QB

Freakin Audio founder.... also dabbles in complexity, systems, growth and cricket.

[Joni Askola @joni_askola]

The German far right's open attendance at Russia's SPIEF conference proves that the threat to Europe is already inside the house.

If the RN, AfD and Reform UK win elections, European security will completely collapse.

European democracy is facing its most dangerous moment since the Cold War. AfD sending representatives to Saint Petersburg to smile for cameras alongside war criminals is not an isolated incident. It is part of a coordinated, long-term strategy to place pro-Russian traitors and their puppets at the helm of the British, French, and German governments.

A political victory for the National Rally, AfD, or Reform UK at the next elections would be a historical catastrophe. These groups are designed to paralyze Europe, cut off vital aid to democracies under attack, and legitimize brutal authoritarian expansion. They wrap themselves in national flags, yet they take their marching orders directly from Moscow. Real traitors!

It is time to speak with total clarity about what a vote for these parties actually means. Choosing to support these movements is a betrayal of national sovereignty and a direct contribution to the destabilization of the West. Voters who fall for their populist rhetoric are actively enabling foreign subversion. A vote for them is a vote for Putin.

We need a massive mobilization of citizens within these countries to fight back against this creeping threat. Passivity is no longer an option when the enemy is on the ballot. We must aggressively expose their lies, contest their narratives, and protect the values that keep Europe safe and free

[Craig Unger @craigunger]

The Complete Trump-Russia Timeline: 39 Parts, One Conclusion

After ten years on the biggest national security story of our time, I've finished a 39-part probe into how Donald Trump became an asset of Russian intelligence and how they helped make him president.

[QB @themildperil]

@BladeoftheS The whole point of climate denial is that you don't have to think about what will happen.

[QB @themildperil]

@NEF Net Zero is decades too late to make a difference and fundamentally unachievable at a global scale. Denial takes many forms.

[Prof. Steve Keen @ProfSteveKeen]

90% of money created since 2000 was created by private banks. Not the government.

And between 1980 and 2000, the government was actually destroying money while monetarists were blaming it for inflation.

In my latest video, I show exactly how private debt acceleration drives asset price booms, how financial equity works like a seesaw that always tilts against the non-bank sector, and why the obsession with cutting government deficits is making all of this worse.

You'll find more details in the comment section.

#PrivateDebt #FinancialInstability #EconomicReality #PostKeynesian #SteveKeen

[QB @themildperil]

@jimstewartson The "Russian tail" in the voting forensics can't be the result of natural voting behaviour. Someone fiddled the vote.

[QB @themildperil]

@TimInHonolulu Trump can't do strategy. For those that do, Trump is disposable.

[QB @themildperil]

@IRanalyst The pretence of democracy had value in of itself and will be very difficult to restore.

[QB @themildperil]

@ProfSteveKeen @ProfessorJiangX @PiersUncensored @StephenMoore Jiang’s total confidence about largely unknowable things is a major 🚩.

[Patricia @PatriciaNPino]

A healthy UK economy would reduce the size of its financial sector relative to its other industries. Not give it preferential treatment.

[Steve Hall @ProfHall1955]

Who precisely are the 'bond vigilantes', the true enemies of democracy who sell off and manipulate government bonds to jack up yields, spook populations and threaten cowardly politicians? We're usually told that pension funds run the show and they're just looking after our savings. This gives money-market power a rational and ethical image.

It's not true. Pension funds are big buyers, but they tend to invest long term, making them ineffective 'bond vigilantes'. The other big buyers are central banks, foreign governments, banks, corporations, insurance companies, asset managers, and mutual funds. But their tendency is also for the long term.

The true culprits, the 'bond vigilantes' at the heart of money-market power, are the 'global macro' hedge funds working through desk traders. They operate short-term and, using derivatives-style techniques such as shorting, interest-rate swaps and credit-default swaps, they can rapidly drive gilt yields higher and threaten governments anywhere. They can also launch simultaneous currency attacks, depreciating a currency and jacking up import costs.

This is stateless, concentrated money-market power with no loyalty to any population and determined to keep governments subjugated and powerless. They can unseat left-wing governments, prevent public investment and nationalisation, and keep nations open to private investment and privatisation.

This is a relatively small network of funders and traders, many ensconced in the City of London. It could be crushed with international agreements on non-tradable fixed-rate bonds and strict capital exchange controls. The secondary bond market is only 200 years old. It could be obliterated as quickly as it emerged, but that would take an international network of informed and courageous politicians and central bankers. At the moment a pipe dream.

[QB @themildperil]

@SteveStuWill If narcissists are prone to conspiratorial thinking, they are also more likely to perpetrate conspiracies when in positions of power.

[Steve Hall @ProfHall1955]

Polanski isn't an economist, he's a political mouthpiece simplifying and popularising a complex 'heterodox economics' position so that voters can understand very basic policy implications. He isn't 'musing' at all. The question of economic literacy is relevant only to the scriptwriters in the background feeding the lines. The heterodox economists using balance-sheet and system dynamics models are largely correct, whereas mainstream neoclassicists using obsolete DSGE equilibrium models are largely wrong. They latter are driven by the belief that markets are fair, neutral, democratic and efficient systems, whereas the former recognise the essentially Keynesian need for economic management at the core. Anyone who is happy with the idea that 'the bond markets' should be the arbiter of political decisions such as government spending and public investment is a neoliberal, no matter what political identity they adopt. The reason why Spiked entertain economists from the extreme neoliberal/libertarian IEA is that they are fakes. Neoliberalism is falling apart and I dont want to see this country going down with it.

[QB @themildperil]

@7WheelofFortune @mbostic0 @litewhisperer @JustinWolfers China's investment in infrastructure and production via massive government money creation was disinflationary for the world, through cheap goods.

[QB @themildperil]

@7WheelofFortune @mbostic0 @litewhisperer @JustinWolfers The monetarist perspective on inflation is wrong. If money creation is used to to increase the production of useful resources, then it is disinflationary. See China. If money creation is used to pump asset bubbles, then it is inflationary.

[QB @themildperil]

@7WheelofFortune @mbostic0 @litewhisperer @JustinWolfers Once you are a billionaire, it is near impossible to spend your passive income productively. They can’t help but be parasites. Billionaires are inherently inflationary.

[QB @themildperil]

@7WheelofFortune @mbostic0 @litewhisperer @JustinWolfers Because billionaires are generally very bad at allocating resources in way that benefits the majority.

[QB @themildperil]

@RogerHallamCS21 All civilisations collapse in the end. All living things, all living systems have a lifespan. Every growth phase contains the seeds of a collapse phase.

[QB @themildperil]

@ryankatzrosene It seems like SoH closure was one of the most war gamed risk scenarios out there. All the major powers were aware of the possible repercussions, except for perhaps Trump.

[Amber Woods @AmberWoods100]

Imagine if the wealthiest people in the world had their own private intelligence network.

Not spies in trench coats.
Strategic matchmakers.
Fixers.
Handlers.
People who identified influence, vulnerability, ambition and access.

Who should meet who.
Who could open doors.
Who could be controlled.
Whose daughter goes to who.
Who could protect the network.
Who could become valuable later.

Now look at the Epstein files again.