Sam Easow

Technology & Economics

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

@AlternatNews

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

The magnitude of what just happened may take some time to sink in.

This is the first time Iran has struck Israel after Israel struck another country's territory (that is, not Iran).

This means that the battle lines have been moved.

Iran's deterrence had already been restored in the sense that Israel knew that any strike on it would be responded to.

But now, Iran has proven that it will also respond to Israeli strikes on Lebanon.

This is the first time in decades that a regional power has the means, capacity, and willingness to put hard power against Israeli military maneuvers or aggression against a third party.

Read full analysis here: https://t.co/CPawJ4TYdr

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

China certainly has debt, but there is an important question: what did the debt buy?
In China's case, much of it has been poured into highways, high-speed rail, ports, airports, factories, power plants, industrial parks, and advanced manufacturing. You can argue about efficiency or overbuilding, but at least there is usually something concrete to point at.
By contrast, much of the Western financial system seems to excel at turning debt into derivatives, buybacks, asset bubbles, and a fresh crop of billionaires. Concrete gets replaced by spreadsheets.
In real economic terms - technology, manufacturing capacity, infrastructure, logistics, and industrial output - China arguably overtook the United States years ago. GDP accounting may still produce endless debates, but a high-speed train is hard to dismiss as a rounding error.
When I visited China in 2016, the contrast was already striking. The transport systems, urban infrastructure, and manufacturing ecosystem appeared far ahead of what I see in many parts of the United States even today. The cranes were building tomorrow while much of the West seemed busy refinancing yesterday.
Perhaps the simplest way to describe it is this:
One country borrowed heavily and built bridges, railways, factories, and industrial ecosystems. Another borrowed heavily and often built financial products and stock valuations. Both accumulated debt - but the skylines tell rather different stories.

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

China certainly has debt, but there is an important question: what did the debt buy?
In China's case, much of it has been poured into highways, high-speed rail, ports, airports, factories, power plants, industrial parks, and advanced manufacturing. You can argue about efficiency or overbuilding, but at least there is usually something concrete to point at.
By contrast, much of the Western financial system seems to excel at turning debt into derivatives, buybacks, asset bubbles, and a fresh crop of billionaires. Concrete gets replaced by spreadsheets.
In real economic terms - technology, manufacturing capacity, infrastructure, logistics, and industrial output - China arguably overtook the United States years ago. GDP accounting may still produce endless debates, but a high-speed train is hard to dismiss as a rounding error.
When I visited China in 2016, the contrast was already striking. The transport systems, urban infrastructure, and manufacturing ecosystem appeared far ahead of what I see in many parts of the United States even today. The cranes were building tomorrow while much of the West seemed busy refinancing yesterday.
Perhaps the simplest way to describe it is this:
One country borrowed heavily and built bridges, railways, factories, and industrial ecosystems. Another borrowed heavily and often built financial products and stock valuations. Both accumulated debt - but the skylines tell rather different stories.

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

@europa Who does she stad for?

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

@GuptaPragnya

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

@GlobalNewsHQI

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

The U.S. GDP is a fascinating creature. It calls itself GDP, but it often behaves like a magician's hat.
Much of the manufacturing happens overseas, yet when the final assembly, stamping, branding, or packaging takes place in the U.S., the value of the finished product often gets booked there. It's a bit like importing a fully baked cake, adding the cherry on top, and then announcing, "Look what I baked!"
Then comes consumption. Americans buy the product, and consumption becomes another major pillar of GDP. So the same imported goods help inflate production statistics through final assembly and then boost GDP again through spending. It's enough to make accountants reach for another coffee.
By this logic, if the rest of the world grows the cotton, spins the yarn, weaves the fabric, stitches the shirt, and ships it across the ocean, but the last button is sewn on in America, congratulations - the shirt is suddenly wearing a "Made Here" badge.
No wonder U.S. GDP often looks enormous. Some would argue that the counting method deserves as much credit as the actual production. If every nation measured output the same way, the global rankings might look rather different.

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

@IranArmyStan

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

What about the R&D bills picked up by the government for major military aircraft, missiles, drones, and weapons systems in the United States? Countless billions flow to defense contractors through cost-plus contracts, research grants, subsidies, testing programs, and procurement guarantees. The taxpayer takes the risk; the manufacturers collect the rewards.
Imagine if even a fraction of those sums were directed toward repairing roads, rebuilding bridges, modernizing seaports, upgrading water systems, or improving public transportation. Entire regions could be transformed.
But priorities are fascinating things. When billions disappear into military projects, it is called "national security," "innovation," or "strategic investment." When a few billion are proposed for food assistance, housing support, healthcare, or education, suddenly television studios fill with experts worried about fiscal discipline and government waste.
A dollar spent on a missile is often treated as an investment. A dollar spent helping ordinary people is treated as a burden. The difference is not economics; it is politics.
Government privileges, subsidies, and allocations matter. Some recipients receive red carpets, lobbying support, and glowing headlines. Others receive paperwork, scrutiny, and lectures about self-reliance.
Apparently, building a hypersonic missile is a sign of responsible governance. Building affordable housing requires a national debate.

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

What about the R&D bills picked up by the government for major military aircraft, missiles, drones, and weapons systems in the United States? Countless billions flow to defense contractors through cost-plus contracts, research grants, subsidies, testing programs, and procurement guarantees. The taxpayer takes the risk; the manufacturers collect the rewards.
Imagine if even a fraction of those sums were directed toward repairing roads, rebuilding bridges, modernizing seaports, upgrading water systems, or improving public transportation. Entire regions could be transformed.
But priorities are fascinating things. When billions disappear into military projects, it is called "national security," "innovation," or "strategic investment." When a few billion are proposed for food assistance, housing support, healthcare, or education, suddenly television studios fill with experts worried about fiscal discipline and government waste.
A dollar spent on a missile is often treated as an investment. A dollar spent helping ordinary people is treated as a burden. The difference is not economics; it is politics.
Government privileges, subsidies, and allocations matter. Some recipients receive red carpets, lobbying support, and glowing headlines. Others receive paperwork, scrutiny, and lectures about self-reliance.
Apparently, building a hypersonic missile is a sign of responsible governance. Building affordable housing requires a national debate.

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

The transformation was remarkable. A civilization rooted for centuries in agriculture and manufacturing gradually reinvented itself as a service economy, exporting engineers, doctors, software developers, consultants, and management graduates by the planeload. Thus was born the celebrated Indian Diaspora, perhaps the country's most successful export after spices and philosophy.
Ironically, many members of this diaspora became enthusiastic servants of the very financial order they had joined. Quite often they looked back at India with a curious mix of superiority and nostalgia, occasionally displaying the same paternalistic attitude once associated with colonial administrators. During British rule, Indians employed by the Empire often behaved similarly toward their own countrymen. Perhaps this is a uniquely Indian adaptation: once promoted within the hierarchy, some become even stricter guardians of it than those who originally built it.
Pride and prejudice may be universal human traits, but Indians seem to have engineered their own premium edition.
Consequently, think tanks in Washington, New York, or Chicago routinely produce elegant reports explaining what India should do, how India should behave, and which policies qualify as "responsible." The underlying assumption has barely changed since colonial times: the student may have graduated, but the teacher still insists on marking the homework.
Until India intellectually liberates itself from dependence on this financial worldview, little may fundamentally change. Education, bureaucracy, policy frameworks, and administrative culture continue to echo institutions originally designed during British imperial rule. The irony is almost poetic: Britain has modified many of those institutions for itself, while India carefully preserves them as though they were UNESCO World Heritage monuments.
The hierarchy survives.
The bureaucracy survives.
The mindset survives.
The empire may have packed its flags and sailed home decades ago, but many of its instruction manuals remain compulsory reading in New Delhi. And whenever an Indian reaches the commanding heights of Western finance, academia, or policy circles, there often emerges the temptation to look back at India not as an equal civilization, but as a fascinating project waiting to be supervised.
History possesses an extraordinary sense of humor. Colonialism did not disappear; it merely changed its wardrobe. It traded the pith helmet for a tailored suit, replaced the gunboat with a hedge fund, swapped the district collector for a consultant, and now arrives carrying a PowerPoint presentation titled, with complete sincerity, "Global Best Practices."

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

The current Prime Minister inherited not a blank slate but an established state, complete with its institutions, incentives, assumptions, and policy habits. Tracks laid over decades are not easily abandoned merely because the locomotive has a new driver.
Politics, after all, is often the art of transformation without alarming the passengers. The destination may change by inches while everyone on board is encouraged to believe the scenery has changed by miles.
India is also a civilization deeply influenced by faith. Every Prime Minister before him understood the political value of belief, identity, and symbolism. Governments come and go, slogans are refreshed, election manifestos receive new covers, but appealing to faith has remained one of the most durable instruments in the political toolkit.
Meanwhile, the machinery of the state continues to hum along, staffed by bureaucracies educated in inherited frameworks, advised by institutions shaped by old orthodoxies, and encouraged by global financial interests that prefer continuity over experimentation. Revolutions are excellent for speeches but notoriously inconvenient for bond markets.
Consequently, dramatic departures from existing policies are unlikely to arrive overnight. Nations the size of India do not execute U-turns; they negotiate roundabouts. Even when change occurs, it often disguises itself as continuity, quietly repainting the walls while assuring everyone that nothing has moved.
History, once again, smiles knowingly. Empires may fade, governments may change, parties may alternate, and leaders may acquire larger majorities, yet institutions possess an astonishing talent for surviving them all. They simply update the logo, refresh the mission statement, hire a consulting firm, and carry on exactly as before.
For Britain first, and later the United States together with much of Europe, India was rarely expected to chart an entirely independent course. The preferred arrangement was far simpler: India should remain useful, predictable, and permanently aligned with their strategic and economic interests.
When India flirted with non-alignment and maintained close ties with the USSR, the Western alliances frowned upon it. The message was subtle but unmistakable: neutrality is a wonderful principle - provided you are neutral in our direction.
Eventually India embraced the modern religion of our age - Bankers' Capitalism of Usury and War - with its temples in financial districts and its high priests in investment banks, ratings agencies, consulting firms, and television economists. Yet India never fully immersed itself in the faith. The conversion was enthusiastic, but the proselytization remained incomplete.
Then came the political and economic turbulence of the 1980s following the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi and the continuation of power within the family. Around the same period, wealth increasingly flowed out of India toward Western financial centres, Indian oligarchs discovered the joys of relocating abroad, and mounting debt pressures culminated in the crisis of the early 1990s. The patient was declared critically ill, and the prescribed medicine was more globalization, more liberalization, and a generous helping of foreign capital.
India opened its doors.
Through those doors marched investment vehicles, multinational corporations, portfolio investors, consultants, and financial institutions - each carrying calculators, spreadsheets, and promises. Foreign Institutional Investors arrived at the stock exchanges not merely to participate in India's growth but, like expert mango pickers, to collect the ripest fruit before anyone else reached the tree.

[Chad Samson @ChadSamson__]

Albanian Citizens in Albania's Vjosë-Nartë Delta Bay successfully repelled Israel First backed security forces attempting to shield construction in the protected wetlands, where endangered flamingos nest along with the last 300 endangered Mediterranean Monk Seals, coral reefs, and turtles. @America24news_

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

Good going for India. We have become remarkably efficient at making car shells. Engines, transmissions, and much of the expensive wizardry may come from elsewhere, but the shell is ours and we can stamp it out beautifully.
Then comes the tax structure, which lovingly inflates the final price until the average middle-class buyer develops an emotional attachment stronger than many family relationships.
In most countries, a car is a vehicle. In India, a car is practically a family member.
You don't simply own it - you raise it. You wash it every weekend, protect it from scratches as if they were childhood injuries, worry about it during monsoons, and park it under shade with parental concern.
By the time you've paid all the taxes, registration fees, insurance, and assorted charges, the car has become less a mode of transport and more a long-term family project.
People elsewhere replace cars every few years. In India, the middle class keeps a car the way previous generations kept family heirlooms. The vehicle arrives young, grows old with the household, attends every wedding, survives every road trip, and is only reluctantly sent away after decades of loyal service.
At these prices, the car isn't transportation. It's the fourth child.

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

Good going for India. We have become remarkably efficient at making car shells. Engines, transmissions, and much of the expensive wizardry may come from elsewhere, but the shell is ours and we can stamp it out beautifully.
Then comes the tax structure, which lovingly inflates the final price until the average middle-class buyer develops an emotional attachment stronger than many family relationships.
In most countries, a car is a vehicle. In India, a car is practically a family member.
You don't simply own it - you raise it. You wash it every weekend, protect it from scratches as if they were childhood injuries, worry about it during monsoons, and park it under shade with parental concern.
By the time you've paid all the taxes, registration fees, insurance, and assorted charges, the car has become less a mode of transport and more a long-term family project.
People elsewhere replace cars every few years. In India, the middle class keeps a car the way previous generations kept family heirlooms. The vehicle arrives young, grows old with the household, attends every wedding, survives every road trip, and is only reluctantly sent away after decades of loyal service.
At these prices, the car isn't transportation. It's the fourth child.

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

Waiting for Godot:
The Iranian navy, which has been destroyed so many times that it has achieved the status of a permanent dark cloud over the Strait of Hormuz - repeatedly dispersed, repeatedly reported gone, and repeatedly drifting back into view - has apparently closed the Strait of Hormuz again.
This happened after the United States won the latest war that wasn't a war, against an enemy that wasn't an enemy, over a nuclear program that wasn't building a bomb, using strikes that definitely started nothing while somehow ending everything.
Now Washington must heroically reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which had the peculiar habit of being open before the not-war began.
The not-war itself was necessary because Iran possessed uranium that has since been totally, completely, absolutely, magnificently, historically, cosmically obliterated. So obliterated, in fact, that officials are still discussing whether more obliteration may be required in the future.
Meanwhile, the United States, which possesses enough nuclear weapons to end civilization several times over, is warning Iran that no country should ever be allowed to possess nuclear weapons because nuclear weapons are far too dangerous to be possessed by anyone except those already possessing them.
At this point, if the United States observed the United States conducting in the United States the same activities the United States routinely conducts abroad, the United States would issue sanctions against the United States, condemn the United States at the United Nations, and eventually invade the United States to liberate the United States from the destabilizing influence of the United States.
The operation would then be declared a great success, the situation would become significantly more complicated, and everyone would prepare for the next war that isn't a war.

[Sam Easow @Sameasow]

Waiting for Godot:
The Iranian navy, which has been destroyed so many times that it has achieved the status of a permanent dark cloud over the Strait of Hormuz - repeatedly dispersed, repeatedly reported gone, and repeatedly drifting back into view - has apparently closed the Strait of Hormuz again.
This happened after the United States won the latest war that wasn't a war, against an enemy that wasn't an enemy, over a nuclear program that wasn't building a bomb, using strikes that definitely started nothing while somehow ending everything.
Now Washington must heroically reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which had the peculiar habit of being open before the not-war began.
The not-war itself was necessary because Iran possessed uranium that has since been totally, completely, absolutely, magnificently, historically, cosmically obliterated. So obliterated, in fact, that officials are still discussing whether more obliteration may be required in the future.
Meanwhile, the United States, which possesses enough nuclear weapons to end civilization several times over, is warning Iran that no country should ever be allowed to possess nuclear weapons because nuclear weapons are far too dangerous to be possessed by anyone except those already possessing them.
At this point, if the United States observed the United States conducting in the United States the same activities the United States routinely conducts abroad, the United States would issue sanctions against the United States, condemn the United States at the United Nations, and eventually invade the United States to liberate the United States from the destabilizing influence of the United States.
The operation would then be declared a great success, the situation would become significantly more complicated, and everyone would prepare for the next war that isn't a war.

[Slavic Networks @SlavicNetworks]

🚨BREAKING NEWS: ALBANIA DID IT! PEOPLE CRUSH KUSHNER-ISRAELI LAND GRAB & OLIGARCH THEFT, MEGA-PROJECT SUSPENDED AFTER MASS PROTESTS! 🔥🇦🇱

Albanians are winning! Massive protests in Tirana and across the country, plus actions in Brussels, have forced the suspension of the controversial mega-resort project linked to Jared Kushner. Despite government attempts to downplay the crowds, videos show strong public resistance with chants of “Albania is not for sale!” The project is now on hold pending proper environmental impact assessment.

Albanians are showing real people power in action. They are fighting back against powerful foreign interests, including Israeli-linked deals through Kushner, and corrupt local elites trying to sell off protected coastal land. This is about sovereignty, protecting nature, and refusing to let outsiders or oligarchs steal the homeland. When citizens unite and protest, even big elite projects can be stopped.

[Israel Exposed @xIsraelExposedx]

Today is the anniversary of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, 59 years ago. The crime was covered up by Zionist agents in the US government.