Once again the US Federal Reserve is in a quandary. Does it cut its policy interest rate soon in order to relieve pressure on debt servicing costs for consumers and businesses and perhaps avoid a stagflationary economy (ie low or no growth alongside higher inflation); or does it hold its current interest rate for borrowing in order to make sure inflation falls towards its target of 2% a year?

That’s what mainstream economists and investors in financial assets want an answer to. But it’s not really the important issue. What the Fed’s current quandary really shows is that yet again ‘monetary policy’ (ie central banks adjusting interest rates and money supply) has little effect on controlling inflation in the prices of goods and services that households and businesses must pay.

Zveni kot znanstvena in politična fantastika, vendar je zelo zanimivo. Zanimivo, če bi Kitajska res zasledovala to strategijo.

I’m seeing a lot of questions on the launch of China’s Chang’e 6 mission yesterday to get samples – for the first time – from the far side of the moon.

We don’t know (afaik) why specifically they’re doing that, but we have a pretty good idea what grand vision China is working towards with their space program.

How? From this 2022 video by Chas Freeman (former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Nixon’s interpreter during his era-defining 1972 China visit), who imho is undoubtedly one of the most knowledgeable former US officials on China.

He says that according to his own discussions with people running China’s space program, they’re following the vision described in the book “The high frontier” by Gerard K. O’Neill, which Freeman says has “become the bible of the Chinese space program”.

I read the book. So what vision does it describe?

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Naslov je prevod uvodnega dela komentarja, ki ga je napisal George Beebe, nekdanji direktor analitičnega oddelka za Rusijo v ameriški obveščevalni službi CIA in nekdanji svetovalec podpredsednika Dicka Cheneya, sedaj pa direktor Grand Strategy Program na Quincy Institute:

If Washington were intentionally to design a formula for Ukraine’s destruction, it might look a lot like the aid package passed by Congress this week.

Zakaj? Ker zadnji paket pomoči zgolj “podaljšuje vojno, ki je Ukrajina ne more dobiti“. Ker nima dovolj človeške sile za bojevanje in ker Zahod nima in ne bo imel dovolj velike proizvodnje orožja. Od 61 milijard dolarjev, jih bo sicer zgolj 14 šlo za pošiljke orožja v Ukrajino, 8 pa za finančno pomoč, preostali del pa je namenjen polnjenju izpraznjenih ameriških skladišč orožja. Namesto da bi Ukrajino pripeljal k miru, ta paket pomoči, kot ocenjuje Beebe, podaljšuje vojno, podaljšuje nepotrebno uničevanje človeških življenj in infrastrukture ter Ukrajini uničuje možnosti za prihodnji razvoj in blaginjo:

Zaradi tega je to formula za podaljšanje, ne za konec vojne. To bo zagotovilo, da bo Ukrajina še naprej metala svoje vse manjše rezerve človeške sile v vojno, ki je ne more dobiti in ki pomeni vse več opustošenja ukrajinske infrastrukture in njenih možnosti za prihodnjo blaginjo. To bo pomenilo zapravljanje denarja in, kar je še bolj moteče, zapravljanje ukrajinskih življenj.

Podobnega mnenja je Eugene Rumer, direktor programa za Rusijo in Evrazijo na Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, ki pravi: “Ukraine has no good options, even with the latest aid package. Many military analysts have already come to that conclusion privately but are unwilling to voice that sentiment.” Rumer pravi, da pomoč ne bo zadostovala za izničenje prednosti Rusije v človeški sili in materialu. In se sprašuje, ali ima Zahod pod vodstvom ZDA želodec za dolgoročno podporo Ukrajini.

Podobno pravi veteran ameriške mornarice in nekdanji poročevalec za nacionalno varnost Michael Lokesson, ki je na tviterju zapisal:

If Zelensky keeps saying total victory is the only aim, he is setting up Western polities and politicians to become disillusioned when Ukraine fails to make progress towards this lofty goal. […] his leverage at the negotiating table—if Putin is even willing to come to it—is moving in the wrong direction.

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Kontroverzni novi ameriški zakon “Antisemitism Awareness Act”, ki z efektivnim enačenjem kritike ravnanja izraelskih oblasti z antisemitizmom efektivno sankcionira kritiko ravnanja izraelskih oblasti nasploh, zna imeti, kot piše Robert Wright, nasprotne učinke od željenih. Ta represivnost izpostavlja moč pro-izraelskih lobijev nad ameriško politično elito in prav zaradi tega lahko pomeni zadnji izdihljaj v naporih teh lobijev utišati kakršnokoli kritiko ravnanja izraelskih oblasti. Ko bodo ugledni ameriški intelektualci in predstavniki civilne družbe to represijo začeli množično dojemati in izpostavljati kot nevzdržno za demokratično državo z uzakonjeno kulturo svobode govora, lahko v neki točki pride do preloma v javnem mnenju. In zadeva se zna v ZDA končati slabše za pro-izraelske interese kot brez te represije.

I personally haven’t been using the word “genocide” to describe what’s going on in Gaza. I’ve always used that term narrowly—conservatively, you might say—even as, in recent decades, it has come to be used more and more broadly.

Still, given that broadened use—which we’ve seen not just in op-eds and social media posts, but in international law circles—it seems hard to get indignant about people who are using the term to describe what Israel is doing in Gaza. If commentators can call China’s treatment of the Uighurs genocide without being expelled from the realm of acceptable discourse, shouldn’t college students be able to call Israel’s treatment of the Gazans genocide without being expelled from the realm of acceptable discourse?

You’d think. But a bill passed this week by the House of Representatives, if it becomes law, could lead to the expulsion of such students not just from the realm of acceptable discourse but from the colleges they attend. Of all the recent attempts to stifle criticism of Israel in the guise of fighting antisemitism, this bill may be the most pernicious.

The Antisemitism Awareness Act—passed by a vote of 320 to 91—grounds its authority in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Under Title VI, colleges that tolerate discrimination on their campuses can be punished by the Department of Education via termination of federal funding. Which gives colleges a strong incentive to crack down on any workers or students who practice discrimination.

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Ameriški študenti so bili na pravi zgodovine leta 1968, ko so protestirali proti vietnamski vojni. Tudi naši študenti so bili takrat na pravi strani zgodovine. Ameriški študenti so na pravi zgodovine tudi zdaj, ko protestirajo proti masakru nad palestinskim civilnim prebivalstvom v Gazi. Kje so naši študenti danes?

Nobelovec Oliver Hart iz Harvarda in Luigi Zingales, eden najbolj uglednih finančnih teoretikov, sicer iz poslovne šole Booth na univerzi v Chicagu, sta se lotila vprašanja, ki ga je odprl ekonomski zgodovinar Adam Tooze iz univerze Columbia v zvezi z zahtevami pro-palestinskih študentskih protestnikov na elitnih ameriških univerzah. Študentski protestniki so zahtevali, da uprave njihovih univerz divestirajo (umaknejo svoje naložbe) iz podjetij, ki so povezana z omogočanjem izraelskega masakra v Gazi.

Hart in Zingales si zastavita temeljno vprašanje: Ali je treba naložbene odločitve sprejemati brez etičnega premisleka? Ugotavljata, da če bi sledili filozofiji Miltona Friedmana in “teoremu ločitve” finančnih koristi od nefinančnih, lahko univerze pozabijo na moralni kodeks, saj bi morala biti zanje na prvem mestu maksimizacija finančnih donosov. Toda to bi pomenilo tudi, da univerze potem ne bi smele imeti dvojnih meril, recimo, da ne investirajo v delnice podjetij, ki izkoriščajo delo otrok, zlorabljajo delo manjšin, onesnažujejo okolje ipd. In še več, univerze bi potem pri svojih naložbenih načrtih morale pozabiti na ESG standarde (družbena odgovornost na podlagi okoljskih, družbenih in upravljalskih kriterijev).

Torej, kot ugotavljata Hart in Zingales: če univerze uporabljajo etična merila pri eni vrsti naložb, se morajo tega držati tudi pri vseh ostalih naložbah. In zaključita: “Ne glede na to, ali se kdo strinja ali ne strinja s protestniki glede Gaze, imajo ti prav glede ene stvari: živeti bi morali po vrednotah, v katere verjamemo.”

Predstavljam si, da finančni donatorji na univerzah Harvard in Chicago niso bili prav veseli tega njunega zapisa.

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Branko Milanović je izrazil začudenje, kako so se nemški Zeleni lahko tako drastično transformirali v pro-vojno in evropsko-supremačistično stranko:

The German Greens transformation is one of the most extraordinary. From being pro-Third World, they are now against it (European supremacism is their mot d’ordre). From saluting successes of poorer countries, they are now attacking them ferociously (China & India).

Arnaud Betrand pojasnjuje ta fenomen z razlago Jürgena Kurza, enega izmed ustanoviteljev stranke:

Anyone interested in the German Greens and their transformation into one of the most extreme pro-war and Western-supremacist parties in Europe should read this article by Jürgen Kurz, one of the historical founders of the party.

Kurz has been living in China for now 20 years and he is married to a woman from Xinjiang (!). The article is a criticism of the Green party’s approach to China but from it you can extrapolate and explain the party’s general ideology.

First of all, as Kurz explains, the top people making up the party are stunningly inexperienced and incompetent. As he explains in the piece, Annalena Baerbock, the Green Foreign Minister, went to China for the first time in her life (!!!) in 2023, 2 years into her mandate. How do you even become Foreign Minister if you’ve never travelled to China, probably Germany’s most consequential relationship? As such she has zero knowledge of the country, or more precisely, as Kurz writes, her knowledge is “based on reports from a handful of journalists who have searched for stories there that correspond to Western biases on distant China. The problem is that the image we in the West have about China borders on denial of reality!”

Secondly, they are supremacists to their core. Kurz beautifully describes the hypocrisy behind Baerbock’s “feminist foreign policy”:

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Tole zgoraj je vrhunski argument.

Po zadnjem popisu leta 2001 je v Ukrajini živelo 78 % Ukrajincev in 17 % Rusov (+4.9 % ostalih nacionalnosti), kljub temu je bil uradni jezik ukrajinščina.

Slika: Prevladujoči nacionalni jeziki v Ukrajini

Leta 2012 je bil v Ukrajini sprejet zakon “On the principles of the State language policy“, kjer je bil uradni jezik ukrajinščina, hkrati pa je bila omogočena omejena uporaba “regionalnih jezikov”, kjer je delež manjšine presegal 10 %, kar je v vzhodnih regijah omogočilo uporabo tudi ruskega jezika v šolah in uradih.

Leta 2020 je Rada sprejela zakon “On supporting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the State language“. Wikipedia: “The law made the use of Ukrainian compulsory (totally or within quotas) in more than 30 spheres of public life, including public administration, electoral process, education, science, culture, media, economic and social life, health and care institutions, and activities of political parties. The law did not regulate private communication. Some exemptions were provided for the official languages of the European Union and for minority languages, with the exclusion of Russian, Belarusian and Yiddish.”

Drugače rečeno, zakon iz 2020 je prepovedal uradno uporabo ruščine, čeprav ga je govorilo 17 % prebivalstva in je bil večinski jezik v vzhodnih regijah. Na tri različice tega zakona so Svet Evrope, Beneška komisija in Human Watch dali negativna mnenja, ker da ne ščiti jezika manjšin. Torej, kako naj bi temeljna pravica manjšin do svojega jezika (ruščina kot drugi uradni jezik v regijah z ustrezno kvoto ruskega prebivalstva) dosegla “kulturno asimilacijo v nekaj generacijah”?!

So se Italijani “kulturno asimilirali” v Južni Tirolski odkar je (po desetletjih boja) nemščina dovoljena kot drugi uradni jezik. Smo se Slovenci kulturno asimilirali z Italijani ali Madžari, ker sta oba jezika manjšin priznana kot druga uradna jezika v Sloveniji in ker imata obe manjšini z ustavo zagotovljeno po enega poslanca v Državnem zboru?

Desničarski nacionalisti bi bili ponosni na zgornjo argumentacijo. Vendar niti SDS niti SNS nista šli tako daleč, da bi manjšinam prepovedovali uporabo svojega jezika.