Links 11/21/2024

The great nuclear bunker race: Britons are snapping up Cold War-era lairs for more than 3 times the asking price while fallout shelters are flogged on eBay amid threat of WWIII Daily Mail

The Fossorial Life – Portal to a Better Time? Fossils and Other Living Things

Adani Back in Turmoil After Tycoon Charged in Bribery Scheme Bloomberg

Archegos’s Bill Hwang sentenced to 18 years in prison for massive US fraud Al Jazeera

The undercover hedge funds financing activist short sellers FT

Climate

COP29: Rules for UN-led carbon market under Article 6.4 approved in Baku S&P Global

Water

NYC issues first drought warning in 22 years, pauses aqueduct repairs to bring in more water AP

Feds release highly anticipated options for managing overstressed Colorado River in coming years Colorado Sun

Syndemics

Preprint: Enhanced Encephalitic Tropism of Bovine H5N1 Compared to the Vietnam H5N1 Isolate in Mice Avian Flu Diary

China?

China’s loan prime rates remain unchanged CGTN

China’s chipmaking champion soars amid country’s push for self-reliance — SMIC’s stock jumps 120% as semiconductor trade war intensifies Tom’s Hardware

China surpasses Germany and Japan in industrial robotics adoption density: report South China Morning Post

Commentary: China’s overcapacity may become a Southeast Asia problem if Trump’s tariffs materialise Channel News Asia

Myanmar

Myanmar: Situation Update with Paul Greening The Diplomat

The Koreas

Are K-pop stars workers? South Korea says no BBC

Syraqistan

The Effects of Israeli Barbarity Craig Murray

Hezbollah chief says it reviewed US truce proposal, cease-fire in Netanyahu’s hands Anadolu Aghency

The man who links Donald Trump with war-torn Lebanon FT

Israel’s Rare Merkava IV Barak ‘Supertank’ Destroyed in Gaza – 75 Percent of Crew Killed Military Watch

The pogrom that wasn’t Al Jazeera

“Multiple Worlds Vying to Exist”: Philip K. Dick and Palestine The Paris Review

European Disunion

VW workers’ union propose $1.6 billion of cuts, but no plant closures Business Standard

General strike over cost of living paralyzes Athens Anadolu Agency

New Not-So-Cold War

Zelensky’s ATACMS Gambit: Nuclear Red Alert or More Empty Provocations? Simplicius the Thinkerr

Who Is Authorizing Biden’s Nuclear Brinkmanship While The President’s Brain Is Missing? Caitlin Johnstone

Transcript of ‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 19 November 2024 Gilbert Doctorow. From Russia n talk show The Great Game”: “Such attacks [the ATACMSs] will be considered, or just the whole permission given by Biden is considered, to be Biden’s legacy. It is his attempt to lock in his place in history, and it should not be viewed as having any substantial, potentially having substantial threat to Russia’s winning position in the war.”s

* * *

Ukraine front could ‘collapse’ as Russia gains accelerate, experts warn BBC

Zelenskyy says Ukraine lacks strength to push Russia to borders of 1991 Anadolu Agency

What happens if aid to Ukraine collapses under Trump? BNE Intellinews

Exclusive: Putin, ascendant in Ukraine, eyes contours of a Trump peace deal Reuters

* * *

A detailed Der Spiegel article on the Nord Stream sabotage Bud’s Offshore Energy

More NATO in the Arctic Could Free the United States Up to Focus on China War on the Rocks

The New Great Game

Third night of protests in Tbilisi: Opposition to rethink strategy JAM News

Trump Transition

Trump Sends Clowns to Cabinet Confirmation Circus Karl Rove, WSJ

Trump takes Washington by storm: What to make of returning president’s cabinet picks? France24

Gaetz sent over $10K in Venmo payments to 2 women who testified in House probe, records suggest ABC

Police report reveals sordid details of sex assault allegations against Trump defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth Daily Mail

* * *

Trump confirms plans to use the military to assist in mass deportations New York Times. November 18.

Rand Paul breaks with Trump on using military for mass deportations: ‘Huge mistake’ Politico

Texas offers Trump land for migrant ‘deportation facilities’ BBC

Tom Homan says Trump admin will ‘absolutely’ use gifted Texas land for deportation program The Hill

Los Angeles passes ‘sanctuary city’ ordinance to protect migrants from mass deportation under Trump France24

Antitrust

US regulators seek to break up Google, forcing Chrome sale as part of monopoly punishment AP

Amazon.com Services LLC: An Explainer On Labor

Spirit Airlines CEO Got A $3.8 Million Bonus A Week Before Its Bankruptcy Matt Stoller, BIG

Groves of Academe

The Business-School Scandal That Just Keeps Getting Bigger The Atlantic

Healthcare

Fat cells have a ‘memory’ of obesity — hinting at why it’s hard to keep weight off Nature

The Final Frontier

Did NASA’s Perseverance rover really find organics on Mars? These scientists aren’t so sure Space.com

Digital Watch

OpenAI accidentally deleted potential evidence in NY Times copyright lawsuit TechCrunch. Oh.

Microsoft breaks timezones in Settings and calls on an unlikely ally for help The Register

Australia wants to ban kids from social media. Will it work? BBC

Supply Chain

Long Beach Port Traffic Surges to Record in October; Importers Rushing to Beat Tariffs? Calculated Risk

Imperial Collapse Watch

How Britain squandered the best hand in the world FT

US ‘Secret War’ remembered as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visits Laos Al Jazeera

Zeitgeist Watch

A Lesson Un-Learned: Two “Influencers” Drown After Refusing to Wear Life Jackets So Not to Ruin Their Tans The Old Salt Blog

Contemplation in Retreat 3 Quarks Daily

The Moral Limits of What, Exactly? (PDF) Economics and Philosophy

Class Warfare

Will International Solidarity Turn the Tables in Favor of Striking Gaming Workers in Georgia? Labor Notes

Resentment is building as more workers feel stuck Axios

This fungus is so humongous that it can be mapped Big Think

Antidote du jour (Frank Schulenburg):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

64 comments

  1. Mikerw0

    I couldn’t disagree with Rove more strongly. He seems to fail to look at the evidence staring him in the face. The R’s in Congress clutch their pearls and wring their hands over things Trump does, then acquiesce. Every, single, time. Has the threat of being primary-ed gone away, have Trumps tactics not worked? Nope.

    Reply
    1. Neutrino

      Rove, W’s brain, needs to exit the stage and take a few more R fossils with him. Out of the public eye for the most part, trotted out on occasion every four years to opine, more useless, practically bitter, clinging to outmoded ways of thinking. He is not alone, with plenty of company across the spectrum. Maybe tell Bernstein and a few more for some canasta to take their minds off of what they can’t change.

      Reply
    2. Louis Fyne

      there is a generational turnover in the GOP. Finally the boomer-era GOP is fading away (ironically led by a septagenarian) and they’re being dragged to the exits.

      I don’t see Nancy Pelosi or Chuvk Schumer giving up power

      Reply
    3. flora

      If Rove hates the nominees then they can’t be all bad. Not a Dick Cheney in the bunch. oh, horrors. / ;)

      adding: here’s Nicole Shanahan talking about the importance of the next head of the USDA, the importance of protecting soils for both health and the climate.

      Nicole Shanahan: ” The nomination for head of the USDA is happening right this moment. And there’s an opportunity for the first time ever to get somebody in there who’s a real farmer who’s going to look out for the small family farms and who’s going to revitalize our soil systems. I came to agriculture through a very narrow lens of looking at climate change.”

      https://x.com/newstart_2024/status/1859256210387517803

      Reply
  2. bertl

    Ahhh… “that appear to show” routine raises it’s ugly, puss filled head with eyes bulging. Whatever next? The DOJ says no dice but the allegations get out there just the same. The people who do not wish to see Gaetz as AG are the best damn reason for making him AG: “The House Ethics Committee obtained records, including a check and records of Venmo payments, that appear to show that then-Rep. Matt Gaetz paid more than $10,000 to two women who were later witnesses in sexual misconduct probes conducted by both the House and the Justice Department, according to documents obtained by ABC News”.

    Reply
    1. Neutrino

      Any shtick to beat a Kavanaugh Bill Clinton?, No Way dog. The routine is essentially costless to the interlocutors, and comes with plenty of free publicity, too.

      Reply
  3. Steve H.

    > “Multiple Worlds Vying to Exist”: Philip K. Dick and Palestine The Paris Review

    >> which of our multiple alternate or phantasmic “pasts” we must reject

    Word of the Year candidate: Unburdened.

    Reply
  4. The Rev Kev

    “Hezbollah chief says it reviewed US truce proposal, cease-fire in Netanyahu’s hands”

    For some strange reason, Hezbollah is unwilling to sign up with a deal proposed by US envoy Amos Hochstein where Hezbollah will cease firing on targets in Israel, while Israel agrees that they can target anything that they don’t like in Lebanon at the same time and have their air force constantly patrol the skies over Lebanon. So unreasonable.

    Reply
    1. flora

      Hochstein. Per wiki:

      Hochstein was born in Jerusalem, the child of American Jewish immigrants to Israel. He served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) prior to moving to Washington, but is not a dual citizen.[13] He was a foreign policy adviser to Democratic Party members of the U.S. government House Foreign Affairs Committee from 1994 to January 2001.[14][15][16]

      Sounds like a neutral arbitrator to me. / ;)

      Reply
    1. The Rev Kev

      You think that people wigged out when Trump got re-elected the other day. Just watch people totally lose it today as the news sinks in, especially all those Neocons. This may be the one thing that will bring Biden and Trump together as they share their outrage at this happening. The US may not be part of the ICC but the EU countries would be which means that they got some ‘splainin’ to do to the ICC. Here is RT’s report-

      https://www.rt.com/news/607979-israel-netanyahu-arrest-warrant/

      Reply
      1. Acacia

        Some of the comments on that RT article… whew…

        What is the ICC doing? How dare you issue an arrest warrant for the leader of god’s chosen? Israel will bomb Belgium into oblivion.

        Missing sarc tag… or…?

        Reply
      2. ChrisFromGA

        Today will be neo-con meltdown day. I’ve got “illegitimate” and “rogue Court” on my bingo card.

        Netanyahu can cross the EU off his “revenge travel” list.

        (Or maybe, he’ll do a revenge tour and have the IDF bomb Brussels, Paris, and Berlin. With some US JDAMS)

        Reply
        1. The Rev Kev

          And this will drag down Israel with them – and so it should. Israel can no longer hide who they are or what they are all about. Just ask Caitlin Johnstone-

          https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/the-real-israel-15594920af19

          When I was younger people asked how the Allies in WW2 could ignore the slaughter of the Jews in the extermination camps and why did they not destroy them from the air at least. But after the past 14 months I think that those people can shut up now as we are seeing another genocide happening in real time that the Collective west is either aiding, supplying, financing or covering for. What an age we live in.

          Reply
    2. Vicky Cookies

      Just to round up some of the relevant background and details, so we can properly interpret this move:

      Neither the U.S. nor Israel are signatories to the Rome Statues, meaning that they do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, notwithstanding that the body’s authority will be invoked when it is convenient, such as when the court issued a warrant for V. Putin. As others here have pointed out, states party to the court are legally obligated to arrest those with warrants out for them should they visit those countries; recall that Putin skipped a BRICS summit in South Africa last year. The South Africans were talking about changing their laws so that they would not have to arrest the Russian president; in the end, the were saved the trouble.

      The ICC has jurisdiction over Gaza and the Occupied Territories, representatives of which have recognized the court since 2015. Without having read the warrants themselves, It would seem likely to me that it is in connection with this jurisdictional authority that they were legitimately issued.

      In 2002, the U.S. passed the American Service Member’s Protection Act, often referred to as the “Hague Invasion Act”. The act allows the President to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court”. This measure was meant to ensure that Americans and NATO personnel who were credibly accused of committing war crimes during the invasion of Afghanistan would have impunity. I would expect this to be invoked should an (improbable) arrest of Netanyahu occur. Gallant may not be so lucky.

      In 2020, Trump placed sanctions on the chief prosecutor of the court for attempting to investigate American torture programs in Afghanistan. I would not be surprised at a repeat performance.

      As a rule, a law which is cannot be enforced is no law at all. This is the position we find ourselves in with respect to international humanitarian law and international law in general. There is the problem of having the largest arms manufacturers and former colonial powers with vetos on the U.N. Security Council, precluding the very idea of international justice. Beyond the formal structure, the reality is that the U.S. has maintained a world in which might makes right. Until they drop the exceptionalism, and recognize the equality of other nations, there will be no justice, using the definition of “fairness/reciprocity among equals”.

      Reply
  5. Ignacio

    Zelensky’s ATACMS Gambit: Nuclear Red Alert or More Empty Provocations? Simplicius the Thinker

    IMO StT it taking a few things wrong on the nature of the ATACMS attack. He states that “Zelenskyy deliberately chooses some defenceless ‘backwater’ showpiece to make a headline splash”. I think it is incorrect. If I am correct it is personnel from the US DoD who inputs geographic coordinates in the ATACMS missiles so it is not Z the one who chooses targets here. Intelligence is also US’s. I bet it is the DoD the one choosing a ‘backwater’ target because they possibly want these attacks to be as inconsequential as possible while satisfying the needs of the sulking President. If it was Z’s deciding targets he would probably want to choose real “headline splash” objectives. Remember, it is really the US doing those attacks not Ukraine.

    Reply
    1. Louis Fyne

      and/or the capability of western targeting intelligence about Russia might have atrophied over the decades. Anything big, easily seèn ftom space, and high-priority is well-protected

      Reply
    2. .Tom

      Idk how anyone knows what they are claiming about this situation. STT’s “The third and most important thing” states Biden’s motive and Putin’s understanding thereof, his consequent choice of action and proceeds from there. Where does that knowledge come from?

      Reply
    3. Mikel

      Recent moves have me wondering…

      The NATO countries have to make themselves more visible in the war against Russia.
      Otherwise, it’s even more obvious their narrative makes no sense: their claims to be afraid that Russia will rampage throughout Europe. It makes no sense if Russia could be defeated by a Ukraine.

      To secure its reason for existence, it always had to be NATO beating Russia.
      At least that’s the plan…

      Reply
  6. The Rev Kev

    “Third night of protests in Tbilisi: Opposition to rethink strategy. Photo/Video”

    See how they go when winter kicks in and snow starts falling. Hard to have a violent Maidan-style revolution when people are freezing their butts off. That’s when you need the Molotov cocktails to come out to warm things up. Well, unless of course this is an AstroTurf protest. Would you believe that there were delegations from Germany, France, Poland, Estonia. Lithuania, Latvia, Finland and Sweden speaking to those protestors in their national language of English recently ? Check out the first 40 seconds of Alex Christoforou’s video from the other day-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYkfa_xPYPE

    Not to be confused with foreign interference of course. Come to think of it, maybe that is why the Georgian authorities let them do their thing. So that the bulk majority of Georgians can see for themselves this direct foreign interference in their own country and support the government more.

    Reply
    1. Ignacio

      Yes these PMC-types, foreign, clearly disconnected from Georgian population and needs, lecturing the populace in a foreign language. What they think they are doing apart from showing they only care about their geopolitical dreams?- Indeed that video is a must see, and scratch your eyes because it is really unbelievable.

      Reply
  7. Wukchumni

    Gooooooooooood Moooooooorning Fiatnam!

    Attack ’ems (ATACMS) from a long way out was the agreed upon bulwark of democracy in the war on acronyms, in this case, missiles invented during Boy George’s heyday, boy howdy!

    Nobody expected shit to go down in Danzig to kick off festivities in early September back in the day, and now it’ll be some almost meaningless town not far from the border that is the catalyst to cataclysm…

    39′, by Queen

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-UptzjhGSA

    Reply
  8. William Beyer

    Gilbert Doctorow’s transcript of the Trump video played at about 9:00 almost made me swoon:

    10:58
    Our foreign policy establishment keeps trying to pull the world into conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia, based on the lie that Russia represents our greatest threat. But the greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia. It’s probably, more than anything else, ourselves and some of the horrible, USA-hating people that represent us. These globalists want to squander all of America’s strength, blood, and treasure, chasing monsters and phantoms overseas, while keeping us distracted from the havoc they’re creating right here at home.

    Why haven’t we seen this reported elsewhere? The video appears to be from a similar YouTube video dated 03-21-23.

    Reply
  9. ChrisFromGA

    Bibi’s on the run, now

    (Sung to the tune of, “Gimme all your lovin'” by ZZ Top)

    Melody

    You’ve got to take a shot
    Cause genocide is oh so sweet
    Tribunal’s gettin’ hot
    Like a boomerang, history repeats

    Bibi’s on the run, now
    Killin’ kids and women, too
    Bibi’s on a rampage
    Won’t let up until he’s through

    You’ve got to whip ethnic hatred up
    And hit them with a ton of lead
    If Joe blows his top
    Send kisses while you pile up the dead

    Bibi’s on the run, now
    Killin’ kids and women too
    Bibi’s on a rampage
    Won’t let up until he’s through

    [Guitar break]

    You gotta move them tanks up
    And use ’em like Guderian would
    Pack those civilians up
    Leave rubble where a city stood

    Bibi’s on the run, now
    Killin’ kids and women too
    Bibi’s on a rampage
    Won’t let up until he’s through

    Reply
  10. Wukchumni

    Is that a rather gaunt John Malkovich attired in simian garb in the antidote, contemplating a life of crime in regards to luxury automobiles?

    Reply
  11. The Rev Kev

    “The great nuclear bunker race: Britons are snapping up Cold War-era lairs for more than 3 times the asking price while fallout shelters are flogged on eBay amid threat of WWIII”

    Most people there would be laughing at people spending big money on those things that will never be used except to grow mushrooms in. Then they will learn that Keir Starmer has just had the British armed forces launch Storm Shadows at Russia itself to kill Russians with which will make them wonder if there is an Airbnb for nuclear fallout shelters.

    Reply
    1. Neutrino

      Sixtyish years ago, us neighborhood kids were content to make a dugout fort, all the rage given WWII shows on TV, with a plywood top and stock it with a few cans of fruit cocktail. Before sunset, it was time to retrieve those cans and go inside for supper.
      How times have changed.

      Reply
        1. Wukchumni

          ‘There is what appears to be an enormous Shiitake over what used to be the Holyland, now drifting out of view @ my 6:00 position, oh and what a Portobello belle now emerging as we cross into conflict elsewhere.’

          Please subscribe to my channel!

          Reply
    1. Wukchumni

      That’s what i’m talkin’ about in terms of latter-day troglodyte design, it’d be perfect for a heat shelter and being on top of a hill solves the potential for flooding, but most importantly its full of fun stuff, as you mention.

      Reply
  12. Joker

    COP29: Rules for UN-led carbon market under Article 6.4 approved in Baku S&P Global

    A carbon market would sell coal. A carbon credits market would sell promises.

    Reply
    1. Wukchumni

      Since the borderlands occupy a lot of ‘land’, wouldn’t combining Space Force with the new and improved Border Patrol, be a natural?

      Reply
  13. Captain Obvious

    A detailed Der Spiegel article on the Nord Stream sabotage Bud’s Offshore Energy

    Der Spiegel’s account seems credible.

    Der Spiegel’s account:
    ~a dozen men and one woman on a sailboat

    Reply
  14. Joker

    A Lesson Un-Learned: Two “Influencers” Drown After Refusing to Wear Life Jackets So Not to Ruin Their Tans The Old Salt Blog

    With all the artificially added buoyancy they had, one would expect that no jackets/vests/corsets are needed. No wonder that captain let it slide.

    Reply
  15. The Rev Kev

    “More NATO in the Arctic Could Free the United States Up to Focus on China”

    The Cliff Notes version of this article is pretty simple. The US doesn’t really do Arctic weather. Deserts are more their thing. So they are going to have the UK, Canada and the Nordic nations do and pay for any deployments there instead for them. No, seriously. That is what this article is saying.

    Reply
    1. Snap Crackle and Pop

      Well, why shouldn’t Canada and the Nordic nations do and pay for the deployments in the waters that they claim as their own??

      Reply
  16. Expat2uruguay

    Story about the two influencers drowning may be fake news.

    Aline Tamara Moreira de Amorim, 37, and Beatriz Tavares da Silva Faria, 27, were part of a group returning from a yacht party when their speedboat capsized in the area known as Garganta do Diabo – or the Devil’s Throat – which is filled with rapids and waterfalls.

    I say this maybe fake news because the devil’s throat is near the Iguazu Falls, which are inland and not on the coast. Perhaps there’s another place with the same name but I was unable to find it, even when I plugged it in search with “Sao Paulo”.

    Reply
    1. The Rev Kev

      This story was all in the news about a week or two ago so is almost certainly true. You only have to go to YouTube and put in the following search term to see the number of videos about people getting themselves killed trying to take that great selfie shot-

      selfie death

      Reply
      1. Wukchumni

        What’s it all about selfie
        Is it just for the moment we live

        What’s it all about
        When you sort it out, selfie
        Are we meant to take more photos than we give
        Or are we meant to be one of a kind?

        And if, if only fools are kind, selfie
        Then I guess it is wise to be cool
        And if life belongs only to the individual, selfie
        What will you lend a hand on a glorious perilous view?

        As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above
        Selfie, I know there’s something much more
        Something even non-Youtubers can believe in

        I believe in likes, selfie
        Without true self-admiration we just exist, selfie
        Until you find the self-love you’ve missed
        You’re nothing, selfie

        When you press the button let your heart lead the way

        And you’ll find self-love any day selfie, selfie

        Alife, performed by Dionne Warwick

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NPAz8-O29U

        Reply
  17. The Rev Kev

    “The pogrom that wasn’t”

    ‘We were driven to an industrial estate on the outskirts of Amsterdam and released, apart from one Arab man who was arbitrarily singled out, arrested and taken away. Afterwards, all that remained of the police operation was a drone overhead that monitored our movements. As we made our way back to the city centre, cars began circling around us and the drivers beckoned for us to get in. They introduced themselves as the Moroccan drivers whose colleague had been attacked by Maccabi fans on November 6. In a heartwarming act of solidarity after hours of police repression, they drove us back to Amsterdam, making sure that we got home safely.’

    You’ll never see that story on CNN, DW or the BBC.

    Reply
  18. Mikel

    Adani Back in Turmoil After Tycoon Charged in Bribery Scheme – Bloomberg

    NGL…it all sounds like the kind of crooked deals that oligarchs of the world have always made. Steps to become an oligarch.

    I suspect investigations heated up after India and Modi didn’t break off political and economic ties with Russia after the start of the SMO.

    Reply
  19. Louis Fyne

    >>>>Spirit Airlines CEO Got A $3.8 Million Bonus A Week Before Its Bankruptcy

    that is standard opersting procedure with a competent legal team.

    heads i win. tails i win a little less, but still i win.

    Reply
  20. Colonel Smithers

    Thank you, Lambert.

    Further to the European disunion links, on Tuesday, I attended a conference in the City and heard from erstwhile colleagues, trade body and professional services. Three sessions, opening remarks by the trade body chairman and adviser to the consultancy (and ex Merrill Lynch board and Bank of England court member), Basel (bank safety and soundness) and ESG, addressed the issues of the EU and Brexit.

    On the way home, I was wondering how to share the tidbits with you, so this link is ideal.

    The City is increasingly of the opinion that, as growth rates and political outlooks diverge between the, this time, faster growing periphery and slower growing, if not stagnating, core, the Eurozone crisis could return.

    The chairman and his trade body colleagues said they had not anticipated how receptive to the City Labour would be in government and how keen the government is on the City, recognised by the government as a strategic sector, to deliver its agenda and how much contact they have with the chancellor, three meetings in the past month alone.

    Slowly, but surely, the remainer City is turning against the EU and no longer interested in any form of rapprochement. Only 15k of 90K jobs forecast have been lost due to Brexit. Threats to the City like moving clearing and portfolio management from London to the EU will take 10 – 15 years to achieve. This appears to Starmer’s view, too.

    The City and government recognise that the UK is caught between Trump / the US and EU, but reckon that the UK, outside the EU, can ally with eastern Europe and the Netherlands to promote free trade and isolate a Germany on its knees and a France obsessed with strategic autonomy (“protectionism”). It was implied that if the UK has to choose, a deal with the US would be preferable, but it was recognised that farming and food production, not health, would be causes for concern.

    There was some stuff about the UK leading the world in technology, not just AI, and the regulation thereof, which made me think of recent reality checks from Revenant on these pages.

    (I have not heard so much wishful thinking, especially that the non-EU member UK can mobilise the EU against co-founding members France and Germany. I also noted that there’s a lot of Trump Derangement Syndrome as the Dixiecrats could have implemented and / or reinstated banking rules, but chose not to, and Biden kept Trump’s tariffs. There was no mention of the BRICS and global south / zone b.)

    The trade body said that the government had accepted 90% of its recommendations on banking rules (capital, consumer protection and senior manager accountability), i.e. rolling back the reaction to 2008 (“self harm”), and wants the City to fund net zero etc., implying that a rapprochement with the EU would put the City’s prominence and influence in the UK and elsewhere at risk.

    Last, but not least, the City grandee reckons Britons are paid too much.

    It was shocking to hear the extent that Starmer and Reeves need the City to do their thinking and even some of the diplomacy.

    Over supper with my parents, I told them the above and how much the government is reliant and wants to rely on the City. Mum remarked that on Tuesday the local library felt like a day care centre for the elderly escaping the cold. Library staff went to buy supplies out of their own pockets to feed the visitors. On Monday, local authorities were notified to expect an influx of refugees from Ukraine and to prioritise accordingly.

    Reply
  21. Mikel

    Who Is Authorizing Biden’s Nuclear Brinkmanship While The President’s Brain Is Missing? – Caitlin Johnstone

    Yes, C.J., I also see the elephant.
    C.J. for the headline win of the week.

    Reply

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