bet so. I would hope so. You don’t go to an INET conference in Stafford Lace Ups from JC Penny, that’s for sure. You probably don’t even go in mid-priced factory-made leather shoes. You probably DO go in high quality English shoes made by hand in the Northampton region of the country. That’s what I’d do, if I went to an INET conference. But I never will, so it’s only a theoretical reality and not a real reality. Just like economics! Weird.
I’m sure all the guys there are wearing Edward Green shoes. The women carry a pair in their Coach handbags – just for the sake of equality. Equality is important to economists – even more so for female economists.
But this is a money shrewd crowd, knowing about fiat currency and how it isn’t real. $1000 just looks like a big number to them. Then nowadays it hardly matters anymore if you pay 1000 dollars, euros, or pounds for ’em. Comes out pretty close either way. They cost 1000. As it should be.
I’m sure we’ll have some posts coming up on what new stuff they’ve discovered. That should be interesting.
Plus I’m wondering if you pair Snails Flambe with red wine or white wine? That’s been bothering me lately.
I just realized that I’ve got the nearly unlimited resources of the internet at my fingertips, and I just can’t wait any longer for a bunch of French economists to answer this question that has been perplexing me lately about the proper wine pairing for snails.
So I found a snail-wine pairing calculator.
The answer is complicated, so that explains why the French economists are hesitant to provide a quick answer. But I’ll post the link so we can know what to do, depending on snail preparation methods, and wine varietal availability.
Sorry I don’t have any easy answers to this question. But I know my limits, and will defer to accepted best practices.
http://www.winedin.com/pair_food_wine.php?food=Snails
re: “Why Is the “Middle Class” Stressed?: An interesting New Hypothesis from Emmons and Noeth,” Washington Center for Equitable Growth
“Now come Emmons and Noeth with a new and very interesting hypothesis: that people who have done better than their parents with respect to education and family structure are no richer, and people who have matched their parents with respect to education and family structure are poorer.”
I think there’s something to that, but I also think it’s a lot more than that. I do live near a lot of hovercraft mommies or otherwise hear the tales, but apart from those, I think people are even more stressed for time than their own two income parents were and they feel really pressured to keep their kids on track.
I would connect this to the article on “Tangles of pathology” (Interfluidity), which has not that much to do with their own personal financial bottom lines as the tenuousness of the future for their children in a culture that is itself pretty sick (as in moralistically nasty and unforgiving while paradoxically ever more degraded), but which people don’t really recognize as such. So, it’s all on them. No kid is perfect (and neither are their schools or their friends or their siblings) so, there you go.
As it happens, I wanted to post that article on “pathologization” the other day but I wasn’t 100% on it and I couldn’t think carefully enough about it at the time. I do agree that pathologization plays a key part in rationalizing inequality in liberal societies and that liberals tend to wave it aside rather than trying to think it through.
File under disturbance in the daaark side of the force….
General Electric Co. made one of the biggest strategic shifts in its 123-year history by announcing plans to get out of the banking business and refocus on the conglomerate’s sprawling industrial operations.
Friday’s move to shed almost all of GE Capital also marked the boldest attempt yet by Chief Executive Jeff Immelt to confront the moribund stock price that has marred his 13-year career at the top.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ge-to-cash-out-of-banking-business-1428713151
Skippy…. moribund bonus multipliers… shakes scrawny claw and paw tawny forearm … arghh~
hahaha. I remember Jap Invasion Days when Jack Welch decided to unfocus on GE’s industrial biz and diversify into greener pastures of finance, medical equipment, TV broadcasting and whatever.
So now the pendulum swings back…to where????
Incandecent light bulbs
Fortified wine – “Vin Mariani” – with coke in it…. shared with some other soon to be chatty great thinkers [rich sorts looking to get richer].
Skippy….. snort… Coca-Cola got its start as a ghetto drug….
John Helmer’s amazing expose of the money Stephen Harper is shovelling off the back of the truck to the nazis and oligarchs of Kiev, by rights should have the torches and pitchforks out into the Canadian streets. Especially with austerity and worsening economic conditions here at home, this kind of largess from the public purse to a kleptocratic US installed coup-regime designed purely to advance a dangerous NATO agenda around the Russian Federation,will shock any Canadian that still believes someone is minding the store. Helmer shows us they aren’t.
They’re giving large amounts away to their ‘friends and allies’ in Kiev. But then again, the powerful ultranationalist Ukrainian lobby, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress’ representative in Kiev is a former partner of Ukraine’s Finance Minister, with links to the Atlantic Council and NATO, and more than a few rich and influential Ukrainians in our large diaspora, that can easily have pianist Valentina Lisitsa bounced from Toronto’s biggest concert hall for tweeting messages of concern and alarm about the war in Donbass and its Western backers.
And if she had come into town accusing Vlad the bad of eating Ukrainian babies for breakfast, they would have thrown their hats in the air. But she didn’t ,she tweeted instead about the bad things going on in Eastern Ukraine. How many atrocities did or will these hundreds of millions buy? How many schools or hospitals shelled? To the shame of Toronto too, although the Maestra offered to play the Rach 2 for free, nobody from the arts community apparently could produce a piano and hall for her to perform as she wished. Or wouldn’t. Could be bad for business and besides she was demonized for ‘inciting hatred’. It wasn’t true of course, just as the ‘news’ we get on Ukraine mostly isn’t either.
When British MP George Galloway was banned from entry to Canada a few years ago, he remarked that sadly Canada had become ‘little more than an embassy for Benjamin Netanyahu’. And it’s true. Harper goes all the way for Israel and everybody knows it now. Suddenly we see that Ukrainian ultranationalism also seems to suddenly have a lot of power over how we are supposed to view events in eastern Europe or someone telling truths we don’t want to hear. Like Lisitsa, or Helmer. Bravo!
And perhaps the reason Canadian journalists aren’t asking the kinds of questions John Helmer asked, is that they already know it wouldn’t be welcome or good for their careers. Or maybe they just don’t know how. I have yet to see this information make mention in any Canadian mainstream media I know. I hope it does, but wouldn’t be surprised if it didnt. That’s how it seems to work in Canada now. Thanks for bringing it to us.