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Why the West Can't Win: From Bretton Woods to a Multipolar World
Geopolitical upheaval has gripped the world since collapse of the Soviet Union. During the 1990s the West focused on eliminating the resurgence of Russia as a great power. This led to the assimilation of Warsaw Pact countries into NATO, two Chechen wars, and political systems in the Central Asian republics aligned with the West.
Russia’s economic destruction was managed by the Harvard boys‘ shock therapy, which left Russian resources in the control of a few oligarchs aligned with the West. By the end of the 1990s Russia was a weak, bankrupt country of marginalized influence in the world.
Then the West’s focus turned to China as a potential challenger to western global hegemony. It was thought to suffice to control global energy resources and sea-lanes to China to prevent China from challenging western global hegemony. Hence the first two decades of the millennium were focused on controlling West Asia and North Africa‘s energy resources.
For most, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 signaled the victory of the self-denominated Free World. Why the West Can’t Win, however, addresses how events in the three following decades signal the end of a millennium of West European expansionism, a plundering and oppression initially labeled Crusades when the popes embodied political power, morphing into colonialism, then to the Free World when colonialism went out of fashion post-World War II, and at last to the “International Community” after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
This book’s geopolitical analysis includes a historical overview, an understanding of the financial systems established at the Bretton Woods conference that continue dominating the global economy, how they are used as a powerful geopolitical instrument, an economic analysis based on real goods production, global energy dynamics, alliances and strategies of key global players.
It addresses the emerging division of the world into two geopolitical Western Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The current global geopolitical clash is in essence a struggle between the colonial powers wishing to preserve the Bretton Woods system that allows siphoning wealth of nations, and sovereign nations striving for independence and an end to a millennium of oppression. This work compares the geopolitical forces since the turn of the millennium with a view to providing insight into their relative strengths and the likely outcome of this struggle.
Russia’s economic destruction was managed by the Harvard boys‘ shock therapy, which left Russian resources in the control of a few oligarchs aligned with the West. By the end of the 1990s Russia was a weak, bankrupt country of marginalized influence in the world.
Then the West’s focus turned to China as a potential challenger to western global hegemony. It was thought to suffice to control global energy resources and sea-lanes to China to prevent China from challenging western global hegemony. Hence the first two decades of the millennium were focused on controlling West Asia and North Africa‘s energy resources.
For most, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 signaled the victory of the self-denominated Free World. Why the West Can’t Win, however, addresses how events in the three following decades signal the end of a millennium of West European expansionism, a plundering and oppression initially labeled Crusades when the popes embodied political power, morphing into colonialism, then to the Free World when colonialism went out of fashion post-World War II, and at last to the “International Community” after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
This book’s geopolitical analysis includes a historical overview, an understanding of the financial systems established at the Bretton Woods conference that continue dominating the global economy, how they are used as a powerful geopolitical instrument, an economic analysis based on real goods production, global energy dynamics, alliances and strategies of key global players.
It addresses the emerging division of the world into two geopolitical Western Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The current global geopolitical clash is in essence a struggle between the colonial powers wishing to preserve the Bretton Woods system that allows siphoning wealth of nations, and sovereign nations striving for independence and an end to a millennium of oppression. This work compares the geopolitical forces since the turn of the millennium with a view to providing insight into their relative strengths and the likely outcome of this struggle.
357 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2023
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149 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 10, 2023
Great read.
My takeaways.
1) Decline of US dollar as a reserve currecny
2) Deterioration of the Military Industrial Complex - inability to create competitive weapons within the past quarter century. Post Iraq US has been utilizing NGOs, terrorists, and proxy armies as the military can no longer project power.
3) Negative trend in control of global energy reserves (Venezuela, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia)
4) Neoliberalism and socioeconomic issues
My takeaways.
1) Decline of US dollar as a reserve currecny
2) Deterioration of the Military Industrial Complex - inability to create competitive weapons within the past quarter century. Post Iraq US has been utilizing NGOs, terrorists, and proxy armies as the military can no longer project power.
3) Negative trend in control of global energy reserves (Venezuela, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia)
4) Neoliberalism and socioeconomic issues
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 13, 2024
This book is amazing. Like the red pill in Matrix, its reading lifts a veil and allows access to an indispensable, albeit basically hidden, body of fact and truth. (It also invites, for what I’ve noticed, a humongous dose of whataboutism; as I do not think that’s relevant, I’m not going there.)
On the “International Community” (aka, the “Free World”, based on “Western Values”).
“That millennium had been one of West European expansionism, plundering and oppression initially labeled Crusades when popes embodied political power, morphing into colonialism when papal powers diminished, to Free World when colonialism went out of fashion post-World War II, to the present ‘International Community’ after the collapse of the Soviet Union. (…) Prior to World War II colonialism was achieved by military means. Post-World War II, the Bretton Woods financial instruments have been the tools of choice for imposing the neoliberal economic model, enabling acquisition of valuable resources at fire sale prices, be it natural resources, major industries, accumulated wealth, or to advance geostrategic interests.”
“Thus, when the U.S. and UK lost in the economic competitiveness game, Bretton Woods II created the opportunity to change rules of the game. Capitalizing on the fact that currencies could now be manipulated at will, and that the instruments of financial manipulation are based in the U.S. and the UK – namely, global banks, rating agencies, hedge funds, commodity exchanges, IMF, World Bank, media, “expert talking heads,” gold reserves of most countries, etc. – it was possible, using these instruments in tandem, to print money at will to cover consumption while maintaining the value of their currencies with respect to other currencies and to wage unlimited wars without risking bankruptcy or economic decline. (…) This led to an era of globalization i.e. migration of industrial production from non-competitive Western economies to competitive South economies, resulting in the great trade deficits of the Bretton Woods II era. Prior to Bretton Woods II, this would have resulted in drainage of gold reserves and consequently currency devaluation and the impoverishment of de-industrialized countries. The stability of currencies while simultaneously recording great trade and budget deficits was made possible by Bretton Woods II and the enabling power of, effectively, economic virtual reality.”
On the power of money accumulation in the construct of “International Community” societies, and a reframing of the democratic concept.
“One can posit that there are four main pillars of power in societies, namely: political power, ideological power, military power, and money power. (…) The sanctity of debt as opposed to the sanctity of, say, social balance or social wellbeing, is the ideological basis that has allowed the unlimited ascendancy of money power over all other forms of power in Western societies. (…) The modern epoch of war financing therefore went hand in hand with the spread of parliamentary democracy. For war debts and other national obligations to become binding, the people’s elected representatives had to pledge taxes. This could be achieved only by giving the electorate a voice in government. (…) It thus was the desire to be repaid that turned the preference of creditors away from autocracies toward democracies. In the end, it was only from democracies that they were able to collect. This of course did not necessarily reflect liberal political convictions on the part of creditors. They simply wanted to be paid. (…) start by cancelling the dominant ideology (Christianity) by replacing it with appealing lofty ideals (the ‘Universal Rights of Man,’ ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité,’ democratic secularism). Follow that by eliminating centralized political power, and replacing it with elected parliaments, thereby facilitating the means to gain control of the state, and after that, establishing privately owned ‘national’ central banks under Money Powers’ control. (…) Insofar as funding is a major factor determining who is able to run for elections in Western democracies, the Money Powers are well placed to control elections in these countries where waging successful campaigns requires increasingly vast expenditures.”
“Furthermore, BlackRock and Vanguard are among the top five shareholders of almost 70% of the largest 2,000 publicly traded corporations in the US. (…) It would not be an overstatement to say that these four hedge funds – Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street and T. Rowe Price – control every aspect of the U.S. economy. Their power is not limited to the U.S. economy, but extends to the global economy, as will be discussed later in the section ‘Engineering the Global Economic Crash.’ (…) In other words, in 2013 an individual of the wealthiest 0.01% owned as much as 1,100 people. This is comparable to wealth distribution in the serf communities of the Medieval Period.”
On “wealth”, “prosperity” and “power”, economic or otherwise.
“Bear in mind, the GDP data of western countries is subject to gross manipulation, inter alia by inflating the services sectors, and more recently and strikingly, by the inclusion of drugs, prostitution and smuggling in GDP data. (…) The absurdity of how the services sector can be inflated is illustrated by feces management in San Francisco: Feces collectors are paid $185,000 per year. Thus, a feces collector in San Francisco contributes 3000% more to the US GDP than a Chinese municipal worker. A single unit 150-foot (14 sqm) public toilet costs $1.7 million. Construction of a public toilet contributes 30,000% more to U.S. GDP than it would in China. (…) Figures 7 and 87 track U.S. economic sectors between 1947 and 2009, indicating a significant decline in the manufacturing sector since the 1950s, from a peak of 28% down to 12% in 2009. Growth during this period was exclusively in the services sector. In particular, growth was led by the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which grew from 11% in 1947 to 22% in 2009. (…) If we go by GDP numbers, the combined GDP of the U.S., UK, EU and Canada is $130 trillion, while that of Russia is only $1.8 trillion or 1.4%. If GDP was reflective of the actual economic power, Russia should be a pushover and defeated within a short time. However, Russia’s SMO in Ukraine was not only demilitarizing Ukraine, it was demilitarizing NATO as well. It might have been assumed that the Russian economy had become totally geared to the war effort, but actually, this is not so. As a matter of fact, the Russian economy in 2022 was faring better than that of most G-7 and EU countries, with lower inflation and far better socioeconomic conditions. (…) When virtual reality meets reality on the battleground, T-Bills and ETFs stand little chance against flying missiles and artillery shells.”
“Despite these astronomical expenditures, U.S. healthcare performance falls behind that of Cuba in two key performance indicators, namely life expectancy and child mortality rates. Here, the exorbitant cost cannot even procure healthcare on a par with Cuba.” (…) As with the healthcare sector, education has been transformed from a critical service for the nation’s wellbeing into a wealth extraction racket, with student loans reaching $1.75 trillion by 2022. Who will be on the hook for this? (…) In a neoliberal economy, the financial sector is not only a wealth extraction racket; it entails a downward spiral by debilitating the society’s most valuable resource, its human potential. It is not surprising therefore that development in the G-7 countries has been stagnant since 2007.”
On the reframing of “capitalism”, from “industrial” to “financial” in the post-1971 world.
“In a capitalist economy, the driving force of the economy is industry, the product of the industrial sector being competitive products. In a capitalist system, a fair relationship exists between supplier and consumer; the manufacturer inputs materials, know-how, labor to create a product, for which buyers pay what they consider a fair price. Consumers trade their labor to acquire cars, furniture, clothes, tools, etc. Consumers obtain the products they desire against an amount of their labor they value as a fair trade; producers sell their products at the price they find acceptable. Thus, in a capitalist system, a comparative win-win situation exists between industrialists and consumers. (…) In a neoliberal economy the driving sector of growth is the financial sector, the product of which is debt and the consequent interest payments on the debt. The growth of the financial sector implies a realization of wealth with no product in return. Thus, in a neoliberal system a win–lose relationship exists between the financial sector of the economy and the remaining sectors. (…) In capitalism, industry thrives when the economy is doing well, as people can consume more, whereas a neoliberal economy thrives when society is in crisis. (…) In a neoliberal system, the financial sector siphons wealth from society and grows at time of crisis. This invariably leads to a continuous, across-the-board deterioration in domestic social conditions.”
On our virtual-reality-based approach to economic considerations…
“Astoundingly, two record poor performances – record trade deficit and record budget deficit – result in an excellent overall economic performance as indicated by GDP! Until the advent of neoliberal economic era, this was only possible in Alice’s Wonderland.”
“Clearly Russia has a much healthier economy and far more responsible fiscal management than the United States. Consequently, the debt of Russia should carry a much lower risk than that of the United States. Accordingly, the credit rating of Russia should be much higher and the consequent interest on national debt (bond yield) of Russia should be much lower than that of the United States. However, despite the factual analysis above, as can be seen in Table 6, Russia is rated as a much higher risk, with the interest rate on its debt 300% higher than on that of the United States. (…) Such is the magic of Bretton Woods II coupled with the power of virtual reality in manufacturing consent. Thus, the Russian government, with across-the-board significantly better economic fundamentals, has to pay interest that is 300% higher on its debt compared to the U.S. (…) Today by far the deadliest weapon of mass destruction in Washington’s arsenal lies not with the Pentagon or its traditional killing machines. It’s de facto a silent weapon: the ability of Washington to control the global supply of money, of dollars, through actions of the privately-owned Federal Reserve in coordination with the U.S. Treasury and select Wall Street financial groups.”
Concepts to grasp the world we live in.
The Free World and the International Community
“The Free World is a term primarily used during the Cold War from 1945 to 1991, to refer to the Western Bloc and similar countries. It also more broadly refers to all non-communist and democratic countries. It has traditionally primarily been used to refer to the countries allied and aligned with the United States, the European Union and NATO. With the end of the Cold War, the term has been replaced by the concept of the International Community.”
“Brzezinski summarized U.S. geostrategy as follows:
In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geostrategy involves the purposeful management of geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of geopolitically catalytic states, in keeping with the twin interests of America in the short-term preservation of its unique global power and in the long-run transformation of it into increasingly institutionalized global cooperation. To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are:
• to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals;
• to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and
• to keep the barbarians from coming together.
Nations that are neither vassals nor tributaries are barbarians.”
The Basis of the Primacy of the West
“There is a triad of instruments for advancing the Empire’s geostrategy: the Bretton Woods institutions, virtual reality, and the military. These instruments are complementary and work in tandem to maintain global hegemony, aka the Empire’s ‘rules-based order.’”
“The Bretton Woods institutions are regarded here as including the following economic and other institutions: the Federal Reserve, IMF, World Bank, Bank for International Settlements, European Central Bank (ECB), World Trade Organization (WTO), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Energy Agency (IEA), World Health Organization (WHO), SWIFT interbank transfer system, credit rating agencies, commodity exchanges, global banks, hedge funds, media, and Western controlled NGOs, etc. (…) Bretton Woods II not only enabled unprecedented economic warfare to be waged, as Michael Hudson explains, but also made the kinetic wars no longer costly, since ‘money’ is printed out of thin air, hence enabling trillions to be spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, among others, and the trillion dollar ‘defense’ budgets (when all security expenditures are included).”
“A frequently overlooked or underestimated instrument of the Empire’s geostrategy is ‘Virtual Reality,’ namely the ability to create what is perceived as real by a sufficiently wide audience as to enable the advancement of its geostrategic objectives. (…) Fake economic data: US GDP is inflated by non-tradable overpriced services. If one asks, which is the number 1 economy in the world, nine out of ten respondents would say the USA, despite the fact that all indicators on trade volume, exports, industrial production, and agricultural production show that the US is far behind China. This allows the image of global economic leadership to be maintained. (…) Fake valuations of commodities: Prices are set by neither producers nor suppliers. They are set by commodity exchanges which can and do manipulate prices, as was observed regarding oil pricing. (…) Fake gold reserves: Audits of U.S. monetary gold severely lack credibility; nevertheless, all reports herald the U.S. as holder of the world’s greatest gold reserves, contributing to justification of the USD as a trade and reserve currency. When the German Central Bank requested an audit of its gold stored at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the request was refused. (…) Fake risk ratings, Moody’s, S&P and Fitch: Interest rates globally are based on ratings of these three agencies, which have been shown above to be non-factual and biased in the Russia versus USA ratings. All three rating agencies were sued over the failed Bear Stearns funds. S&P provided investment grade “A” rating to Lehman Holdings Inc. just before its collapse.”
“The neoliberal economy that was imposed on Western societies since 1980, coupled with offshoring industrial production activities, has resulted in an across the board weakening of their human resource base, as manifested in the significant degradation of their scientific, engineering and manufacturing capabilities. This is best reflected by the weapon systems developed by the U.S. military industrial complex (MIC) since the turn of the millennium. Not only is the U.S. generations behind Russia in cutting edge weapon systems such as missile defense, hypersonic missiles and strategic ballistic missiles; the MIC is also no longer capable of developing basic military hardware. (…) In conclusion, the main U.S. weapon systems date from the 20th century. Despite trillions of dollars in defense spending, in the 21st century the MIC could not produce weapon systems that could match the new weapons developed by Russia. (…) The inability of the MIC to produce state-of-the-art weapon systems that are comparable with Russian weapon systems is a result of structural problems and cannot be fixed in the foreseeable future. Its root cause is the neoliberal system and the impact this has had on U.S. society and its human resource base. The financialization of college education is the most significant factor. Prior to the neoliberal era and financialization of education, higher education could provide the needed STEM graduates for the MIC, industries and businesses in the U.S. This is a further explanation of the widening and irreversible technological gap between U.S. weapon systems and those of Russia and China.”
More food for thought.
“The American Way of Life is clearly not sustained by internal economic activity, but by other factors that enable maintenance of the high consumption patterns of the U.S. economy.”
“More expensive than nuclear energy, renewables provide for less than 10% of global energy needs and are therefore currently a marginal factor as it relates to energy consumption.”
“Despite the isolation and incessant harassment by the US, especially after the collapse of the USSR, Cuba succeeded in steadily improving the quality of life of its population. In some key social wellbeing indicators, Cuba surpasses the US:
• Child mortality rates: Cuba 0.55% vs. US 0.65%.
• Life expectancy: Cuba 79.0 vs. US 76.6.
• Literacy rates: Cuba 99.8% vs. US 86%.
• Obesity: Cuba 24.6% vs. US 36.2%.
• Unemployment: Cuba 2.6% vs. US 4.4%.
• Incarceration rates per 100,000: Cuba 510 vs. US 629.”
“Russia, Iran, and China are very different nations, each with different political and economic systems. Russia is a secular democratic country with a capitalist economy. Iran is an Islamic state, with a capitalist economy based on Islamic values. China has a meritocracy-based communist political system with a mixed economy of publicly and privately owned businesses. Fundamentally, however, they are very similar. All three are civilizational multi-ethnic states with deep roots in history, Russia one thousand years, Iran and China several thousand years each. All three are rich countries. Russia, by far the largest country in the world, is the richest country in natural resources, including minerals, agricultural land, water etc. Iran is rich in natural resources, particularly in oil and gas. China, along with India, has been historically the richest nation in the world except for the period of its looting, during the ‘Century of Shame’ and the fifty years it took to recover from that. Naturally the wealth of these nations attracted the colonialists, from whom all three nations have suffered greatly.”
There is much more in this extremely well-sourced, very thought-provoking book. Reading mandatory.
On the “International Community” (aka, the “Free World”, based on “Western Values”).
“That millennium had been one of West European expansionism, plundering and oppression initially labeled Crusades when popes embodied political power, morphing into colonialism when papal powers diminished, to Free World when colonialism went out of fashion post-World War II, to the present ‘International Community’ after the collapse of the Soviet Union. (…) Prior to World War II colonialism was achieved by military means. Post-World War II, the Bretton Woods financial instruments have been the tools of choice for imposing the neoliberal economic model, enabling acquisition of valuable resources at fire sale prices, be it natural resources, major industries, accumulated wealth, or to advance geostrategic interests.”
“Thus, when the U.S. and UK lost in the economic competitiveness game, Bretton Woods II created the opportunity to change rules of the game. Capitalizing on the fact that currencies could now be manipulated at will, and that the instruments of financial manipulation are based in the U.S. and the UK – namely, global banks, rating agencies, hedge funds, commodity exchanges, IMF, World Bank, media, “expert talking heads,” gold reserves of most countries, etc. – it was possible, using these instruments in tandem, to print money at will to cover consumption while maintaining the value of their currencies with respect to other currencies and to wage unlimited wars without risking bankruptcy or economic decline. (…) This led to an era of globalization i.e. migration of industrial production from non-competitive Western economies to competitive South economies, resulting in the great trade deficits of the Bretton Woods II era. Prior to Bretton Woods II, this would have resulted in drainage of gold reserves and consequently currency devaluation and the impoverishment of de-industrialized countries. The stability of currencies while simultaneously recording great trade and budget deficits was made possible by Bretton Woods II and the enabling power of, effectively, economic virtual reality.”
On the power of money accumulation in the construct of “International Community” societies, and a reframing of the democratic concept.
“One can posit that there are four main pillars of power in societies, namely: political power, ideological power, military power, and money power. (…) The sanctity of debt as opposed to the sanctity of, say, social balance or social wellbeing, is the ideological basis that has allowed the unlimited ascendancy of money power over all other forms of power in Western societies. (…) The modern epoch of war financing therefore went hand in hand with the spread of parliamentary democracy. For war debts and other national obligations to become binding, the people’s elected representatives had to pledge taxes. This could be achieved only by giving the electorate a voice in government. (…) It thus was the desire to be repaid that turned the preference of creditors away from autocracies toward democracies. In the end, it was only from democracies that they were able to collect. This of course did not necessarily reflect liberal political convictions on the part of creditors. They simply wanted to be paid. (…) start by cancelling the dominant ideology (Christianity) by replacing it with appealing lofty ideals (the ‘Universal Rights of Man,’ ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité,’ democratic secularism). Follow that by eliminating centralized political power, and replacing it with elected parliaments, thereby facilitating the means to gain control of the state, and after that, establishing privately owned ‘national’ central banks under Money Powers’ control. (…) Insofar as funding is a major factor determining who is able to run for elections in Western democracies, the Money Powers are well placed to control elections in these countries where waging successful campaigns requires increasingly vast expenditures.”
“Furthermore, BlackRock and Vanguard are among the top five shareholders of almost 70% of the largest 2,000 publicly traded corporations in the US. (…) It would not be an overstatement to say that these four hedge funds – Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street and T. Rowe Price – control every aspect of the U.S. economy. Their power is not limited to the U.S. economy, but extends to the global economy, as will be discussed later in the section ‘Engineering the Global Economic Crash.’ (…) In other words, in 2013 an individual of the wealthiest 0.01% owned as much as 1,100 people. This is comparable to wealth distribution in the serf communities of the Medieval Period.”
On “wealth”, “prosperity” and “power”, economic or otherwise.
“Bear in mind, the GDP data of western countries is subject to gross manipulation, inter alia by inflating the services sectors, and more recently and strikingly, by the inclusion of drugs, prostitution and smuggling in GDP data. (…) The absurdity of how the services sector can be inflated is illustrated by feces management in San Francisco: Feces collectors are paid $185,000 per year. Thus, a feces collector in San Francisco contributes 3000% more to the US GDP than a Chinese municipal worker. A single unit 150-foot (14 sqm) public toilet costs $1.7 million. Construction of a public toilet contributes 30,000% more to U.S. GDP than it would in China. (…) Figures 7 and 87 track U.S. economic sectors between 1947 and 2009, indicating a significant decline in the manufacturing sector since the 1950s, from a peak of 28% down to 12% in 2009. Growth during this period was exclusively in the services sector. In particular, growth was led by the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which grew from 11% in 1947 to 22% in 2009. (…) If we go by GDP numbers, the combined GDP of the U.S., UK, EU and Canada is $130 trillion, while that of Russia is only $1.8 trillion or 1.4%. If GDP was reflective of the actual economic power, Russia should be a pushover and defeated within a short time. However, Russia’s SMO in Ukraine was not only demilitarizing Ukraine, it was demilitarizing NATO as well. It might have been assumed that the Russian economy had become totally geared to the war effort, but actually, this is not so. As a matter of fact, the Russian economy in 2022 was faring better than that of most G-7 and EU countries, with lower inflation and far better socioeconomic conditions. (…) When virtual reality meets reality on the battleground, T-Bills and ETFs stand little chance against flying missiles and artillery shells.”
“Despite these astronomical expenditures, U.S. healthcare performance falls behind that of Cuba in two key performance indicators, namely life expectancy and child mortality rates. Here, the exorbitant cost cannot even procure healthcare on a par with Cuba.” (…) As with the healthcare sector, education has been transformed from a critical service for the nation’s wellbeing into a wealth extraction racket, with student loans reaching $1.75 trillion by 2022. Who will be on the hook for this? (…) In a neoliberal economy, the financial sector is not only a wealth extraction racket; it entails a downward spiral by debilitating the society’s most valuable resource, its human potential. It is not surprising therefore that development in the G-7 countries has been stagnant since 2007.”
On the reframing of “capitalism”, from “industrial” to “financial” in the post-1971 world.
“In a capitalist economy, the driving force of the economy is industry, the product of the industrial sector being competitive products. In a capitalist system, a fair relationship exists between supplier and consumer; the manufacturer inputs materials, know-how, labor to create a product, for which buyers pay what they consider a fair price. Consumers trade their labor to acquire cars, furniture, clothes, tools, etc. Consumers obtain the products they desire against an amount of their labor they value as a fair trade; producers sell their products at the price they find acceptable. Thus, in a capitalist system, a comparative win-win situation exists between industrialists and consumers. (…) In a neoliberal economy the driving sector of growth is the financial sector, the product of which is debt and the consequent interest payments on the debt. The growth of the financial sector implies a realization of wealth with no product in return. Thus, in a neoliberal system a win–lose relationship exists between the financial sector of the economy and the remaining sectors. (…) In capitalism, industry thrives when the economy is doing well, as people can consume more, whereas a neoliberal economy thrives when society is in crisis. (…) In a neoliberal system, the financial sector siphons wealth from society and grows at time of crisis. This invariably leads to a continuous, across-the-board deterioration in domestic social conditions.”
On our virtual-reality-based approach to economic considerations…
“Astoundingly, two record poor performances – record trade deficit and record budget deficit – result in an excellent overall economic performance as indicated by GDP! Until the advent of neoliberal economic era, this was only possible in Alice’s Wonderland.”
“Clearly Russia has a much healthier economy and far more responsible fiscal management than the United States. Consequently, the debt of Russia should carry a much lower risk than that of the United States. Accordingly, the credit rating of Russia should be much higher and the consequent interest on national debt (bond yield) of Russia should be much lower than that of the United States. However, despite the factual analysis above, as can be seen in Table 6, Russia is rated as a much higher risk, with the interest rate on its debt 300% higher than on that of the United States. (…) Such is the magic of Bretton Woods II coupled with the power of virtual reality in manufacturing consent. Thus, the Russian government, with across-the-board significantly better economic fundamentals, has to pay interest that is 300% higher on its debt compared to the U.S. (…) Today by far the deadliest weapon of mass destruction in Washington’s arsenal lies not with the Pentagon or its traditional killing machines. It’s de facto a silent weapon: the ability of Washington to control the global supply of money, of dollars, through actions of the privately-owned Federal Reserve in coordination with the U.S. Treasury and select Wall Street financial groups.”
Concepts to grasp the world we live in.
The Free World and the International Community
“The Free World is a term primarily used during the Cold War from 1945 to 1991, to refer to the Western Bloc and similar countries. It also more broadly refers to all non-communist and democratic countries. It has traditionally primarily been used to refer to the countries allied and aligned with the United States, the European Union and NATO. With the end of the Cold War, the term has been replaced by the concept of the International Community.”
“Brzezinski summarized U.S. geostrategy as follows:
In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geostrategy involves the purposeful management of geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of geopolitically catalytic states, in keeping with the twin interests of America in the short-term preservation of its unique global power and in the long-run transformation of it into increasingly institutionalized global cooperation. To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are:
• to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals;
• to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and
• to keep the barbarians from coming together.
Nations that are neither vassals nor tributaries are barbarians.”
The Basis of the Primacy of the West
“There is a triad of instruments for advancing the Empire’s geostrategy: the Bretton Woods institutions, virtual reality, and the military. These instruments are complementary and work in tandem to maintain global hegemony, aka the Empire’s ‘rules-based order.’”
“The Bretton Woods institutions are regarded here as including the following economic and other institutions: the Federal Reserve, IMF, World Bank, Bank for International Settlements, European Central Bank (ECB), World Trade Organization (WTO), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Energy Agency (IEA), World Health Organization (WHO), SWIFT interbank transfer system, credit rating agencies, commodity exchanges, global banks, hedge funds, media, and Western controlled NGOs, etc. (…) Bretton Woods II not only enabled unprecedented economic warfare to be waged, as Michael Hudson explains, but also made the kinetic wars no longer costly, since ‘money’ is printed out of thin air, hence enabling trillions to be spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, among others, and the trillion dollar ‘defense’ budgets (when all security expenditures are included).”
“A frequently overlooked or underestimated instrument of the Empire’s geostrategy is ‘Virtual Reality,’ namely the ability to create what is perceived as real by a sufficiently wide audience as to enable the advancement of its geostrategic objectives. (…) Fake economic data: US GDP is inflated by non-tradable overpriced services. If one asks, which is the number 1 economy in the world, nine out of ten respondents would say the USA, despite the fact that all indicators on trade volume, exports, industrial production, and agricultural production show that the US is far behind China. This allows the image of global economic leadership to be maintained. (…) Fake valuations of commodities: Prices are set by neither producers nor suppliers. They are set by commodity exchanges which can and do manipulate prices, as was observed regarding oil pricing. (…) Fake gold reserves: Audits of U.S. monetary gold severely lack credibility; nevertheless, all reports herald the U.S. as holder of the world’s greatest gold reserves, contributing to justification of the USD as a trade and reserve currency. When the German Central Bank requested an audit of its gold stored at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the request was refused. (…) Fake risk ratings, Moody’s, S&P and Fitch: Interest rates globally are based on ratings of these three agencies, which have been shown above to be non-factual and biased in the Russia versus USA ratings. All three rating agencies were sued over the failed Bear Stearns funds. S&P provided investment grade “A” rating to Lehman Holdings Inc. just before its collapse.”
“The neoliberal economy that was imposed on Western societies since 1980, coupled with offshoring industrial production activities, has resulted in an across the board weakening of their human resource base, as manifested in the significant degradation of their scientific, engineering and manufacturing capabilities. This is best reflected by the weapon systems developed by the U.S. military industrial complex (MIC) since the turn of the millennium. Not only is the U.S. generations behind Russia in cutting edge weapon systems such as missile defense, hypersonic missiles and strategic ballistic missiles; the MIC is also no longer capable of developing basic military hardware. (…) In conclusion, the main U.S. weapon systems date from the 20th century. Despite trillions of dollars in defense spending, in the 21st century the MIC could not produce weapon systems that could match the new weapons developed by Russia. (…) The inability of the MIC to produce state-of-the-art weapon systems that are comparable with Russian weapon systems is a result of structural problems and cannot be fixed in the foreseeable future. Its root cause is the neoliberal system and the impact this has had on U.S. society and its human resource base. The financialization of college education is the most significant factor. Prior to the neoliberal era and financialization of education, higher education could provide the needed STEM graduates for the MIC, industries and businesses in the U.S. This is a further explanation of the widening and irreversible technological gap between U.S. weapon systems and those of Russia and China.”
More food for thought.
“The American Way of Life is clearly not sustained by internal economic activity, but by other factors that enable maintenance of the high consumption patterns of the U.S. economy.”
“More expensive than nuclear energy, renewables provide for less than 10% of global energy needs and are therefore currently a marginal factor as it relates to energy consumption.”
“Despite the isolation and incessant harassment by the US, especially after the collapse of the USSR, Cuba succeeded in steadily improving the quality of life of its population. In some key social wellbeing indicators, Cuba surpasses the US:
• Child mortality rates: Cuba 0.55% vs. US 0.65%.
• Life expectancy: Cuba 79.0 vs. US 76.6.
• Literacy rates: Cuba 99.8% vs. US 86%.
• Obesity: Cuba 24.6% vs. US 36.2%.
• Unemployment: Cuba 2.6% vs. US 4.4%.
• Incarceration rates per 100,000: Cuba 510 vs. US 629.”
“Russia, Iran, and China are very different nations, each with different political and economic systems. Russia is a secular democratic country with a capitalist economy. Iran is an Islamic state, with a capitalist economy based on Islamic values. China has a meritocracy-based communist political system with a mixed economy of publicly and privately owned businesses. Fundamentally, however, they are very similar. All three are civilizational multi-ethnic states with deep roots in history, Russia one thousand years, Iran and China several thousand years each. All three are rich countries. Russia, by far the largest country in the world, is the richest country in natural resources, including minerals, agricultural land, water etc. Iran is rich in natural resources, particularly in oil and gas. China, along with India, has been historically the richest nation in the world except for the period of its looting, during the ‘Century of Shame’ and the fifty years it took to recover from that. Naturally the wealth of these nations attracted the colonialists, from whom all three nations have suffered greatly.”
There is much more in this extremely well-sourced, very thought-provoking book. Reading mandatory.
November 30, 2023
Excellent book explaining the financial power of the west. How it works, who are benefiting from all the western activities. The financial system, how it affects different countries across the world. The origin and development of the western capitalist powers
The resistance of the global south, especially Russia and China. How they are doing so far.
Though it's very deep level knowledge. I understood all these things because I'm interested in geopolitical economic history for some years. Still I didn’t understand that much of economic banking, fiat currency, interest rate etc. stuffs. So new readers will have hard time.
The resistance of the global south, especially Russia and China. How they are doing so far.
Though it's very deep level knowledge. I understood all these things because I'm interested in geopolitical economic history for some years. Still I didn’t understand that much of economic banking, fiat currency, interest rate etc. stuffs. So new readers will have hard time.
November 20, 2023
I agree with the writer. The neoliberal model has hollowed out the West and the American empire is about to end.
January 7, 2024
Great book on geopolitics and the current end game playing out.
May 18, 2025
It's quite an interesting study, based on figures and statistics, even if I'm not sure of the veracity of its conclusions.
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