What then, is the border policy of the EU if not “political violence.” What then, is the policy of the EU vis a vis pro-Palestinian voices if not “political violence.” What then, is the belligerent escalation of violence of the EU via a vis Russia if not “political violence”?

And what position does an unelected supranational executive official have anything to do with democracy?

It is truly astonishing to consider how anyone could believe that Russians would rise up over frivolous matters like this.

It is on a logical level, but it’s also so much like typical feel-good story which Germans tell themselves about the end of the DDR and reunification. The story goes that life sucked in the DDR because people didn’t have frivolous material goods, so the people rebelled and were rewarded by reunifying with the west.

My employer has an average employee age of 45, and it feels like the people there are old as fuck.

This more than anything else shows that it’s a pathological obsession rather than an evidence and merit based approach. A perfect microcosm of liberalism if you will.

The entire EU supply chain is subsidized.

There’s an argument to be made there. In terms of the lived reality in the Baltics that’s entirely likely. In terms of the second point though, the portrayal of westernized, there just isn’t as much media or political attention on the Baltic countries in the US. In Europe there is some, given Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are EU members, but that’s more on a dry international relations level.

This may just be my subjective take on it all though.

In terms of the mainstream economic metrics liberal economists always like to cite, Ukraine is the worst performing nation in the world since the Yeltsin coup. You can even ignore the last four years to take the war and covid out of the picture, the story remains the same.

Out of all the formerly Soviet states, Ukraine is the closest to the US, is portrayed as being the most “western,” and is the one which gave up its resources to western [allied] kleptocrats.

Meanwhile the post Soviet states which kept some level of resource and economic nationalism, and while capitalist at least have a national bourgeoisie rather than an Atlanticist one, are much better off in terms of their real economies and sovereignty.

Turkish Missile Crisis Part Two: Ukranian Escalation Boogaloo

It makes perfect sense, but it’s still crazy to me how everyone in the west knows at least in passing about the term “Cuban missile crisis,” but nothing of its origin or resolution. It should really be named the Turkish missile crisis, but of course the empire won’t name propaganda events after its own overreach and posturing.

Yes, but even so, China’s “cost per GDP point” is lower than any other nation at the same point in their GDP development.

Line goes up, board of directors happy. How, what, and why is irrelevant.

Digital surveillance is omnipresent in the west. Apparently nobody cares.

The Silicon Valley thieves are just copying and stealing from over a century of US industrial strategy.

To be fair, it’s not hard to beat expectations when the expectation of the western press is “imminent collapse!!!”

I remember a sales meeting at work where the sales manager said something like “sales in China are doing well for now, but we never know what they’re going to do to make doing business harder.” I had to keep in a laugh.

Inb4 Deutsche Bahn blames their legions of unforced own goals on ,rUSsiaN hÄcKeRs.

Geopolitical Economy Report did two long video discussions on China’s growth last month which are worth watching if you’re interested.

In short, yes. China can keep up about a 5% average annual growth rate. Because capital is controlled by the state, and the state invests in developing the means of production and improving people’s quality of life, China is indeed capable of achieving their development goals.

Interestingly enough, just as the decade or so of near ten percent annual growth was planned and achieved, the recent deceleration to about five percent growth was also planned.

Russia would revive the conflict because western libs project all of their own faults onto the enemy of the day.

If we want to exclude athletes from international competition just because the ruling class in the country they happen to have been born in undertakes military action, that’s fine. We just have to be consistent about it. I’d like to see athletes from the US, Isreal, UK, France, Canada, and many other countries treated the same way the west is currently treating Russian and Belorussian athletes.

Happy April Fools!