Ko je Robert Golob prevzel vodenje vlade s prepričljivo večino, so med podjetniki in splošno javnostjo prevladovala visoka pričakovanja, da bo nova oblast učinkovita, razvojno usmerjena in prijazna do gospodarstva. Toda tri leta kasneje se utrjuje vtis, da je vlada vse prej kot učinkovita, vse prej kot razvojno usmerjena in vse prej kot prijazna do gospodarstva in ljudi.

Da Golobova vlada nima nobene razvojne vizije, pravzaprav niti nobenega ne kratkoročnega in ne srednjeročnega načrta, kam usmeriti slovensko gospodarstvo, je bilo jasno od prvega dneva vladanja. Po treh letih dela te vlade pa se zdi, da je bila vlada ne samo brez pozitivne usmeritve, pač pa, da je sistematično sprejemala ukrepe, ki gospodarstvu škodijo. Vrhunec tega odnosa se je pokazal, ko se je predsednik vlade ob opozorilih, da slovenska podjetja zaradi boljših pogojev poslovanja selijo svojo dejavnost v Hrvaško, obregnil z izjavo, da to pomeni »morda kakšen izziv manj za našo šolsko, zdravstveno in socialno mrežo.« Finančni minister pa je pred tem na televiziji na isti očitek cinično odvrnil: »Samo povem, da so v Bosni še ugodnejši.«

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As a European who has lived in America, I used to believe the myth that the United States was the freest and most democratic nation on Earth. That’s what we were all told. But now that I’ve spent time in these political circles and spoken with major right-wing influencers, what I’ve seen and heard has completely shattered that illusion.

Let me tell you the story I’ve heard over and over again, from different voices, in different cities, at different events. Influencers, some of the biggest names on the right, get pulled aside at private gatherings. Someone leans in, starts a casual conversation, and then comes the pitch: “Have you ever thought about going into politics? We can get you into Congress.”

But there’s always a condition. They’re told to go to Jerusalem. Kiss the wall. Symbolically pledge loyalty. Only then does the funding and institutional support start flowing, usually from AIPAC and its donor network. I know how crazy that sounds, but it’s the same story every time.

And once you understand how things actually work, you start to see the pattern everywhere. Nearly every so-called “America First” politician in Congress takes AIPAC money. The few who refuse it—like Thomas Massie—get relentlessly targeted. AIPAC pours money into their opponents’ campaigns. Even Trump openly said they plan to get rid of him. And you still think this is the land of the free?

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V vednost:

Over the last seven days the Ukrainian military has launched over one thousand drones against targets in Russia. Most of these were shot down by Russian air defenses. There are no reports of any serious damage.

The biggest effect the week long drone attacks achieved was to shut down air traffic in Moscow for several hours.

After waiting a few days the Russian military responded in kind.

Over the last three days a record number of drones and missiles were launched against military installations and production facilities in Ukraine (archived):

Russia stepped up missile-and-drone assaults on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and other regions, killing at least 12 people overnight into Sunday after President Trump last week declined to impose further sanctions on Moscow over its refusal to halt its invasion.Russia attacked with a total of 367 drones and missiles—one of the largest single-night raids of the war, according to the Ukrainian Air Force—in a second consecutive day of pounding strikes that sent civilians running for shelters in the middle of the night.

Over three days the Russian forces used some 1,000 heavy drones plus 58 cruise- and 31 ballistic-missiles to attack Ukraine.

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John Mearsheimer in Branko Milanović imata popolnoma prav, ko pravita, da je mainstream ekonomska veda absolutno neuporabna za razumevanje realizma v mednarodnih odnosih. Ekonomska veda je irelevantna, ko poskuša Trumpa in njegovo kliko podučevati osnov ekonomije glede negativnih učinkov carin, kajti Trumpov (pred njim tudi Bidnov) namen ni bil izboljšati blaginje Američanov, pač pa škoditi Kitajski in ji preprečiti, da bi tehnološko, gospodarsko in vojaško prehitela ZDA. Ekonomisti s(m)o sposobni razmišljati samo v okviru win-win ali win-lose strategije, torej iz vidika konkurenčnega boja za povečanje absolutne blaginje. Naš instrumentarij pa ni sposoben pojasniti lose-lose strategije neke države (podjetja, združbe ali posameznikov), torej da so (bili) Trump I, Biden in Trump II pripravljeni žrtvovati blaginjo Američanov (prek višjih uvoznih carin in prepovedi izvoza tehnologije) z namenom, da Kitajska ne bi pridobila relativno glede na ZDA oziroma da bi ZDA ostale pred Kitajsko. Ekonomisti nis(m)o sposobni razumeti racionalnosti v ravnanju nekoga, ki z uporabo različnih ukrepov (tudi vojne) želi zagotoviti, da bo ostal ali postal (relativno) boljši od drugega, pa čeprav s tem oba absolutno izgubljata. 

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In a recent excellent article “War and International politics” (freely accessible) John Mearsheimer presents a succinct version of the realist theory of international relations, as applied to the current multipolar world. He focuses on the inevitable existence of war due to the way the international system is structured: it is an anarchy with no single country enjoying monopoly of power akin to what the state has in domestic politics, and thus with nobody to enforce the rules. He takes to task liberal thinkers for their naivete of believing (in the 1990s) that wars would end and great power politics become obsolete. (Similar naïve view was also ridiculed by Karl Polanyi in The Great Transformation.) Mearsheimer explains it in part by the fact that many liberal thinkers came intellectually of age during the unipolar moment when such dreams, with scant relation to historic realities, could be entertained.

In passing, Mearsheimer makes an observation that is extremely important for economists. He writes:

Mainstream economists can focus on facilitating economic competition within a fundamentally cooperative worldwide system because they pay hardly any attention to how states think about survival in international anarchy, in which war is always a possibility. Thus, concepts like security competition and the balance of power, which are fundamentally important for studying international politics, have no place in conventional economics…Moreover, economists tend to privilege a state’s absolute gains, not its relative gains, which is to say they largely ignore the balance of power.

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This is incredible. You’d probably need to go back to Nero burning Rome to find an equivalent for the patently self-destructive moves the Trump administration are making right now.

In an age when science and innovation is so critical, how can you explain literally cutting science funding in half, except as a form of nihilistic drive to self-harm?

Worse still, the biggest cut is to STEM education, which funding is cut by an insane -80%, and which in the medium to long-run is the most critical: it stands to reason that if you don’t educate the next generation of scientists, you soon won’t have many scientists…

Especially when you pair that with other moves the administration is making to drive away foreign STEM talent, like banning foreign students at Harvard.

This is followed by funding cuts to fundamental research in math, physics and chemistry at -67%, in engineering at -57%, in biology at -52%, etc.

Granted this isn’t ALL science funding, only funding via the National Science Foundation. But the NSF funds the kind of stuff that no-one else would touch because it has no immediate commercial application – the kind of funding that seems “useless” but in the long-run is ultimately the base of everything.

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Nemško gospodarstvo se je zaustavilo. Nemško gospodarstvo zadnjih 5 let ni zraslo niti za milimeter. Nasprotno, skrčilo se je. Konec prvega četrtletja letos je bil nemški BDP nižji kot v povprečju leta 2019. Nemška industrija je v prostem padu zaradi visokih cen energije (energetski prehod in sankcije na ruski plin) in upadajoče konkurenčnosti glede na Kitajsko. In tudi nova nemška vlada vztraja pri tej norosti – da samo sebe strelja v obe koleni glede cen energije, da se nemško gospodarstvo ne bi moglo postaviti na noge.

Res, od kod nemški politiki jemljejo ta Wahnsinn? Od kod jemljejo to samomorilnost?

Problem izraelskega genocida nad Palestinci ni zgolj v Netanjahuju in njegovi (skrajni) vladi, problem je v absolutnem večinskem odobravanju tega genocida med izraelskim narodom.

To, kar danes Izraelci počnejo s Palestinci, je primerljivo ali še hujše od tega, kar so nacisti počeli z Židi v drugi svetovni vojni. Izraelci uporabljajo bistveno ostrejše metode stradanja, kot so jih nacisti. Nemci (kot narod) so takrat gledali stran, Izraelci (kot narod) pa danes to eksplicitno podpirajo.

Kolikokrat sem že rekel, da sem bil (stoletja nazaj) zaljubljen v Margot Timmins oziroma v njen glas? To je glas, to je muzika, ki jo lahko poslušam dneve in tedne.

Dosedanji zelo goreči opravičevalci izraelskih vojnih in genocidnih zločinov v Gazi počasi zapuščajo to izraelsko genocidno ladjo. Očitno so si preračunali, da se jim zdaj splača zamenjati stran. Piers Morgan je med njimi. V kratkem času je, prvič, dovolil Jeffreyu Sachsu, da brez poseganja v besedo brutalno jasno opredeli izraelsko politiko glede Palestine kot gnusni genocidni zločin in da Sachs neovirano opredeli, da brez neodvisne Palestine ne bo miru na Bližnjem vzhodu. Sachs je izjemen v svoji analizi in obsdodbi Izraela:

In drugič, Morgan je javno priznal, da “ni imel prav” glede genocida v Gazi in da se zdaj strinja s kritiki zločinskega ravnanja izraelskih oblasti. Priznal je, da “ni imel prav”. Po letu in pol prenosa v živo izraelskega genocida v Gazi.

Zgolj podajam informacije in se držim nazaj, da ne povem kaj grdega o podganah tipa Piers Morgan.