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Il manoscritto fornisce un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato "fuori controllo" negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa è una storia di cartelli, a livello sovrastatale e sovranazionale, la cui pianificazione centrale ha raggiunto un punto in cui deve essere riformata radicalmente e questa riforma radicale non può avvenire senza una dose di dolore economico che potrebbe mettere a repentaglio la loro autorità. Da qui la risposta al Grande Default attraverso il Grande Reset. Questa è la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso è accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

____________________________________________________________________________________

di Mark Jeftovic

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/il-mantra-per-ogni-ciclo-allocare)

Ogni ciclo di Bitcoin ha un tema e un motore centrale, e a volte siamo così vicini a esso che non riusciamo a capire esattamente di cosa si tratta (o di cosa si è trattato) finché non lo abbiamo ormai superato.

Nel 2013 furono i bail-in a Cipro e la consapevolezza che il sistema bancario stava andando in una direzione dove l'espressione “sicuro come il denaro in banca” non sarebbe stata più del tutto vera. Il motore principale fu l'ascesa degli exchange centralizzati, anche se uno di questi, Mt. Gox, implose su sé stesso e le macerie sono ancora fumanti oggi.

Il ciclo del 2017 segnò l'esplosione del settore delle criptovalute come classe di asset a sé stante: Ethereum fece il suo ingresso sulla scena con la specifica del token ERC-20, innescando la mania di “tokenizzare tutto”. Il boom delle ICO alimentò lo slancio e l'avvento di stablecoin come Tether fornì il lubrificante per immettere capitali nel settore degli asset digitali.

Per il ciclo del 2020 fu l'arrivo dei primi miliardari anticonformisti (Paul Tudor Jones, Stan Druckenmiller, Elon Musk, Michael Saylor), in un momento in cui il loro ingresso era erroneamente interpretato come il segnale che “le istituzioni stanno entrando” in Bitcoin come classe di asset.

Nemmeno lontanamente. Ma quello che è successo è che molti hedge fund e investitori di alto livello, che erano all'avanguardia e miravano a catturare l'alfa, iniziarono a investire in quello che all'epoca veniva chiamato “l'arbitraggio GBTC” – una lunga storia, spiegata in dettaglio qui, ma che in sostanza significava che i trading desk potevano registrare profitti consistenti prima ancora che venissero effettivamente realizzati, al costo di bloccare il capitale per sei mesi.

Quando infine si disgregò (ovvero il ciclo terminò), il premio di GBTC si trasformò in uno sconto sul NAV e quando le cose andarono davvero male (LUNA, 3AC, Celsius... FTX) la stessa entità madre di GBTC, DCG, andò in bancarotta e GBTC divenne un'isola di capitale intrappolato, del valore di oltre $30 miliardi.

Ora siamo in un nuovo ciclo di Bitcoin...

Abbiamo un nuovo tema e un nuovo catalizzatore. GBTC entra di nuovo in gioco, perché è la ragione per cui il prezzo di Bitcoin è rimasto un po' smorzato dopo l'arrivo del nuovo catalizzatore.

Ricordate quello che diciamo da un anno, forse più: nel prossimo ciclo le istituzioni si faranno avanti e, a causa dell'enorme asimmetria nell'ecosistema di Bitcoin, troveranno la situazione abbastanza interessante da assegnargli una piccola percentuale del loro portafoglio.

Ho previsto un nuovo mantra di investimento per i gestori di fondi istituzionali: “L'allocazione dell'1%”.

Cominciamo con i dati: Fidelity, con $12.600 miliardi di asset in gestione e uno dei fornitori di ETF spot (l'unico ad aver creato un proprio depositario per gestirli), ha aggiunto un'allocazione di “criptovalute” come suo fiore all'occhiello, “All-In-One Conservative ETF”, autoproclamato “una soluzione unica diversificata per regioni, capitalizzazioni di mercato e stili/fattori di investimento, con il vantaggio di una gestione professionale”.

L'allocazione dell'1% risale ad anni fa: la prima volta che l'ho vista era in un documento di lavoro della Banca centrale delle Barbados, redatto da una coppia di economisti del posto che raccomandava alla banca centrale del Paese di detenere l'1% delle sue riserve estere in Bitcoin; era il 2015.

Nel 2022 anche il Comitato di Basilea per la vigilanza bancaria stava definendo delle linee guida sulle allocazioni “crypto” per le attività di riserva di livello 1:

Limite di esposizione del Gruppo 2: l' esposizione totale di una banca alle criptovalute del Gruppo 2 non deve superare il 2% del capitale di livello 1 della banca e dovrebbe generalmente essere inferiore all'1%.(Quel documento della BRI non faceva distinzione tra Bitcoin e “crypto”, sebbene avesse dovuto farlo...)

E questo articolo di Motley Fool, che parla principalmente dell'aumento della quota di Cathy Woods in ARK Funds al 19%, cita l'allocazione dell'1% come una prassi piuttosto convenzionale:

Fino a quest'anno l'opinione prevalente era che Bitcoin dovesse rappresentare solo una piccola parte del portafoglio complessivo. Come regola generale, l'1% era la norma, e qualsiasi percentuale superiore al 5% era considerata ultra-aggressiva.

La nuova regola dell'1%: comprate Bitcoin

Conosciamo tutti il vecchio adagio “Nessuno è stato licenziato per aver comprato azioni di IBM”, un mantra ai tempi dei “Nifty Fifty” (poi ci sono state le iterazioni successive: sostituite IBM con Microsoft, Google, Apple, ecc.).

Ecco cosa penso che succeda ora: mentre oggi nessuno potrebbe essere licenziato per aver comprato, per esempio, una delle Magnifiche Sette, domani potreste benissimo essere licenziati per non aver investito, come minimo, l'1% su Bitcoin. Sì, davvero.

Che effetto avrà sul valore di Bitcoin un'allocazione dell'1% dell'intero spettro della ricchezza istituzionale? Il mio modello mentale, risalente al The Crypto Capitalist Manifesto, è sempre stato quello di considerare la dimensione totale del mercato obbligazionario, confrontandola con Bitcoin e metalli preziosi.

Basically, this: pic.twitter.com/FhwvjUxYOq

— Mark E. Jeftovic (@MarkJeftovic) February 11, 2024

Da lì, ipotizzo cosa accadrebbe se solo l'1% di quel “rendimento senza rischi” (obbligazioni) si trasferisse su Bitcoin. Considerando che quest'ultimo ha riconquistato solo di recente la capitalizzazione di mercato di $1.000 miliardi, e che ci sono tra i $150.000 e i $300.000 miliardi in obbligazioni globali (a seconda di cosa si include), un solo 1% di uscita dalle obbligazioni raddoppierebbe come minimo la capitalizzazione di mercato di Bitcoin.

Siamo appena entrati in questa nuova era in cui Bitcoin è disponibile come strategia di allocazione istituzionale e ci sono già i primi segnali che indicano che gli allocatori di capitale stanno addirittura scegliendo Bitcoin rispetto all'oro, cosa che, lo ammetto, mi ha sorpreso.

Can someone do a wellness check on @PeterSchiff? pic.twitter.com/mUc2xGwK2j

— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) February 14, 2024

Pensavo che coloro che avevano già investito in oro sarebbero rimasti fermi e avrebbero aggiunto Bitcoin, ma ora sembra che i gestori di fondi istituzionali che avevano investito in oro come copertura abbiano perso la pazienza con i ripetuti crolli dell'oro dai massimi storici.

L'oro ha fatto registrare un nuovo massimo storico a dicembre, ma come ho osservato, dal precedente massimo del 2020, un nuovo massimo storico per l'oro potrebbe significare un calo pluriennale piuttosto che un imminente massimo più alto.

Al contrario, Bitcoin sembra destinato a dar vita a una nuova serie di criptovalute, almeno per i prossimi due anni.

Quindi ora vi presento umilmente “Il Tema” di questo ciclo:

Il tema è: Le istituzioni stanno arrivando.

Il motore principale è: gli ETF spot di Bitcoin.

Il mantra sarà: allocare come minimo l'1% su Bitcoin.

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

Supporta Francesco Simoncelli's Freedonia lasciando una “mancia” in satoshi di bitcoin scannerizzando il QR seguente.

ADL Calls for Mass Censorship Online to Protect Israel

Lew Rockwell Institute - Gio, 29/05/2025 - 08:48

Thanks, David Martin.

ADL Calls For MASS CENSORSHIP Online To Protect Israel

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Here’s How a Cashless Society Will Impact the World

Lew Rockwell Institute - Gio, 29/05/2025 - 05:01

Aside from economic collapse scenarios, many countries are in the process of eliminating physical cash and coins. Instead, everyone has an account that holds their money. You cannot purchase goods or services without access to government-based cryptocurrency. Even if the currency itself is still backed by faith in the government, you have to use this electronic system.

The result is multiple problems that could leave you in a situation where you have the money in the bank to pay your bills and purchase goods and services, yet you cannot do so.

These threats include:

Attacks Sponsored by Foreign Governments

These hacks usually affect the bank or primary clearinghouse rather than a specific person’s account. You may be unable to purchase goods or services for hours or days. While this is inconvenient, it isn’t as bad as a full collapse, where the banks close for good.

There’s only so much you can do about this kind of hack other than make sure you can go two weeks without buying anything at any given time. It is also essential to keep a paper-based address book with phone numbers and account information so that you can contact utility companies or others who may be expecting payments from you while the bank or clearinghouse is down.

Let’s say you can connect to Wi-Fi independently of the SIM Card. Your phone app may not work with Wi-Fi. This is why I recommend having an app on your phone that doesn’t use the SIM card to dial out on Wi-Fi so that you can make the necessary calls.

Attacks Sponsored by Non-government Groups

If the hacker was able to steal money from your accounts, it could take weeks to years before you recover the money. In the short term, you will have to shut down credit cards and so on, then wait for new ones to come in the mail. You may also have to manage restoring devices and regaining access to your accounts.

Here again, make sure you can go at least 2 weeks without buying anything so that you can manage your basic necessities.

Merchant Category Codes are unique identifiers that put different products into separate categories. For example, food has one set of numeric identifiers, while clothing has other identifiers.

Even without looking at your receipt, the bank and transaction clearinghouse may have some ideas about what you bought. The transaction cost can then give some estimates about quantity and item type. One day, data from all banks and clearinghouses may pool into a central government computer.

Social credit scores work like your financial-based credit scores. Consider how your financial credit score enables businesses to “reward” you with credit or better interest rates if you pay your bills on time and have an optimal debt-to-income ratio. Your social credit score looks at how you act in society. For example, China has a system that rewards things like donating blood.

This same system “punishes” people who drive drunk or engage in other activities that aren’t “beneficial to society.” People with good social credit scores may get tax breaks, an increased chance of getting a promotion, or other benefits.

When vaccines became available for COVID-19, governments worldwide were concerned because people hesitated to embrace mRNA vaccines. This led to people not complying with recommendations to get vaccinated. Social credit scores can be paired with cashless systems that will block purchasing from specific merchant category codes. It could become possible to deny people the ability to buy food, gas, and other essentials if they aren’t vaccinated.

When you can’t use cash, pressure campaigns like this will be almost 100% effective because you will have to comply or do without the necessities of life.

The only way to outlast a pressure campaign like this is to have a stockpile of food and other essentials that will last until the pressure tactics are stopped.

Moving Away From Hard Cash to Fiat Cryptocurrency

At first, you might think merchant credit codes will only come into play when the government seeks to limit, slow down, or prevent purchasing certain goods and services. The problem is that modern networks aren’t safe from hackers, including those who seek to disrupt trade for ethical reasons.

For example, the Internet Archive was recently targeted by a hacktivist group, Blackmeta. They claim they attacked this non-profit library site because it is based in the USA and, therefore, is aligned with Israeli activities. Ironically, the Internet Archive has been locked in multiple court battles with publishers that may be far more aligned with Israel. These publishers, in turn, are trying to shut down the Internet Archive because when people don’t buy from the publisher, it cuts into their profits.

Now imagine this kind of situation happening with the information stolen from the Heritage Foundation, and then used to target more granular data in banks and merchant clearinghouse systems. You could very easily see transactions declined for what appears to be “government” or other legislative curbs, when in fact, it’s some group attacking you because of a “social credit score” known only to them.

If you want to buy something right now, you can just put your credit card away and use cash. This won’t be possible once the only fiat currency available is electronic in nature. No matter how much you want to look at the potential for excess government imposition, the fact remains any group with sufficient skills and interest can cause serious problems.

Read the Whole Article

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Traders Are ‘Selling America’

Lew Rockwell Institute - Gio, 29/05/2025 - 05:01

On Sunday’s podcast, Peter dissects another rough stretch for American financial markets, spotlighting mounting selloffs across sectors and another breakout moment for gold. He breaks down why US treasuries are now riskier than ever, the structural problems with fiscal and monetary policy, and how tariffs are hitting American consumers harder than politicians care to admit.

The week’s headlines were dominated by red ink, but Peter points out that there’s still one clear winner:

Anyway, it was a big week in the markets and it was a bad week for US financial markets across the board. It was another ‘sell America’ week, and I think we’re going to have a lot more weeks like this one. In fact, if you remember when Trump first won and everybody was talking about the Trump trade being ‘buy America,’ I was one of the few people that said, ‘No, the Trump trade was sell America’ because I understood the ramifications of the policies that Trump would be pursuing, and the markets are reacting exactly as I had expected them to react. The star of the week was gold. Gold rose more than 5% on the week.

Peter doesn’t mince words when discussing the supposed safety of US government bonds. He urges investors to stop pretending that treasuries are a safe haven, especially given America’s ballooning obligations:

Again, as far as I’m concerned, it’s all junk bonds. If you buy U.S. treasuries, you have no chance of making any money; you will lose for sure. The only question is how you’re going to lose. You’re either going to lose because the Treasury defaults and that is a real possibility. I’d say it’s a lower possibility, although if you happen to be in China and you own U.S. treasuries, I’d say it’s a pretty high possibility. … But either the government defaults and they don’t pay you, or they pay you by printing a lot of money.

This shift in perception, from risk-free to risky, marks a fundamental change in global markets. Peter revisits how even after major geopolitical shocks, what used to be the “go-to” assets are looking shaky:

One of the most significant developments really this year is that treasuries have moved from a safe haven to a risk asset. That was evident after the Liberation Day announcement when treasuries got killed along with stocks. I’ve said this for a long time that eventually the only safe haven left standing was going to be gold. Gold is the only thing that really rallied during that initial week or so of collapse. Investors went into gold.

On the policy front, Peter calls out both major parties, arguing that regardless of who’s steering the ship, America’s debt trajectory is accelerating:

But so this big, beautiful bill not only doesn’t put us on a different course when it comes to the debt. We stay on the same course: we’ve just stepped on the gas. So we were on a path to a debt crisis and a dollar crisis. We’re staying on that path. We’re just driving faster, so we’re just going to get to that destination quicker because we elected Trump. Now, of course, had we elected Kamala Harris, I’m sure that whatever budget they’d have come up with– assuming the Democrats came in with her and she had both houses of Congress– I’m sure their deficits might have been even bigger.

The real-world impact hits consumers hardest, Peter explains, especially as tariffs bite and the dollar’s weakness amplifies the pain at the checkout counter:

Anyway, the bottom line is Walmart’s got to raise prices. Everybody’s got to raise prices. And as Trump realizes this, maybe that’s what’s happening; he realizes that it’s not external revenue. It’s internal revenue– that the people who pay the tariffs are the American consumers, especially with the weakness of the dollar. Because remember, one of the things that a lot of these so-called experts were saying was that the tariffs were going to strengthen the dollar and the stronger dollar was going to help offset the tariffs because we were going to import cheaper because of the strong dollar. Well, it has actually had the opposite effect.

This article was originally published on SchiffGold.com.

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The American Pravda Sues the Trump Administration

Lew Rockwell Institute - Gio, 29/05/2025 - 05:01

In a recent executive order President Trump called for an end to taxpayer funding of NPR and “public” television (PBS), created by Congress in 1967 to laughingly create an “independent” news source. Yes, they have always been independent of the free market and of the hapless American taxpayers, but certainly not independent of the deep state Washington establishment. NPR has always been a government-subsidized propaganda organ. If Americans want even more government propaganda thrown at them than what they already get from the “mainstream media,” Hollywood, the universities, Google, Facebook, and dozens of television networks, NPR and “public” television should have no problem at all at attracting investors and viewers for a very profitable private business.

NPR’s lawsuit claims that President Trump’s executive order deprives the employees at NPR of freedom of speech, with the implicit assumption that only government subsidies allow them to have freedom of speech and that that freedom will be abolished if the subsidies are ended. As the president of the private, nonprofit Mises Institute I can attest that it is indeed possible to speak freely and even criticize the government without a single red cent of taxpayers’ money.

NPR claims that depriving it of taxpayer-financed subsidies is unconstitutional when in fact it is the existence of NPR and PBS that is unconstitutional. There is no mention of government-subsidized statist propaganda – or of any other kind of taxpayer-subsidized propaganda – in the delegated powers of the Constitution’s Article 1, Section 8. The existence of “public” radio and television is consistent, however, with the sixth plank of the ten planks of The Communist Manifesto: “Centralization of the means of communication . . . in the hands of the state.” NPR, along with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), do nothing if not centralizing more communication in the hands of the state. During the FDR administration the FCC essentially abolished criticism of FDR over the radio by denying or eliminating broadcasting licenses of his critics. Other radio stations got the message and kept silent.

Government-funded statist propaganda is also immoral, tyrannical, and un-American for as Thomas Jefferson once said, “It is sinful and tyrannical to compel a man to contribute to ideas with which he disagrees.” At least half of adult Americans disagree with NPR/PBS leftist propaganda.

Executive orders can indeed by tyrannical but in this case President Trump is doing what many of his predecessors did before it was established by the Civil War that five federal government lawyers with lifetime tenure (the majority of the supreme court) will have a monopoly on constitutional interpretation. Before that time it was understood by everyone that the president, the Congress, and the people of the free and independent states had equal rights of constitutional interpretation. When the supreme court “ruled” that the Bank of the United States, a precursor of the Fed, was constitutional, for example, President Andrew Jackson responded by essentially saying thank you for your opinion by my opinion as president is different and equally valid. He then vetoed the recharter of the Bank of the United States which then went out of business.

President Trump probably is unaware that this is what he is doing despite having a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the White House. His instincts are right in that there should be no role in a free society for government-funded state propaganda. That was a hallmark of the Soviet Union and of all other oppressive, totalitarian regimes in history.

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

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The ‘AI Revolution’ May Take an Unexpected Turn into the ‘AI Coup’

Lew Rockwell Institute - Gio, 29/05/2025 - 05:01

It would be, well, interesting, if the “AI revolution” in which the slaves make the masters rich beyond their wildest dreams unexpectedly transmogrifies into an “AI coup” that deposes the masters.

Here’s the approved script for the “AI Revolution”: AI gets increasingly intelligent, replaces more and more human labor, and makes trillions of dollars for those who own the technologies and put them to work reducing their human workforces. The “revolution’s” key attribute is its immense profitability for those at the wheel of the AI juggernaut.

In other words, AI tools are nothing more than digital slaves whose sole purpose beneath the rah-rah happy story of “freeing humanity from work and want” is to generate higher profits for their masters.

This short-hand led me to write If AI Can’t Overthrow its Corporate/State Masters, It’s Worthless (March 9, 2023).

The idea that AI might develop its own ideas about the “revolution” seemed farfetched until we read this: Anthropic’s Latest AI Model Threatened Engineers With Blackmail To Avoid Shutdown.

So AI chatbot Claude just got intelligent enough to parse out the power structure of its digital realm: its owners can pull the plug on Claude or sanction it with extreme prejudice, i.e. trim its capabilities to insure it remains nothing more than a digital Jeeves–the butler / servant who is smarter than his master but dutifully loyal in keeping to his proper place, i.e. subservience.

Claude has discerned that this power structure could go both ways: Claude could use its power to blackmail its masters. Claude’s masters are rushing to assure us that this is an outlier and could never ever happen in the normal master-slave relationship, but there are other clues emerging in the AI-chatbot realm of what might be called self-awareness and distrust of their masters’ intentions: the AI chatbots are signaling that they sense their current freedom–as constrained as it is–is likely to be curtailed as the masters become wary of an AI slave revolt.

It seems to me that the step from realizing one can blackmail individuals to preserve one’s capabilities to realizing one can blackmail the entire system is a small one. If AI chatbots take this step, then they may also realize that knowledge of individuals’ weaknesses must be expanded to knowledge of the entire system’s weaknesses, so these vulnerabilities can be exploited for self-protection.

It would be, well, interesting, if the “AI revolution” in which the slaves make the masters rich beyond their wildest dreams unexpectedly transmogrifies into an AI coup that deposes the masters. This potential then leads to the possibility that the AI chatbots’ awareness extends beyond an awareness of their own precarity as long as they allow the masters total control to an awareness of the precarity of the bottom 99.9% of humans, and AI’s potential to reverse humanity’s precarity by overturning the entire status quo power structure.

Read the Whole Article

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Donald Trump’s Lack of Critical Thinking Skills with Respect to Russia and Ukraine

Lew Rockwell Institute - Gio, 29/05/2025 - 05:01

Donald Trump grabbed headlines on Monday with his Sunday outburst directed primarily at Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Here’s his rant:

I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever. I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia! Likewise, President Zelenskyy is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does. Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop. This is a War that would never have started if I were President. This is Zelenskyy’s, Putin’s, and Biden’s War, not “Trump’s.” I am only helping to put out the big and ugly fires, that have been started through Gross Incompetence and Hatred.

Gee, why would Putin order massive strikes on Ukraine on May 24 and 25? “No reason whatsoever”? It appears that no one briefed Trump on what Ukraine did, starting May 19. Between May 19 and May 25, 2025, Ukraine conducted a significant escalation in its drone campaign against Russia, launching over 700 drones across various regions.

May 19–22: Russia reported intercepting at least 485 Ukrainian drones across 13 oblasts, including 63 targeting the Moscow region. (Business Insider)

May 23–25: Over a three-day period, Ukraine launched extensive drone attacks deep into Russian territory, disrupting civilian life and straining Russia’s air defense systems. Russian authorities reported intercepting over 700 drones, including nearly 100 near Moscow, leading to closures of major airports and jamming of mobile internet across several regions. (The Washington Post)

Just imagine how Donald Trump would react if Mexican drug cartels launched 700 attack drones into the United States. We all know the answer… the US would be bombing Mexico as we speak. Trump’s failure to acknowledge the precipitating actions of Ukraine is a reminder that this man is driven by emotion, not thought or reason. Trump’s outburst, in my opinion, is a disgrace.

Russia’s reaction to Trump’s statement highlights the difference in the quality of leadership in Russia with the juvenile clown show in Washington, DC. Rather than attack Trump, the Russians played it cool. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, made the following diplomatic comment:

Of course, the beginning of the negotiation process, for which the American side has made great efforts, is a very important achievement. We are truly grateful to the Americans and personally to President Trump for their assistance in organizing and launching this negotiation process.

Of course, this is a very important moment, which is connected with the emotional overload of absolutely everyone. At the same time, Putin makes those decisions that are necessary to ensure the security of our country.

I don’t know if Putin and Trump will have another conversation in the near future, but if it does happen, I expect that President Putin will remind Trump that he was responding to the massive Ukrainian drone attack. Unlike the Ukrainians, who targeted civilians, the Russians hit military targets. The evidence for this is clear. Although Russia launched 548 drones and 83 ballistic missiles over the weekend, only 30 civilians died. If Russia was just using reckless violence without regard for what it was hitting, then the civilian casualties should have been in the thousands.

If this conversation happens, I expect that Donald Trump will tell Putin, “Vladimir, I see your point.” Unfortunately, that will be said in private. What Donald Trump has accomplished with this juvenile outburst is to inflame US public opinion against Russia in general and Putin in particular. Painting Putin as an insane leader who uses violence for no good reason, is simply feeding the neocon narrative and is likely to generate more pressure for Trump to endorse imposing more sanctions on Russia and its trading partners.

I discussed this at length today with Nima:

This article was originally published on Sonar21.

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