As Marxist economist Michael Roberts explains in a recent post, core inflation in Western economies isn’t going down:
This is what worries central banks. And what it also shows is that interest-rate hikes have little effect on reducing inflation, which rose because of food and energy prices, something central banks cannot control and are now falling for reasons nothing to do with central banks. Instead, central bank rate hikes are increasing the cost of borrowing to spend for households and invest for companies. Indeed, as ECB chief Lagarde said at her press conference, monetary tightening was being ‘very efficient’ in squeezing the real economy. As I have argued in a previous post, profits are now being squeezed as price inflation abates. And rising interest rates are squeezing companies at the other end.
Sure, if consumer spending and business investment slumps, then core inflation will eventually fall, but only as economies drop into recession. Even then, the major economies may enter a slump in production and a rise in unemployment this year, but still have inflation rates well above the levels of two years ago – the worst of all possible worlds.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we’ve collected.
February 6th’s update is here on the site and here in the comments.
February 7th’s update is here on the site and here in the comments.
February 8th’s update is here on the site and here in the comments.
February 10th’s update is here on the site and here in the comments.
February 11th’s update is here on the site and here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources. Beware of chuddery.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are fairly brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. The Duran, of which he co-hosts, is where the chuddery really begins to spill out.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.
https://t.me/asbmil ~ Now rebranded as Battlefield Insights, they do infrequent posts on the conflict.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it’s a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of the really big pro-Russian (except when they’re being pessismistic, which is often) telegram channels focussing on the war. Russian language.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
Any Western media outlet that is even vaguely liberal (and quite a few conservative ones too).
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week’s discussion post.
Update for February 6th
Events
Globally
Naked Capitalism: US Inflation Policies Slowing World Economy
Naked Capitalism: US Fails Miserably in Efforts to Isolate Russia
Victoria Nuland, March 2022:
“If Russia does not end this war and get out of Ukraine, it will be isolated on a small island with a bunch of sub countries and the rest of us 141 countries will go forward and build a prosperous future, while Russia suffers a complete economic and technological isolation…”
How it’s going now:
Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington nonprofit, recently issued a similar analysis, estimating that the value of Russian imports from the rest of the world had exceeded prewar levels by September.
Oops.
But they keep trying!
People’s Daily: EU to impose fresh sanctions on Russia by Feb. 24: European Commission president
People’s Daily: West implements price caps on Russian oil products as Moscow vows to safeguard interests
Europe
TeleSUR: European Central Bank Raises Rates by 50 Basis Points
TeleSUR: Bank of England Raises Rates to 4 Pct
WSWS: Over 90 percent of Europeans worry about the rising cost of living
RT: Russia’s LNG production hits record high
Jacobin: Striking Food Delivery Workers in Russia Take on Tech Giant Yandex
In Russia, mounting authoritarianism and the wartime crackdown on dissent have hobbled trade unions. A five-day strike by food couriers showed that at least some workers are refusing to be muzzled.
RT: German exports to Russia nosedive – data
Germany reduced exports to Russia in December by 16.7% to €900 million ($988 million) compared to the previous month, according to the country’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).
RT: Serbia and Bulgaria launch construction of new gas pipeline
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Bulgarian President Rumen Radev marked the official opening. The two nations already linked their gas networks at the end of 2020 to allow Russian energy imported via the TurkStream pipeline to reach Serbia through an expanded grid.
Jacobin: Emmanuel Macron’s Plan to Raise the Pension Age Is Class War
Naked Capitalism: Companies in UK Are Hitting the Wall at Fastest Rate Since Global Financial Crisis
Business insolvencies in the UK surged by 57% in 2022, to 22,109, according to the latest data from the Insolvency Service, a UK government agency that deals with bankruptcies and companies in liquidation. It is the highest number of insolvencies registered annually since 2009, at the height of the Global Financial Crisis.
RT: UK water bills to soar by most in nearly two decades – media
TeleSUR: UK Train Unions’ New Strike Suspends Service Of 15 Lines
RT: Finnish coal consumption soars
East Asia and Oceania
RT: India ditches dollar to bypass sanctions on Russian oil – Reuters
Local refiners are reportedly using UAE dirhams to pay for most of the Russian oil bought from Dubai-based traders
WSWS: Indian budget intensifies austerity for working people, hikes military spending
People’s Daily: Sri Lanka celebrates 75 years of independence from British rule
People’s Daily: Filipinos speak out against U.S. military expansion plans
Filipinos have spoken out against American military expansion plans in their country following a top U.S. defense official’s visit to the Southeast Asian country this week.
Central Asia and the Middle East
MEMO: EU donates $323m to Palestine
Monthly Review: Palestine is my cause: Arabs reaffirm support for Palestinians, rejection of the occupation
MEE: Israelis take to streets for fifth week of protests against Netanyahu government
MEE: Iran’s supreme leader pardons ‘tens of thousands’ of prisoners
The pardon does not apply to detainees on death row, dual nationals and those accused of ‘corruption on earth’
It was not immediately clear how many of these were detained in connection with the protests.
MEE: ‘Take your dirty hands off of Turkey’, Ankara’s interior minister tells US envoy
MEMO: South Korea to build nuclear plant in Turkiye
According to the report, Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) presented the proposal regarding the construction of four reactors capable of providing 1,400 megawatts (MW) of electricity in the northern province of Sinop.
The project is forecast to be worth about 40 trillion won ($32.55 billion).
RT: Türkiye gives timeline for Russian-proposed gas hub
A major natural gas hub in Türkiye, proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and backed by his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is expected to start operating as soon as this year, according Ankara’s energy minister.
Africa
RT: Former colonial power accuses Russia of ‘neocolonial’ conduct
The French Foreign Ministry has claimed that Russia is threatening the sovereignty of several African states and endangering their populations. The allegation came after Moscow commented on recent decisions by Mali and Burkina Faso to expel French troops from their territory.
Africa News: Traoré gives assurances over relations with France despite troop exit
Burkina Faso’s military leader, Ibrahim Traoré, has said there has been no break in diplomatic relations with France.
Africa News: Seychelles ranked Africa’s least corrupt country - 2022 CPI
The island nation retained the position for the 5th consecutive year and 23rd ranking globally attained in 2022 with 70 points once again.
Denmark outperformed Finland and took first place with 90 points. Finland and New Zealand are second and third with 87 points each.
The CPI report rates the perception of corruption in the public sector using a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is clean. Seychelles stayed in 23rd place globally like in 2021 with a score of 70 points.
The rankings where everything is made up and the points don’t matter.
Africa News: Pope greeted by crowds of women in South Sudan as he backs girls’ schools
MEMO: Suez Canal Authority denies agreement with Israel company, takes legal action
MEMO: Sudan parties reject normalisation with Israel
MEMO: Tunisia railway union: $326m in company losses, authorities are responsible
Africa News: No lights, no water: South Africans fume at cascading crisis
Already struggling without electricity for hours a day, many South Africans are now having to do also without water, as power outages batter the supply system.
Africa News: Ghana to begin process to establish War College – President Akufo-Addo
North America
Responsible Statecraft: Washington inflates the China balloon threat
The meltdown in DC risks turning into a self full-filling prophecy: Routine inter-state relations becoming a full blown crisis.
Common Dreams: China Slams Pentagon’s Downing of Balloon as an ‘Excessive Reaction’
Jacobin: Cities Are Spending More to Brutalize Homeless People Than It Would Cost to House Them
The cruelty is the point.
Inside Climate News: States Have Proposals, But No Consensus, On Curbing Water Shortages In Colorado River Basin
Six of the seven states that rely on the Colorado River proposed protecting the system’s major reservoirs with downstream reductions. But California, the biggest user, has its own plan under which it would avoid taking cuts.
Naked Capitalism: How Corporations Hope to Eviscerate Workers’ Right to Strike
This post highlights a Supreme Court case that could substantially weaken laborers’ ability to strike to force management concessions by making them liable for strike costs, or more accurately in case of the plaintiff Glacier Northwest, failure to prepare for a strike. Oddly this pending ruling has gone under the radar.
-MEMO: South Korea to build nuclear plant in Turkiye
According to the report, Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) presented the proposal regarding the construction of four reactors capable of providing 1,400 megawatts (MW) of electricity in the northern province of Sinop.
-Usually supportive of nuclear power until we can truly transition to clean energy but not in places that earthquakes are likely
Yeah. That and water availability are two of the big genuine downsides of nuclear power. The nuclear waste storage problem is at least solvable, though you need to make some hard choices about what particular area of land may be threatened centuries or millennia down the line if underground storage leaks. But if there’s a drought in an area then aside from seeding clouds, or using groundwater/desalination (which itself requires energy to run, catch-22) you’re kinda shit out of luck. And if you happen to be near a plate boundary then it’s also hard to ensure complete safety.
It’s one of those issues where it does have genuine problems to address, but they aren’t the problems most people think. Which is why it’s frustrating to talk about with people who know a lot less.
Second half of this episode has some interesting cause/effect examples about weather/climate changes adding to the overhead of running nuclear power plants (and other things too). One is that France’s water used for cooling their nuclear plants is warmer nowadays. Also jellyfish clogging up nuclear plants lol. Maybe that overhead is negligible, but it’s not something I’ve seen discussed much.
South America
WSWS: Germany’s Chancellor Scholz visits Argentina, Chile and Brazil
MEMO: Cuba commends Iran’s progress despite sanctions
Diaz-Canel also expressed his country’s willingness to strengthen bilateral ties with Tehran and noted that developments in Latin America and the world offer new opportunities to fortify multilateralism, Tasnim News Agency reported.
Common Dreams: ‘They Are Afraid of the People’: Guatemala Tribunal Bars Leftist Presidential Ticket From Ballot
Jacobin: El Salvador’s Historic Metal Mining Ban Is in Danger
Following its failed crypto scheme, authoritarian president Nayib Bukele’s cash-strapped government is making moves to reverse El Salvador’s metal mining ban. Its reintroduction would be a disaster for the nation’s already contaminated water supply.
TeleSUR: Pedro Castillo Must Be Released From Jail: Nicaraguan President
TeleSUR: Peruvian Crisis Continues as Congress Rejects Early Elections
TeleSUR: Ecuador: Five Candidates Were Assassinated Before the Elections
TeleSUR: Ecuador: Candidate for Mayor is Killed on the Eve of Elections
TeleSUR: Colombia: Assassination of Another Social Leader Reported
TeleSUR: Venezuela Commemorates the Civic-military Rebellion
Geopolitical Economy: UN human rights chief: End Venezuela sanctions, which ‘exacerbated economic crisis and hindered human rights’
The Ukraine Proxy Conflict
RT: Kremlin and White House deny Biden offered Putin ‘20% of Ukraine’
RT: Putin promised not to kill Zelensky – former Israeli PM
Russian President Vladimir Putin told former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that he would not have Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky assassinated, Bennett revealed to Israeli media. The former PM flew to Moscow at the request of Zelensky, who declared that he was “not afraid of anyone,” only after Putin assured his safety.
WSWS: Ukraine cracks down on military “deserters”
Analysis
Retrospectives, History, Theory, and Technology
Jacobin: After Independence, Algeria Launched an Experiment in Self-Managing Socialism
After the end of French colonial rule, Algeria’s first government began to promote workers’ self-management in the “Mecca of Revolution.” But a backlash by conservative elements led to a military coup that established the regime still in power today.
RT: Planet smashes record for most moons in solar system
Jupiter has officially become the planet with the most moons in the solar system, now counted at 92, thanks to the discovery of 12 more natural satellites, astronomers have said.
The previous record-holder, Saturn, has dropped to second spot, being orbited by 83 confirmed moons.
We must seize the moons of production.
StatNews: Rare polio case highlights how hard it will be to keep polio gone once it’s eradicated
RT: Oldest fossilized vertebrate brain found
The Left and the Right
Monthly Review: Neo-compradors: the leftist foot soldiers of Imperialism
“NGOs: In the service of Imperialism” by James Petras scientifically unpacks imperialism in contemporary communities of the global south. Prompted by the premise that capitalism, and by extension imperialism, is constantly evolving in an effort to perpetuate itself. James Petras takes neo-compradors as the unit of analysis for his study of imperialism.
The purpose of studies like this is a profound frustration with contemporary leftist discourse which has distorted Scientific Socialism, under the pretext of modernizing an outdated theory, into an ideology of political activism institutionalized by NGOs and sponsored by Western funds while employing revolutionary idioms.
Inside the Imperial Core
Monthly Review: Is the trip of the secretary general of NATO aimed to instigate the creation of the Asian version of NATO?
Outside the Imperial Core
Jacobin: The Global South Must Be at the Center of the Making of a Just Global Economic Order
Climate Change
Climate Change News: Cables become cool – Climate Weekly
As putting up solar panels and wind turbines becomes increasingly profitable without subsidies, governments are turning their attention to transmission lines.
But, while anyone with a few million in their back pocket can throw up a solar farm, who has got the billions to build power cables across the country?
Well the Indian government does. On Wednesday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman promised $1bn towards cables linking renewable projects in the Himalayan state of Ladakh with states that people actually live in.
Over in Washington DC, the Climate Investment Funds does too. It has just lent Colombia $70m for transmission lines and other green projects. It has got $230m more in the pot for projects like this and is asking rich nations to top it up so they can roll out the programme to big hitters like India, Brazil and Indonesia.
No mention of China, the pioneer behind ultra-high voltage transmission lines…
I Love My Trans Comrades!
EU to impose fresh sanctions on Russia by Feb. 24: European Commission president
What is there even left to sanction?
- No more Russian salad
- Tetris is banned, effective immediately
- The European Parliament passes a resolution, declaring Putin to be officially “a very naughty boy”
- Tchaikovsky’s nutcracker suite will be replaced by the traditional Ukrainian folksong “With Bandera we will defeat Jewish bolchevism”
- All Ladas in Europe will have their license revoked
