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Thanks, Johnny Kramer.

The post Have you heard of a little thing called Ozempic? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Eric Zuesse:

The economic genius Yanis Varoufakis tallies it all up in this extraordinary 27-minute talk:

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John Leo Keenan wrote:

I felt the doctor was too strong in this title, that it’s not so for Mises, whom Dr. Njoya quotes to back this title up.  In the quote she gives of him, it’s implicit that Mises grants History is a science in its own right.  Her Mises quote says the following, and I highlight the implied definition of history as being a science:

“This is not a field for understanding. It is a task to be accomplished by the employment of the tools provided by all nonhistorical sciences. The phenomena are gathered by cautious critical observation of the records available.… What a historian asserts is either correct or contrary to fact, is either proved or disproved by the documents available, or vague because the sources do not provide us with sufficient information. The experts may disagree, but only on the ground of a reasonable interpretation of the evidence available.”

If history weren’t a science to him, he would have written “by all sciences,” “the sciences” or something like that.  He implies there that history is a science to him.  It’s something to improve on that she doesn’t see the fact in the quote.  Without critical thinking we’re done for (as simple as that in my opinion).  She should check Google AI for this.  (It knows more than Njoya about Mises.)  I asked it, “did Ludwig von Mises think history is a science too and do we have a quote about it?”  It answered what I remembered about Mises (not as categorically), that he believed it’s “one of the two sciences of human action.”  She should not have used him to back up her title because it’s not so.  The correctness of AI Overview’s answer is also history and science, and in the last quote it gives at the end, the point of history being a science of human action is implied more heavily than in her quote.  Google’s AI Overview (copied and pasted):

“Ludwig von Mises did not consider history to be a science in the same way that he defined the theoretical, a priori science of human action, praxeology. Mises viewed history as one of the two sciences of human action, but he drew a sharp distinction in their logical character and methods. 

Mises’s View of History and Science

• History as a Science of the Past: Mises defined history as an empirical science of the past, dealing with unique, unrepeatable events and their concrete causes and effects. Its purpose is to understand the specific meaning and motivations behind individual human actions in a given context (a task Mises associated with a branch of history he called “thymology”).
• Praxeology as the A Priori Science: In contrast, Mises developed praxeology (of which economics is a part) as a theoretical, a priori science that uses deductive reasoning from the fundamental axiom of human action. Praxeology aims to discover universally valid laws and principles that are not derived from or falsifiable by historical experience.
• Distinction from the Natural Sciences: Mises argued that the methods of the natural sciences (like laboratory experiments and induction to find general laws) cannot be applied to human behavior because human action involves conscious choice and meaning, which are not present in the physical world. 

Relevant Quote

While Mises did not provide a single, widely circulated quote that “history is a science,” he made numerous statements highlighting the limitations of history in generating universal laws, contrasting it with praxeology. 

A key quote from his work Theory and History that encapsulates his view on what history can and cannot teach us is:

“If historical experience could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.” 

However, a more direct quote regarding the methodological limitations of history in a scientific context is:

“History cannot teach us any general rule, principle, or law”.

He further clarified the nature of praxeology (and thus, how it differs from history) with this quote: 

“Praxeology is a theoretical and systematic, not a historical, science. Its scope is human action as such, irrespective of all environmental, accidental, and individual circumstances of the concrete acts.” 

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Thanks, Wayne Goodfellow.

KW News

The post Gold or Stocks? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith.

Antiwar.com

The post The Ecocide of Gaza appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith.

The Intercept

The post War in Venezuela, Brought to You By the Same People Who Lied Us Into Iraq appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith.

Middle East Eye

The post The UAE is buying the West’s silence over its ‘race war’ in Sudan, says top general appeared first on LewRockwell.

George Giles wrote:

In Hong Kong there is a high rise building on fire for many hours and has not fallen down.

CBS News

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Writes Bill Madden:

I’m currently reading about Singapore’s health system.  They always rate in the top five of all countries in the world for health care excellence and the cost of the system is about 30% of ours.

The man running the country after it received independence was committed to helping the people so we will probably never have a similar system without a revolution.  Their system uses competition and other incentives to optimize the factors of cost and quality.  In our country, “profit” is not a dirty word for Corporate America, “competition” is.

Good, old Charlie agreed.

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Thanks, Ginny Garner.

Need to Know News

The post Candace Owens Announces Assassination Hit Put on Her appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Palestinewillbefree.substack.com

The post How Israel abducted a Gaza doctor — and then his daughter — to force false confessions appeared first on LewRockwell.

La traduzione in italiano dell'opera scritta da Wendy McElroy esplora Bitcoin a 360°, un compendio della sua storia fino ad adesso e la direzione che molto probabilmente prenderà la sua evoluzione nel futuro prossimo. Si parte dalla teoria, soprattutto quella libertaria e Austriaca, e si sonda come essa interagisce con la realtà. Niente utopie, solo la logica esposizione di una tecnologia che si sviluppa insieme alle azioni degli esseri umani. Per questo motivo vengono inserite nell'analisi diversi punti di vista: sociologico, economico, giudiziario, filosofico, politico, psicologico e altri. Una visione e trattazione di Bitcoin come non l'avete mai vista finora, per un asset che non solo promette di rinnovare l'ambito monetario ma che, soprattutto, apre alla possibilità concreta di avere, per la prima volta nella storia umana, una società profondamente e completamente modificabile dal basso verso l'alto.

____________________________________________________________________________________

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/il-mandato-di-milei-largentina-punta)

Domenica 26 ottobre il partito del presidente argentino Javier Milei, La Libertad Avanza, ha ottenuto una grande vittoria alle elezioni di medio termine del Paese. Nella Camera dei Deputati ha ottenuto il 50,4% dei seggi disponibili con una maggioranza del 40,7%; nella Camera alta, il Senato, ha ottenuto tredici dei 27 seggi disponibili, con un guadagno netto di sei.

Molti dubitavano di un simile risultato un mese fa quando, secondo Polymarket, le probabilità del partito di vincere la maggior parte dei seggi erano scese al minimo del 52,5%, dall'89,5% del 19 agosto. L'Argentina era, allora, nella morsa di una delle sue perenni crisi economiche, con il pèso in calo e i rendimenti obbligazionari in aumento. Il tentativo di Milei di raddrizzare l'economia del Paese riportando in equilibrio il bilancio con profondi tagli alla spesa – che, come ha osservato Noah Smith a luglio, avevano eliminato il deficit di bilancio e ridotto l'inflazione da un tasso mensile del 25% al ​​2,4% – era in bilico.

La causa dell'ultima crisi economica argentina si è verificata il 7 settembre, quando, con la sorella di Milei coinvolta in uno scandalo di corruzione, La Libertad Avanza ha subito una pesante sconfitta elettorale per mano del partito di centro-sinistra Fuerza Patria. “I mercati sono andati nel panico”, ha riportato The Economist, “preoccupati che questo segnalasse la fine del sostegno popolare alle sue riforme e il potenziale ritorno dei perònisti spendaccioni. È iniziata una forte svendita di pesòs, mentre gli investitori hanno abbandonato i titoli di stato argentini”.

Sebbene l'Argentina non sia l'unica a risentire delle difficoltà fiscali derivanti dall'aumento dei rendimenti obbligazionari, oggigiorno sono pochi i Paesi che si preoccupano seriamente dei propri tassi di cambio, ma l'Argentina è diversa.

La necessità e il pericolo dei prestiti in valuta estera

La causa ultima della crisi argentina è la sua lunga storia di cattiva gestione fiscale e monetaria. Il Paese è stato inadempiente sul suo debito sovrano nove volte, tre delle quali negli ultimi due decenni, e ha subito ripetuti periodi di elevata inflazione. Di conseguenza nessuno presterà pesòs al suo governo a un tasso di interesse accessibile, perché potrebbe non essere rimborsato affatto (hard default), o essere rimborsato in una valuta che vale molto meno di quella del momento del prestito (soft default).

Quindi per prendere in prestito i pesòs necessari a finanziare le sue operazioni, il governo argentino prende prima in prestito dollari che poi converte in pesòs. Ma un governo che prende in prestito dollari deve essere in grado di rimborsarli, quindi, come fa un governo che prende in prestito in una valuta che non emette a ottenerla? Ha due modi.

La tassazione è il primo. Il governo argentino potrebbe imporre tasse alla sua popolazione pagabili in dollari, ma ciò non farebbe altro che trasferire il problema di reperire quei dollari dal governo ai contribuenti. Per farlo questi ultimi dovrebbero vendere agli Stati Uniti (o a chiunque altro sia disposto a effettuare transazioni con loro in dollari) più di quanto acquista da essi. In breve, l'Argentina dovrebbe registrare un surplus delle partite correnti, cosa che ha fatto solo raramente negli ultimi anni.

Il secondo è il prestito. In questo caso il governo argentino sta di fatto acquistando dollari con pesòs ed è per questo che il tasso di cambio – il prezzo in pèso del dollaro – è importante. Ad aprile 1.000 pèsos equivalevano a 93 centesimi; il 21 settembre equivalevano a soli 68. Il governo di Milei aveva bisogno di più pèsos per acquistare la stessa quantità di dollari e questo, come ha osservato The Economist, ha sollevato il familiare spettro della stampa di moneta e dell'inflazione, con la conseguente fuga dai pèsos e dal debito denominato in essi, come i titoli di stato argentini, oltre al deprezzamento della valuta e l'aumento dei rendimenti obbligazionari.

La follia dei tassi di cambio fissi

Per proteggersi da una situazione del genere, il governo argentino ha cercato di fissare il tasso di cambio, ma questo approccio ha dei limiti.

Se il pèso aumenta rispetto al dollaro, la banca centrale argentina, essendo colei che li emette, può stamparli in quantità illimitata, utilizzandoli per acquistare dollari, facendo così scendere il prezzo relativo dei pèsos e aumentare quello dei dollari.

La situazione è molto diversa quando il pèso è in calo rispetto al dollaro. In tal caso la banca centrale argentina deve abbassare il prezzo del dollaro rispetto al pèso vendendo dollari in cambio di pèsos, facendo così aumentare il prezzo relativo di questi ultimi. Ma la banca centrale argentina ha accesso solo a una certa quantità di dollari, quindi ci sono limiti a quanto può perseguire questa linea di politica. Questa è la grande asimmetria al centro di tassi di cambio fissi come quello argentino; come scoprirono gli inglesi nel 1992, è facile indebolire una valuta relativamente forte, ma non rafforzarne una relativamente debole.

Nel periodo precedente alle elezioni, l'Argentina ha prosciugato le sue riserve in dollari nel tentativo di difendere il cambio fisso del pèso. Quando ha esaurito le munizioni, è intervenuto il presidente Trump. Per quanto utile, affidarsi a lui non è una strategia macroeconomica a lungo termine.

Le prospettive per l'Argentina

Milei mira a tenere sotto controllo l'indebitamento dell'Argentina, in modo che sia meno vulnerabile alle oscillazioni del tasso di cambio. L'elettorato argentino gli ha espresso la sua fiducia. A differenza degli elettori di altri Paesi, potrebbero aver avvertito un livello di sofferenza economica tale da indurli a riconoscere la necessità della medicina di Milei.

Con questo mandato c'è ancora molto da fare. “Il problema principale è che l'Argentina ha uno stato sociale ipertrofico, date le dimensioni e il livello di sviluppo della sua economia, e un sistema fiscale e di trasferimenti sociali altamente distorto che lo finanzia”, ​​ha dichiarato l'economista politico Jean-Paul Faguet a Newsweek a settembre. “Riesce a rimanere stabile solo nei periodi di prosperità; una cattiva situazione economica a livello internazionale, o specifici shock internazionali, la sbilanciano e la mandano in crisi”. Le ultime elezioni sono state uno shock positivo, con il pèso e i prezzi delle obbligazioni in aumento e i rendimenti in calo. Finché persistono i problemi strutturali dell'Argentina, però, l'economia – e il Paese – rimarranno vulnerabili. Il suo stato sociale, come quello francese ad esempio, deve essere proporzionato alla capacità dell'economia di sostenerlo e questo comporterà ulteriori tagli. Milei, in lizza per la rielezione nel 2027, ce la può fare ma ha ancora molto lavoro da fare.

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

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Negotiations between the US, Ukraine and Europe over the 28-point proposed framework reportedly has produced agreement on 19-points, which will be presented at sometime in the near future to the Russians. However, despite a ton of positive spin coming out of Geneva (where the talks were held) the actual substance of the supposed agreement is a dumpster fire.

The first point of confusion is the authorship of the 28-point plan. The Washington Post reported on Monday that:

Rubio “made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) said during the Halifax International Security Forum. “It is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan.”

Rubio denied the senators’ statements hours later, writing on X: “The peace proposal was authored by the U.S. It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations.”

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott called the senators’ comments “blatantly false.” In separate statements, Pigott and the White House said the plan “was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians.”

Here is one problem: the “Russian input” did not come from any Russian official… It was reportedly provided by Kiril Dimitriev, who is an informal advisor to Vladimir Putin but holds no weight within the Russian Foreign Ministry nor in the Russian National Security Council. Moreover, as I reported in my previous analysis of the 28-point document, there is very little in that purported peace plan that actually reflects Russia’s stated positions on a variety of issues.

Yuri Ushakov, a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin’s foreign policy advisor, commented on the proposed US peace plan for Ukraine during an interview today (Monday, 24 November) with the state news agency TASS. Ushakov, who coordinates Russia’s international relations and has been involved in key diplomatic efforts (including the 2022 Istanbul talks), described the plan as partially aligned with Moscow’s interests, but emphasized that no formal negotiations have occurred. So far, the only document that Russia has reviewed was the one presented at the meeting in August at the Anchorage, Alaska meeting between Trump and Putin.

According to Ushakov, Russia is familiar with an original version of the US peace plan (stemming from the August 2025 Alaska summit between Putin and President Trump), but “no specific negotiations” have taken place on it. He noted multiple versions are now circulating, but his comments focused on the one reviewed by the Kremlin. Ushakov added that the Kremlin views the EU’s alternative peace framework as “completely unconstructive” and unsuitable, as it fails to meet Russia’s core interests, such as weakening NATO’s posture in Eastern Europe.

Donald Trump is too weak politically to secure a deal that will be acceptable to Russia without igniting a firestorm among Republican and Democrat legislators, not to mention the strong opposition from the Europeans and Ukrainian officials. Here’s just a sample of the pushback:

U.S. lawmakers worried the initial proposal would further destabilize global security by rewarding Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine — raising questions over why Trump needs the deal signed so urgently, even if it comes at the expense of American and Ukrainian interests.

“Some people better get fired on Monday for the gross buffoonery we just witnessed over the last four days,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) posted on X on Saturday. “This hurt our country and undermined our alliances, and encouraged our adversaries.”. . .

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the former majority leader, on Sunday cautioned against the Trump administration “pressuring the victim and appeasing the aggressor” as a way to bring about peace. He questioned “which difficult concessions” the U.S. had asked of Russia.

“Allies and adversaries are watching: Will America hold firm against aggression or will we reward it?” McConnell wrote on X.

Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia) sharply criticized the early plan, telling ABC on Sunday morning that “Neville Chamberlain’s giving in to Hitler [before] World War II looks strong in comparison” and that the plan resembles a set of “Russian talking points.”

An overwhelming majority Washington politicians and European leaders are still in denial about the dire situation confronting Ukraine… They genuinely believe that Russia is under great pressure from a supposedly failing economy and staggering losses on the battlefield. Both are lies. Russia is wasting no time in continuing to attack and destroy Ukrainian fortifications and electrical infrastructure all along the line of contact. Putin, along with Kremlin spokesman Peskov and Ushakov, continue to feign interest in a diplomatic solution, but understand that Trump will fail to produce a proposed deal that Russia would find acceptable.

If Ukraine was winning on the battlefield and Russia was failing economically and militarily, we would not be seeing the panicked effort by the US and Europe to secure an agreement with Moscow that would end the fighting… Hell, the West, along with Zelensky, would be popping champagne corks and celebrating.

Once Rubia comes up with a proposal that satisfies Ukraine and placates Europe, it will be presented to Putin’s Foreign Ministry, who will make all of the appropriate diplomatic gestures, carefully read the document, and then politely reject it or call for a meeting between Trump and Putin. All of this will take time, and Russia is in no hurry to secure an agreement because of its accelerating success on the battlefield.

Reprinted with permission from Sonar21.

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The court historians, who insist that they have the only “correct” view of history, like to claim that theirs is the only true version of history because it is based on primary sources. But they fail to distinguish between what the primary sources state, and their own interpretation of the significance to be attached to those sources. Moreover, their selection of which historical sources are to be given paramount importance, and which may safely be ignored, is often selected to fit within their own preferred theory.

In understanding the War Between the States, we are given to understand that the writings of John C. Calhoun, Alexander Stephens, and Jefferson Davis are “biased,” and the truth is to be found in the speeches of Abraham Lincoln which are not biased at all. The only speech of Alexander Stephens we are to study is the so-called Cornerstone Speech—which is so named because we are to focus on the paragraph where he calls racial inequality the cornerstone of the Confederate constitution, and we are to ignore everything else he said about the Confederate constitution because that is not important. This is all presented as the “truth” based on a scientific—or at least science-like—study of the evidence by the trained experts. The implication is that you should no more dismiss the establishment view of history than you would dismiss the report of an engineer on the structural integrity of a bridge.

In his book Theory and History Ludwig von Mises skewered the sham “scientism” adopted by such historians, who depict their collectivist methodology, largely based on studying groups and group activity, as akin to the study of physics or chemistry. For example, the historian Samuel H. Beer in his essay “Political Science and History” argued that the social sciences and the study of history can yield principles that are universally true, based on descriptions across time and place. He called this “the doctrine of universality,” arguing that it can be used to derive theories explaining “the essential nature of law, science, and causal explanation.”

He was even “ready to accept as lawlike and explanatory propositions which do not hold in all contexts.” Part of the reason why social scientists prefer a collectivist approach to the study of history is that they seek, as far as possible, to imitate the methodology of the natural sciences by quantifying and measuring group activity, deriving general theories that would describe and explain the actions of specified groups of people and provide a foundation for making predictions of how people are likely to act in future. The actions of individuals are deemed to be irrelevant to this “study of mass phenomena.” As Mises explains,

While the study of individual traits is of no special interest to them, they hope study of the behavior of social aggregates will reveal information of a really scientific character. For these people the chief defect of the traditional methods of historical research is that they deal with individuals. They esteem statistics precisely because, as they think, it observes and records the behavior of social groups.

Mises argued that the methodology of the natural sciences cannot appropriately be applied to understanding human action, and that history cannot be fully understood without studying individuals. In Human Action, he explains the methodology of the historian as having two components, the first of which is based on examination of primary sources such as historical documents—the aim being to ascertain what the documents say or depict. On this component, any honest historian can be treated as reliable:

Those facts which can be established in an unquestionable way on the ground of the source material available must be established as the preliminary work of the historian. This is not a field for understanding. It is a task to be accomplished by the employment of the tools provided by all nonhistorical sciences. The phenomena are gathered by cautious critical observation of the records available.… What a historian asserts is either correct or contrary to fact, is either proved or disproved by the documents available, or vague because the sources do not provide us with sufficient information. The experts may disagree, but only on the ground of a reasonable interpretation of the evidence available.

On that point, the word of the court historians is no more or less reliable than that of anyone else examining the same documents armed with nothing more than ability to read and basic reading comprehension ability. Good old common sense. Problems arise in relation to the second component, which involves “application of the nonhistorical sciences to the subject matter of history.” Here historians will debate “the effects and the intensity of the effects brought about by an action…the relevance of each motive and each action.” They are not disagreeing about the evidence, but about the significance or implications of that evidence and how that evidence is to be deployed in an explanatory “theory” about history. The theories they derive about history, the narratives they spin and the stories they tell, are neither universal nor scientific. They cannot be “tested” like theories in the field of physics or chemistry, because “there necessarily enters into understanding an element of subjectivity. The understanding of the historian is always tinged with the marks of his personality. It reflects the mind of its author.”

At this level, historians are not disputing the veracity of the facts, but the importance or relevance to be attached to the selected facts, or the value judgments that went into their decision to highlight certain facts and brush others aside. Hence Mises argues that, “Historical understanding can never produce results which must be accepted by all men.” By contrast, scientific principles in the natural sciences are generally or universally true. When we describe gravity as scientific, we do not simply mean that most scientists “agree” with it, nor do we mean that it is a matter of opinion whether one regards gravity as significant or not.

In defending his argument that history can yield universal principles, Beer gave the example of the statement “all apples in basket b at time t are red” as one sense in which we may describe a statement as universal—he saw that as “universal in logical form” because it does not apply to just one apple in the basket or a few apples in the basket, but rather to all apples in the basket. But as Beer goes on to note, this is not, of course, what is meant by saying that scientific principles are universal. As Mises explains it, the principle that “man acts” is scientific and universal because to be human is to act. It does not merely mean that “all men in a specific place p at time t act.” A historian who sets out to describe all apples in a basket, or even all apples in multiple sets of baskets across time and location, is not involved in scientific endeavor, but is merely engaged in gathering the evidence. The evidence is not transformed into a universal scientific principle merely because it happens to apply to all the groups studied by that historian. Beer argued that this weakness—limitation to the particular time and place of the evidence actually studied—could be corrected by ensuring that the statement reflects what he calls “nomological universality”:

…to be a law, a statement must not only be universal in logical form, but also free of such local reference. Or to put the matter more positively, all predicates, it is said, must be “purely qualitative.”

Thus, he regards history as a “science,” or at least science-like, when, to use his example, he examines apples in baskets multiple times and places to derive principles that are generally true about apples. Thus, for example, if we derived a statement such as “there are red apples in different continents around the globe, and such apples are found to subsist across several different centuries” that would be “qualitative”—it describes apples without confining the observation to time and place, and “could be corroborated in a very wide variety of space-time contexts.” It is certainly true that the red apple is ubiquitous. But that is still a descriptive point concerning the available evidence. The fact that red apples are ubiquitous is interesting information and a potentially comforting thing to know—if you go on a global tour you can reasonably expect to be able to find apples wherever you are—but that does not make it a scientific principle comparable to Newton’s laws of motion.

Historians can certainly shed light on human nature by describing events that apply generally to groups of people, or mass phenomena, across time and place, what Beer called “the analytic and generalizing historian,” but this does not mean historical conclusions derived in that way are scientifically and objectively true. The evidence still requires to be put into the context of other explanatory factors. Observing human action at the level of groups obscures a wide range of human activity which does not fit within the group trait under observation. As the distinguished historian Clyde Wilson has argued, “History is not a mathematical calculation or scientific experiment but a vast drama of which there is always more to be learned.”

The post History Is Not a Science appeared first on LewRockwell.

The EU/NATO combo cannot but play the role of pathetic yapping chihuahuas. That’s the price you pay for a matrioshka of supreme stupidity.

No one ever lost money betting on the politically suicidal instincts of post-Orwellian EU – that acronym for a virtual Europe.

Call them juvenile bipolar psychos or a bunch of yapping chihuahuas: no Jupiterian or Mercurial voice of reason has been capable to impart to the “leadership” in Brussels and their vassals in most European capitals – yes, there are healthy exceptions – that losers in wars do not dictate terms.

And still those War Council luminaries – with a special starring role for the toxic Pfizer Medusa and her Estonian sidekick unable to even manage a herring stall in the Baltics – insist that essentially the mega-corrupt gang in Kiev must prevail, to the last Ukrainian dead, and on top of it dictate the final terms of their non-surrender.

Reality begs to differ. Plan A was never to talk, much less negotiate with Russia. And still there’s no Plan B.

So after the 28-pointer Theater of the Absurd – which is not even Trump’s plan, but a mish mash concocted by the Witkoff-Dmitriev duo plus “insights” from neo-con Rubio and toxic Zionist asset Jared Kushner – the cross-yapping went ballistic, leading to an emergency “counter-plan” that is, what else, a Loser’s Manifesto.

Even Rubio allowed himself a shining moment: “What plan?” Might as well call it The Euro-kiss of Death.

Russia, meanwhile, behaves like Lao Tzu surrounded by rabid stray dogs. The conditions for a negotiation have been set in detail by Putin since June 2024. These are non-negotiable, and would allow the negotiation to start: Kiev withdraws from the four regions and formally pledges to never enter NATO.

One of the EU’s “counter-plan” points is a 30-day ceasefire, with all territorial disputes to be debated afterwards. So that means everything frozen on the current front line, and no Ukraine withdrawal from the parts of Donbass they still occupy.

None of that – and much more – is remotely acceptable to the actual winner of the war, Russia. It would not be acceptable even if NATO troops were entering Moscow tomorrow.

So the “counter-plan”, elaborated in conjunction with the unimaginably corrupt Kiev combo, is essentially a sabotage op to buy some extra time and buy some $6 trillion in – American – weapons – for their amply avowed Forever War. Fine with Moscow – as the SMO will keep going on, rolling thunder mode.

Losers bombing a peace plan

The EU’s 24-point counter-plan contains nuggets such as Ukraine

receiving legally binding security guarantees from the Empire of Chaos and its vassals: a de facto NATO Article 5 scam with different terminology.

Plus no restrictions on Ukraine’s armed forces and defense industry; control of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (with the Empire of Chaos in the mix) and the Kakhovka Dam; unhindered access to the Dnieper River and control of the Kinburn Spit.

And the killer: Ukraine “financially compensated” – including through the stolen, so far, Russian sovereign assets, which will remain stolen until Moscow pays compensation.

As for sanctions, they “may” – that’s the operative word – be “partially” – another operative word – eased only after a “sustainable peace”, with automatic snap-back if the deal is violated. Translation: the West can sanction Russia again anytime they see fit. No word on provocations by the EU/NATO using Ukraine – the actual set up that led to the SMO.

So what the “counter-plan” proposes – obviously redacted by a bunch of Eurocrats who cannot even fire a pistol properly – is a replica of the exact blueprint that led to the battlefield opened in February 2022.

Russia once again is playing it with boundless patience. The Trump plan which is not really Trump’s is diplomatically regarded as a “good foundation” for further serious negotiations – with the yapping crowd having no access to the table. That’s it – at best.

After all Russia is enjoying a series of overlapping asymmetric advantages in the battlefield: systemic and tactical adaptation; enormous advantage in drone operations (FPV drones with fiber-optics); use of long-range glide bombs.

The chihuahua “counter-plan” essentially calls for a frozen war; a remilitarized Ukraine; a remilitarized NATO; and ultimately a perennial Forever War against Russia. It has already bombed, metaphorically, the original Trump plan that is not exactly Trump’s.

The “counter-plan” should also be seen as a diversionist tactic now that the dark pit of corruption in Kiev starts to be pried upon by the NABU investigation – even as Russian UN representative Nebenzya had been warning the UN Security Council since forever that “you were dealing with a corrupt gang that is profiting from the war”.

Nebenzya also correctly observed that not a single Western country has said a word about the corruption scandal in Kiev. Of course: because a proper investigation will inevitably follow the corruption chain of command all the way to decision making circles in Washington and in Brussels.

The metaphysical void of EU “elites”

Emmanuel Todd, in his ground-breaking The Defeat of the West, published in France early last year (the first review in English is here) was the first European analyst to get deeper into the EU malaise, side by side with his comprehensive analysis of the proxy war in Ukraine.

Recently, in an outstanding lecture in Hiroshima,

Todd made a startling correlation between Russophobia and Protestantism. Certain passages are worth quoting at length:

“What we have seen appear recently in Europe is a specifically European Russophobia, a specifically European warmongering, centered on Northern Europe, on Protestant Europe. Protestant Europe is the United Kingdom, it’s the majority of Germany, it’s Scandinavia, it’s two out of three Baltic countries.”

At the same time, Todd has observed that “Spain, Italy, Catholic countries in general, are neither Russophobic nor hawkish.”

Todd’s key argument is that protestantism “is more dangerous in its zero state than Catholicism”: “Protestantism is more capable of leaving behind a nihilistic society. Protestantism, and the same could be said of Judaism, was a very demanding religion. There was God, there was the faithful, and the world was secondary. The beauty of the world in particular was rejected with, among other things, a refusal of images, a refusal of the visual arts. When such religions, obsessed with transcendence, disappear, nothing remains. The world itself is not interesting, empty. This intense void opens up a particular possibility of nihilism. Catholicism is a less demanding, more humane religion that can accept the idea that the world is, in itself, beautiful. The images have not been rejected in the Catholic world, and the Catholic world is filled with artistic wonders. In a Catholic country, if you lose God, you are left with the feeling of this beauty of the world. If you are French, you still have the feeling that you live — an illusion no doubt — in the most beautiful country in the world.”

Well, it’s slightly more nuanced. What about the – vicious – Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition? Germany was in fact forced by a massive P.R. campaign to become Russophobic, unlike the Baltic chihuahuas. Most of Protestant Europe is in fact atheistic – and the next step from atheism is nihilism. Romania is mostly Christian Orthodox – where hatred of Russia is like a national sport. And Protestantism was essentially Christianity turbo-charged to the Age of Capital. So the main conflict is in fact Western turbo-Neoliberalism v. Christian Orthodox Russia.

Back to the basics. Everyone with an IQ over room temperature knows that the NATO regime in Kiev runs on theft and outright plunder. The lights are now off. Heating is mostly off. The army is steadily collapsing all along the 1,200+ km frontline.

Yet the EU elites – the set up in Brussels just follows their orders –

have invested no holds barred in the inevitable (in their dreams) collapse and looting of Russia. That’s why there was never a Plan B.

If the EU folds now, if they admit they are the irretrievable losers in this absurdist adventure, the economic collapse will be epic. The EU/NATO combo cannot but play the role of pathetic yapping chihuahuas. That’s the price you pay for a matryoshka of supreme stupidity: to provoke and threaten a superpower with the most advanced nuclear and hypersonic arsenal on the planet. Their current “victory” is to bomb Trump’s already shaky “peace” plan.

So many horrors, so little time. On a more auspicious note, let’s give Todd the last word:

“If you are Italian, you actually live in the country in the world where there are the most beautiful things, since Italy itself has become an object of art. In such contexts, the fear of the metaphysical void is less intense, and therefore the risk of nihilism less. In my opinion, the country in Europe least threatened by nihilism is Italy, because in Italy everything is beautiful”.

So shed your metaphysical void, dump those chihuahuas of war, and embrace the beauty of Italy as a living work of art. That’s exactly what I’m doing next.

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

The post The European Matryoshka of Irrelevance appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Trump correctly called out the TV networks for their fake news and said they should be broken up.  He is correct.  It was President Clinton who apparently was paid by the Jews to let them monopolize 90% of the American media in 6 hands.  

Trump should include National Public Radio in the breakup.  I came to this conclusion today when listening to a NPR host decry making the large number of childhood vaccinations voluntary.  She struck me as a well paid shill of Big Pharma.  She completely ignored, as if the conclusive evidence did not exist, the connection between widespread childhood illnesses, illnesses that did not exist in the population when I was a child, and the numerous vaccinations, some beginning 24 hours after birth, that Big Pharma has succeeded in having mandated if a child is permitted to attend school.  

The Big Pharma shill went on at length about the horror of states passing a law that doctors had to treat an unvaccinated child.  Apparently, the NPR host thought that an unvaccinated child should be permitted to die as punishment to the parents for not having the child vaccinated until its health is ruined and the child becomes a lifetime purchaser of Big Pharma’s medicines to combat the illnesses Big Pharma’s vaccines gave him.

The Big Pharma NPR shill, of course, pulled out the standard denunciation of parents who wanted to send their unvaccinated kids to school so they could infect who?  The vaccinated ones?  If the vaccines work, what does it matter if unvaccinated kids are present?

When I was a child there were no mandatory vaccines. We had no vaccinations against measles, mumps, chicken pox or any of the normal childhood diseases that built our immune systems.  They wanted us to be vaccinated for smallpox, a killer.  It was voluntary and people cooperated.  If kids went barefoot in summer and swam in creeks or lakes in which cows might defacate, there was a danger of  tetanus or typhoid.  So when summer arrived parents were encouraged to have kids given shots in the arm to protect against lockjaw and typhoid fever. If kids were not subject to the risk of a rusty nail through a bare foot or swallowing contaminated water, there was no need of vaccination.

Later we were encouraged to take a sugar cube with a polio vaccine on it, which again was voluntary and most everyone complied.

The only time in my life when I had a mandatory vaccination was when I gradated from Georgia Tech and was selected to be a member of the US Department of State US/USSR student exchange program with the Soviet Union.  As the scheduled itinerary included the Central Asian provinces of the Soviet Union, the Department of State required that I be vaccinated as a protection against yellow flavor.  

The same with pets.  At six months dogs were vaccinated for rabies once for life.  There were no further vaccinations.  Cats were not vaccinated.

Big Pharma using the power of money has managed to get legislated in every state that dogs and cats have to be vaccinated endlessly throughout a life shortened by the vaccination or they cannot be treated by a vet.  

Vets are brainwashed in veterinary schools, as doctors and nurses are in medical schools, into the vaccination narrative.  Consequently, vaccinated cats live 10 years.  Unvaccinated ones live 20 years.  

Big Pharma grows its profits by infusing illness and death into the human and animal populations.  The program  I listened to on NPR was doing Big Pharma’s work.

The post Damn Big Pharma and Its Shills appeared first on LewRockwell.

Borrowing more to maintain spending is hanging on by one’s fingernails, not middle-class security.

The middle class is cracking, but if you want a statistic that “proves” this, there isn’t one. The cracking isn’t a statistic, it’s the culmination of observations logged over the past 15 years about these critical measures of what it takes to qualify as middle class:

1. How much income a household needs to secure the minimum qualifications of a middle class standard of living / quality of life, based on the conventional standards of the 1960s – 1980s. (The qualifying characteristics are listed below.)

2. The upward or downward mobility of those claiming middle class status. Put another way: if it requires monumental effort and perfect execution to achieve the minimum qualifications of middle class security, then that isn’t a “middle class” set of qualifications, that’s an elite set of qualifications.

3. Precarity: how much (or little) financial disruption does it take to tip a household into a down-spiral that becomes increasingly difficult to escape. The foundation of any non-trivial definition of “middle class” (any definition that is solely based on income is trivial) is the financial resilience offered by ownership of assets, particularly income-producing assets, and savings that can be tapped to handle emergencies.

I’ve been addressing these issues for many years. Here are a few of my posts on the decay of the middle class:

Priced Out of the Middle Class (June 28, 2012)

What Does It Take To Be Middle Class? (December 5, 2013)

Misplaced Pride: Most of the “Middle Class” Is Actually Working Class (June 14, 2019)

Squeezed for Decades, America’s Working Class Is Finally Up Against the Wall (May 13, 2024)

Here are the minimum requirements to qualify as middle class, drawn up by myself and readers:

1. Meaningful healthcare insurance. By meaningful I mean healthcare insurance that doesn’t have high deductibles–if you have to pay thousands of dollars before the insurance kicks in, that’s not insurance, it’s a simulation of insurance–and insurance that isn’t reduced to meaninglessness by limitations on coverage and/or zero coverage for core elements of healthcare.

2. Significant equity (25%-50%) in a home or other real estate.

3. Income/expenses that enable the household to save at least 6% of its net income.

4. Significant retirement funds: 401Ks, IRAs, etc.

5. The ability to service all debt and expenses over the medium-term if one of the primary household wage-earners lose their job.

6. Reliable vehicles for each wage earner.

7. If a household requires government assistance to maintain the family lifestyle, their Middle Class status is in doubt.

8. A percentage of non-paper, non-real estate hard assets such as family heirlooms, precious metals, tools, etc. that can be transferred to the next generation, i.e. generational wealth.

9. Ability to invest in offspring (education, extracurricular clubs/training, etc.).

10. Leisure time devoted to the maintenance of physical/spiritual/mental fitness.

11. Continual accumulation of human and social capital (new skills, networks of collaborators, markets for one’s services, etc.)

12. Family ownership of income-producing assets such as rental properties, bonds, family-owned business, etc.

The absolute scale of these requirements is less important than all twelve being included in the household’s quiver. In other words, it’s not necessary to own equity worth millions, but it is important to own meaningful equity across the range of assets listed above.

Back in 2012, I went through each requirement and arrived at a minimum household income of $106,000– adjusted for inflation, the equivalent sum today is $152,000. Before you scoff, please read the entirety of Michael Green’s careful analysis of what qualifies as “poverty level income” and “middle class income:” How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America (via Cheryl A.)

Green concluded the minimum income needed today is $140,000— more or less the same as my estimate, especially given his detailed explanation of why this minimum is barebones.

Green’s analysis of middle-class precarity dismantles all the statistical rah-rah presented as evidence that we’re all getting richer every day, in every way. Like insurance with stupidly high deductibles, this isn’t middle class security, it’s a simulation of middle class security.

This report in the Wall Street Journal suggests this reality is now so undeniably obvious that the WSJ had to address it: The Middle Class Is Buckling Under Almost Five Years of Persistent Inflation: Workers growing tired of economy in which everything seems to get more expensive.

As Green explained, soaring costs for big-ticket essentials–all the things required to participate in the economy in a meaningful fashion–are crushing the middle class.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Middle Class Is Cracking appeared first on LewRockwell.

Family dysfunction is so widespread in America 2.0 that they had to invent a new term to describe it More and more childless, often lonely ‘Murricans are celebrating “Friendsgiving.” Not Thanksgiving. When your family is hopelessly fractured, you turn to friends, if you have any. Hopefully, you still give thanks before eating.

In the photo above, the “friends” appear as if they’re attending a seance, not a special dinner for the purpose of expressing gratitude for the blessings of life. Now to be fair, it is probably safe to assume that most of those participating in a “Friendsgiving” are not devout believers in God. So they can’t be expected to give thanks to Him for anything. And I must say that at this particular “Friendsgiving,” there seems to be a startling lack of diversity. Only one possible nonwhite, although the dearth of White males is commendatory. Perhaps it’s a special lesbian “Friendsgiving,” although there’s not a single transgender in sight. However you look at it, “Friendsgiving” is not based on traditional themes. The very idea is anti-family, as is everything else emanating from our poisonous cultural overlords. All those TV shows and films depicting the dread of seeing your family once a year. Seinfeld already came up with Festivus in lieu of Christmas. Friendsgiving spares us that annoying family contact.

In my parents’ world, and during my childhood and young adulthood, many families invited a friend or two, or perhaps a distant cousin, to Thanksgiving dinner. Most of us still had enough empathy back then to realize that people shouldn’t have to be alone on a day devoted to family gratitude. There were always unmarried uncles, and what was indelicately referred to then as “spinster” aunts. They didn’t have to worry about going to Boston Market or some other restaurant, by themselves, to “celebrate.” They certainly wouldn’t have thought of bonding together with others without families, or outcast from them, in a “Friendsgiving.” Families went well beyond this in those days, as I heard many stories of a bachelor uncle or a lonely, childless widow being warmly welcomed into a family household. No retirement homes for them. When The Waltons depicted their huge family under one roof, that wasn’t an uncommon thing back then. Goodnight John Boy, indeed.

Set against this backdrop of turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce and assorted pies, is the growing realization, on behalf of millions of Americans, that they are living under an occupied regime. We may not be residents of Gaza, crawling through the rubble of what was once our home, and there may not be actual IDF soldiers patrolling the streets, ready to take out some dangerous child with a rock in its hand at any moment. But we are under an occupation nevertheless. The esteemed “American” congressional representative Randy Fine celebrated Marjorie Taylor Greene’s sudden and inexplicable resignation from Congress by tweeting, “Good riddance. One antisemite down. One to go.” Does this seem like the kind of thing a person representing a free people should say? Isn’t there, if not an actual threat, a snide braggadocio in Fine’s tone? A boast that, hell yes, we’re in charge- what are you gonna do about it? Who, exactly, took Marjorie Taylor Greene “down?”

When you have a supposed U.S. congressional “representative” aggressively advocating for another country’s interests first, and then taunts one of the few members of Congress who are critical of this diabolical stance, you know you’re occupied. When you have another U.S. congressional “representative,” Brian Mast, who feels comfortable in wearing the military uniform of this favored foreign nation, on the floor of our Congress, you know you’re occupied. Both Fine and Mast are Republicans. Many MAGA loyalists probably think they’re strong “conservatives.” Both hail from Florida, a good, solid “Red” state. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has done all he could to criminalize “anti-Semitism,” which is, of course, not even a quantifiable term. Legislating with emotion, just like the crazed “Woke” Left. You cannot claim to be “America First,” when you support so many Israel First public figures. The Wailing Wall is not compatible with the cracked Liberty Bell.

Ben Shapiro. Mark Levin. Laura Loomer. Rosanne Barr. Prominent Jews are lowering their masks, and revealing just how loyal they are to Israel. Not America. As Shapiro proudly said, U.S. support of Israel is what keeps him supporting America. Just like a schoolyard bully- hand over your money and I’ll let you alone. Until the next time. Rosanne was seemingly in our conspiracy-tinged world, but recently literally hissed like some genuine witch, that if America stops supporting Israel, “we’ll” just go somewhere else, and “America will get what’s coming to it.” Then, like she was casting a spell, she snarled, “America will fall!” This was sad to hear. Rosanne was a victim of cancel culture herself, and has been bold in the past, once calling fellow non-Irish success story Howard Stern a “pussy,” and expressing sympathy for the dreaded “holocaust denial.” She has also claimed to be a “Hebrew princess.” I guess she’s still doing her standup act. No longer much of a chance of getting her on my podcast.

The battle to counter the insane “Woke” Left cannot be fought, let alone won, with the likes of Shapiro, Levin, Mast, and Fine in the front lines. They are fighting for a different cause. They are fighting for a tiny nation that was installed by great military forces, with nuclear weapons at their disposal. The battle can’t be won by worshiping great tyrants like Hamilton and Lincoln. Or extolling the “greatest generation” and their “good war.” It can’t be won by worshiping the shameful Nuremberg Trials as the ultimate form of “justice.” It can’t be won by yelling “Nazi” louder than even the craziest blue-haired transgender. It can’t be won by supporting our corrupt, noncompetitive and rigged crony capitalist system. And it certainly can’t be won by resorting to your own cancel culture. Say it with me; it is not a crime, nor is it “wrong,” to publicly criticize our favored “ally” in the Middle East.

We are at yet another watershed moment. Well, I guess we always seem to be at a watershed moment. And what invariably happens is that the lethargic American public just turns their backs, and at best shrugs. We clearly don’t have a tipping point. When you can have a vast majority of White people literally worshiping the most obnoxious and ignorant “culture” a supposed First World country has ever produced, what else is there to say? And a majority of this same group of allegedly higher IQ Whites also believe that an even smaller minority group, which has just happens to hold an exorbitant amount of power that seems mathematically impossible given their numbers, are somehow the “chosen” people of God. Are all the partial Jews just half “chosen?” I have lots of cousins who are half, one quarter, or one eighth Jewish. What exactly is their “chosen” status? This is the group responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. They rejected your savior. And yet you think they shouldn’t be criticized?

Give me a logical reason for Marjorie Taylor Greene deciding to resign? And to pick a date that just happens to be two days after she reaches her full congressional pension status. Boy, that looks bad. Makes her look as greedy and unconscionable as the rest of them. Did someone pick that date for her, for the maximum demonization effect? Maybe she was always phony, playing a role like the rest of the crisis actors. But what possible sense does it make for her to resign, right after Trumpenstein attacks her as Marjorie “Traitor” Brown? Is Thomas Massie next, as the honorable Rep. Fine suggests? Whether he knew it or not, in the motion to release the Epstein files, “unclassified” files are specified. Why would you do that, which leaves the door open for the government to just claim everything significant is classified? Massie lost his wife under very suspicious circumstances, and now has remarried, for which the thrice married Trump called him a “loser” in a scathing, juvenile social media post.

Read the Whole Article

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Last week’s surprise release of a draft Ukraine war peace plan has raised hopes that the nearly three-year bloody conflict may finally come to an end. Ukraine has suffered horrible losses that may change the demographics of that country for decades to come.

If this peace plan can be negotiated in a way that satisfies all sides and the guns finally go silent, I will be the first to cheer. However, the continued failure to understand the nature and origin of the current conflict leaves me skeptical that a real peace can be reached this way.

From the Orange Revolution in the early 2000s to the Maidan revolution in 2014, the US and its NATO partners have been interfering in Ukraine’s internal affairs in attempt to manipulate the country into a hostile position toward its much larger and more powerful neighbor, Russia.

We must remember how directly coordinated the 2014 coup was by the United States. US Senators, including John McCain and Lindsey Graham, were on the main square of a foreign capital demanding that the people overthrow their duly elected government. Victoria Nuland was caught on a telephone call planning who would run the post-coup government.

Outside intervention led us to the terrible situation of today. This peace deal is another chapter in that same intervention, with the US and its partners desperately trying to manage and solve a problem that they created in the first place. Can you solve a problem created by outside intervention with more intervention?

For the entirety of this conflict politicians and the media have been unwavering in blaming Russia entirely for what has occurred. I agree that they’re no angels. But the real villains here are the US neocons and their European counterparts who knew it was suicidal for Ukraine to take on Russia but pushed Ukraine to keep fighting anyway. Early in the conflict a deal was on the table and nearly signed that would end the war, but the neocon former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson demanded that Ukraine keep fighting.

Ukraine is the victim here, I agree. But it is as much a victim of the US and European neocons as of the Russians. They believed they could put NATO on Russia’s doorstep and face no consequences. If the tables were turned and a hostile China set up a new Latin American military alliance with the US as its designated enemy, would we sit by idly as military bases were constructed on our southern border? I don’t think so.

President Trump promised he would end the war 24 hours after he was elected. It was an unrealistic boast, but he actually could have ended it rather quickly. The antidote to intervention Is non-intervention. Biden drug us into the war, that is true. But Trump could have pulled us out by quite simply ending all US involvement. No weapons, no intelligence, no coordination. No need for sanctions or the threat of sanctions, no need for elaborate peace plans.

A real peace deal would realize that it was always idiotic to believe that Ukraine could stand up to Russia’s war machine – even with NATO’s backing. It is unimaginably cruel to demand that Ukraine keep fighting our proxy war down to the last Ukrainian.

No 28-point plans can fix this. The real fix is much simpler: walk away.

The post A Real Ukraine Peace Plan appeared first on LewRockwell.

In December 2024 President Donald Trump named venture capitalist David O. Sacks as the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar.”

Sacks is set to guide the administration’s policies for artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.

AI-researcher Gary Markus is wondering how two recent tweets by Gary Sacks relate to each other:

One theory of capitalism holds that every company should be left to their own devices, with state intervention kept a minimum. This view was well articulated just a few weeks ago, by White House AI and Crypto Czar and well-known podcaster, David O. Sacks:

David Sacks @DavidSacks – 16:52 UTC · Nov 6, 2025

There will be no federal bailout for AI. The U.S. has at least 5 major frontier model companies. If one fails, others will take its place.

The other theory of capitalism, if we can indeed call it that, holds that we should bailout important companies or industries that might overextend themselves. Quite the opposite from the above.

This latter theory, almost a form of safety-net socialism for overextended companies, seemed to be implied today, in a tweet that seemed to be laying the groundwork for bailout, by none other than … White House AI and Crypto Czar and well-known podcaster, David O. Sacks:

David Sacks @DavidSacks – 17:34 UTC · Nov 24, 2025

According to today’s WSJ, AI-related investment accounts for half of GDP growth. A reversal would risk recession. We can’t afford to go backwards.

The WSJ report Sacks mentions, archived here, is indeed gloomy:

The economy’s dependence on AI comes with risks. Stock price/earnings ratios are near record highs. If lofty profit predictions prove wrong, share prices may tumble and investment could slow. The S&P 500 fell about 2% last week on concerns about a bubble, despite rallying 1% on Friday.

Falling stocks could trigger a reverse wealth effect: Americans would consume less, which would tend to depress sales, profits and, potentially, employment.
…
If AI investment stopped growing, that could knock another 0.5 point off growth, Millar estimates. If it went to zero, that would knock a full percentage point off.
…
Another risk relates to the growing scale of AI-related borrowing.
…
If the revenue necessary to service that debt doesn’t materialize, lenders could take a hit, spilling over into debt markets, said Berezin.

China is letting the first type of capitalism reign their Artificial Intelligence efforts:

Rather than pick winners and losers, China states the policy objective and hundreds of commercial initiatives compete using diverse strategies to fulfil the ambition. Instead of a ‘winner takes all subsidies’ China gets a diverse, agile, ecosystem growing in parallel to its rapidly innovative economy.

Many Chinese models are published as open source and can be run on smaller clusters.

The U.S. has however decided to let the second form of capitalism rule its AI endeavors. There are only a few companies working on large AI projects. Their models are private and blocked from scrutiny. They are promising too much and are spending a huge amount of money. They are in need of ‘safety-net socialism for overextended companies’.

To provide for this the White House issued an Executive Order on:

LAUNCHING THE GENESIS MISSION

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1. Purpose. From the founding of our Republic, scientific discovery and technological innovation have driven American progress and prosperity. Today, America is in a race for global technology dominance in the development of artificial intelligence (AI), an important frontier of scientific discovery and economic growth. To that end, my Administration has taken a number of actions to win that race, including issuing multiple Executive Orders and implementing America’s AI Action Plan, which recognizes the need to invest in AI-enabled science to accelerate scientific advancement. In this pivotal moment, the challenges we face require a historic national effort, comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project that was instrumental to our victory in World War II and was a critical basis for the foundation of the Department of Energy (DOE) and its national laboratories.

The Department of Energy is ordered to direct the initiative combining federal laboratories and ‘industry partners’:

Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary shall identify Federal computing, storage, and networking resources available to support the Mission, including both DOE on-premises and cloud-based high-performance computing systems, and resources available through industry partners. The Secretary shall also identify any additional partnerships or infrastructure enhancements that could support the computational foundation for the Platform.

The federal government will of course have to pay for those private resources.

Research with the help of AI will be done in six high priority fields. The timeline provided in the Executive Order is extremely ambitious.

Besides providing the instruments for a bailout the Executive Order is also creating the means of central control over AI and its application:

If you strip away the branding, Genesis is the U.S. government building a national AI backbone inside the Department of Energy and then inviting the biggest private sector AI players to plug into it.
…
But underneath, it centralizes the AI stack. Instead of letting the highest end compute and model capabilities drift entirely into the private sector, Genesis pulls them back into a structured federal environment. Access becomes conditional: follow the safety rules, share the data, integrate into the platform and you get to operate at the frontier. Don’t, and you’re on the outside looking in.
…
Genesis is the beginning of a nationalized AI infrastructure strategy. It will function as the bridge between government compute and private sector models, letting Washington influence which companies sit closest to the frontier and which capabilities get priority. It will speed up real scientific breakthroughs, but it will also quietly define the rules of the AI race on who participates, who gets access, and how the most powerful systems are directed.

By allowing for a bailout of over extended AI companies via ‘Manhattan Project’ sized federal spending Trump is also attempting to prevent a stock market slump that would cost the Republicans the majority in the House.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

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