Comments by "John Roberts" (@view1st) on "Sean Foo" channel.

  1. My bet is on the run-around. Saudi Arabia is an artificial state wholly dependent on the USA. Only China and Russia militarily defending and economically supporting Arabia from the USA would be able to prise this prize from America's grasp and neither are currently able or willing to do that. It's thus a long game that will likely not pan out anytime soon.
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  2. Why do people keep referring to the Yemenis as Houthis? They are Yemenis. It's like referring to the Afghans as Taliban rather than what they are, Afghans. Also, the USA, both directly and through its proxies in the Gulf (mainly Saudi Arabia), have already been waging war on Yemen and through deliberately engineered famine caused by their blockades have caused more than a million deaths in the country.
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  3. Japan is still an occupied country. Key parts of its government are under the control of the USA. The same for South Korea.
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  4. It doesn't have to make sense to you. It makes sense to the elite. That's all that matters.
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  5. ​ @britthoward4776  Are they the same Kurds who were being gassed with the full support of the USA and the European Union, using weapons and chemicals supplied by them? And is that the Iraq that was illegally invaded and its still occupied by the USA (incorporated into the US empire), even though they've been asked to leave? You're reply to @ikechukwuogbu9306 is also a fallacy known as ignoratio elenchi.
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  6. To be honest Finland was always a de facto member of the NATO alliance even if not formally, thus its current actions are merely formalising the status quo, albeit in a deliberately provocative way.
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  7. ​ @shadeaquaticbreeder2914  Houthi, I'm given to understand, refers to the majority ethnic group of Yemen. It's like using the word English when referring to the actions of the United Kingdom.
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  8. And you know, that's not a joke or satire: the USA would do that.
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  9. That's capitalism – private profit whatever the cost. Corporatism/late stage capitalism even more so. Let's face it, we're in a race to the bottom, the result of capitalism's insistence on competition to the last man standing. There can be only one. And for the USA that's them.
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  10. And you know, that's not a joke or satire: it's just the sort of thing the USA would do.
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  11. ​ @DJs021  Strange to tell but the United Kingdom had similar levels of poverty back in the 18th and 19th centuries yet still managed to become a 'super power'. So it's not impossible.
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  12. The USA is in the same boat the United Kingdom was in circa 1820: unable to compete with China, unable to sell things to China.
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  13. Truth be told we've been in a depression/semi-depression far worse than that of the 1930's since 2008 but nobody's talking about it. This is what happens every 70 years or so under capitalism, an even more so now that fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking are involved.
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  14. It's not socialism that's destroyed the Argentinian economy but 5 centuries of colonialism and a century of US influence. Look at the Chinese to see how a country can prosper by assiduously prioritising the needs of its own people over westerners.
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  15. What if the state nationalises certain strategic sectors of the economy and no longer runs then strictly for profit but instead implements policies designed specifically to alleviate the worse kinds of poverty and builds up a mixed economy that is more robust, like China did/ does?
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  16. I'm sure the Chinese have a Belt and Road solution for that.
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  17. ​ @gavasiarobinssson5108  And when capitalists do the same, is that freeloading? And what's wrong with being lazy, that is, not wanting to be a slave?
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  18. No such thing as a "mild" recession.
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  19. Sounds plausible.
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  20. It all boils down to competition – when it's good it stimulates development and innovation; when it's bad it leads to the destruction of domestic industries that can't compete. Capitalism sees competition as inherently good and certainly inevitable but it isn't. It's all contingent. Regarding Argentina sending it's gold to London: they were probably ordered to by the USA/bankers, to hold them economically hostage and deter them from doing anything western capital doesn't like, as well as being used to back up/refinance the US dollar and reflate its economy when it's reincarnated as a CBCD post-crash/depression.
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  21. Recession... or depression? Natural... or manufactured?
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  22. We are dealing with politicians and Eurocrats who are bought.
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  23. This is all by design. The USA wants to corral Europe and the corporations of both continents want captive markets whose customers don't have alternatives.
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  24. Well so far it seems to be working. I see no substantial pushback yet from Europe, the Americas or Asia and any alternatives that might be offered by way of the BRICS+ seem to be in their infancy, if gathering pace. This state of affairs looks as if it will last at least another decade or two, if not longer. It seems China is in no rush to remove the USA from the top spot just yet.
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  25. More like they are discussing plans to finalise Europe and the USA's move towards a global Central Bank Digital Currency in a way that doesn't collapse the US dollar and allows the USA to continue to dominated the West. Perhaps they are also discussing how to suppress gold and silver in the event of a crash. The USA may even be discussing whether it can secure a loan from the Asian Economic Development Bank.
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  26. They want to reduce the wages of the average American to the same level as the Global South, only then will US industry be competitive.
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  27. Have your wages increased accordingly?
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  28. The USA is a car-centric society because it was made that way in from the 1950's onwards. A quite deliberate and conscious choice was made by urban planners to destroy other forms of public transport in favour of the automobile.
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  29. The USA wants Europe to burn.
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  30. And the USA wants Europe to pay for it.
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  31. Stop it with the worship of the 'free market'. No such thing has ever existed. As for comparative advantage, well China is doing just that: producing and selling things cheaper than its rival because it is able to do so. Economic theory is good in principle, but economic facts trump theory every time.
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  32. How does exporting inflation to other people's countries make the dollar mighty? You should stop and ask yourself why the US dollar is in this situation because it certainly isn't something to be proud of. The US economy is in crisis, countries don't want dollars and this is why the Federal Reserve is having to give the holders and purchasers of dollar bonds a higher return, one that is unsustainable in the long term.
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  33. The USA wants the EU to decouple from Russia and China and it's using its agents of influence in the EU to achieve this. It wants a world of European satellites cut off, Warsaw Pact style, from the rest of Eurasia.
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  34. In het verleden konden ze het imperialisme gebruiken om de concurrentie onder controle te houden, maar nu is dit steeds meer geen optie.
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  35. In the version of the story I heard as a boy it was a gingerbread man and a fox. The moral of the story was that bad things come to those who are naughty (Mr Ginger being a nasty prankster running from those he'd angered).
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  36. Because China practices true sovereignty. And what's wrong with not allowing your currency to be freely traded? It stops currency manipulation by speculators and capital flight.
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  37. ​​ @UrsaMinor983 China, Russia, the UN can take over. Also, international maritime trade is not threatened by anyone (unless the USA starts creating fake pirates the way it creates fake Islamists and uses them to cause mayhem on the high seas).
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  38. The UK said the same thing back in the 1840's and 1860's, only this time around the West won't be able to send gun boats up the Yangtze and force opium on the Chinese, nor send ships into Tokyo bay and force a third Plaza Accord on the Japanese. Gunboat diplomacy won't work this time around to correct the trade inbalance and the UK and the USA will go bankrupt paying for Chinese and Japanese products that they can't produce themselves due to de-skilling, de-industrialisation and pricing themselves out of world markets.
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  39. No, the EU sanctioned Europe. The European Union is like NATO, both are controlled by the USA.
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  40. It serves the interests of the American deep state.
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  41. The USA is sooooo arrogant! It's as if they think that only the USA exists. If the USA was a person they would be diagnosed with narcissism.
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  42. I think the USA is counting on Europe joining them in embargoing China by threatening them with secondary sanctions if they refuse. Basically, cold war redux.
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  43. The arrogance of the Americans is truly mind-blowing. And that Europe seems to be going along with them is also mind-boggling.
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  44. ​ @philfortner1805  It can still strong-arm other countries then... just not China. As long as China remains unwilling or unable to pull the plug on the economy of the USA then the rest of the world will just have to suffer the depredations of the empire.
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  45. That's partly the reason why the USA is failing economically. It stopped teaching economics as a real science (classical economics that included political economy) and started treating it like it was an ideology, a system of apologetics for neoliberalism. Instead of guiding the American economy by allowing economists to prescribe policies based on sound empirical analysis they just used it to justify neoliberalism.
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  46. The sanctions and threats of sanctions by its minions are all a United States-inspired bluff, testing the waters, a gamble. And it's failed. China sails on.
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  47. Unfortunately, you've lost the ability to make your own crap and prevented Europe from being able to take up the slack by deindustrialising it strategic areas so they couldn't outcompete the USA.
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  48. "None of that was America's fault." So what do you call the USA literally blowing up German pipeline infrastructure?
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  49. And despite the hype neither China nor Russia, much less BRICS, seem to be in any hurry to change things. Or even want to.
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  50. Only 50%‽ You'll need it to be cut a whole lot more. Sounds like you're still wanting to be able to dominate the world but on the cheap.
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  51. ​​ @thinktankindi1972  Why should a country that calls itself communist play by the rules of capitalists, especially as the latter seem to be losing? Communism/socialism never works; fails every time wherever it's tried...? Capitalism and corporatism is our salvation? Gimme a break!
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  52. 🎶 First they ignore you, Then they laugh at you Then they fight, Then you win. 🎶
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  53. Seems to me that the USA wants to decouple itself from China while destroying the competitiveness and manufacturing of Europe and prevent the development of the Global South.
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  54. MMT is neoliberalism, dummy.
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  55. Turkey wants a foot in both camps. It wants to be in a position to play both sides against each other.
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  56. Unless they can turn to China and Russia and free themselves from the USA. BRICS+, the SCO, etc. might be a way to do this.
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  57. The USA facilitates and encourages this behaviour, if not outright orders it. One word from the USA's financial apparatus and the entire EU would fall into line, along with its mass media, politicians, academia and the think tanks and astroturf pressure groups that make up so‐called civil society in western countries.
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  58. What arrogance! As if legitimacy is something the USA could grant in the first place. Like, come on, 1 billion+ people belonging to a civilisation thousands of years old have to ask the permission of the United States' government before they're accepted by the rest of the world.
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  59. The D-word is taboo.
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  60. Those countries you mentioned are just second-order players in a system of trade still dominated by China. You can't get around the problem by simply changing suppliers, that's even assuming those countries can supply you with the commodities you want, at the prices you can afford.
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  61. GDP, even when it's not fake, is not that good of an indicator of an economy's performance and even less so as a measure of a society's health. Its chosen because it appears to be empirical and makes the USA and its minions in Europe look better than they really are compared to the rest of the world. Even then they have to massage the data.
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  62. 1 solitary warship, an obsolete one at that, is hardly a threat. A symbolic gesture, yes, but a threat?
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  63. Plausible.
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  64. I suspect that one or both of those parties have been compromised because they keep advocating policies that are not in the economic interests of Germany.
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  65. Looks like you have no sympathy for working people just trying to earn a decent living when they go on strike to protest about being replaced by machinery or having their wages reduced.
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  66. The USA is using the same military Keynesianism that the Germans used prior to world war two with the military‐industrial complex taking over everything. Using the stolen resources of Palestine the USA wants to monopolise the Palestine's maritime gas reserves and turning Israel into another Saudi Arabia, simultaneously creating a captive market in Europe by forcing it to get its gas and oil from client states of the USA.
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  67. At the end of the day it doesn't really matter because Hong Kong is now an integral part of China (as it always was until Britain forcibly annexed it) so they can do whatever they want within their own country.
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  68. But that's exactly what the USA does: give food stamps (tax breaks) to millionaires.
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  69. And then... the Americans demanded that the Japanese share the technology with them?
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  70. The USA wants to divide the world into two books blocks, just like it did in cold war 1.0.
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  71. ​ @bargainninja6449  The sanctions are mostly fake. In sectors of the US economy that really matter that is. No, sanctions are mainly meant to damage the economies of the European Union and others.
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  72. They want Ireland to be another Greece.
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  73. Yes there is. The world.
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  74. Is this the Keynesianism that got Europe out of the Great Depression in the aftermath of world war 2 (as contrasted with the laissez-faire of the pre-world war 1 and inter-war years?)
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  75. What if gold is held by foreign powers, eg. Britain, in behalf of the USA? Remember how Britain sold most of its own gold? Who did they sell it to and why?
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  76. Can the USA force the countries of the European Union to do the same? After all, they sanctioned the Russians and have frozen (stolen) their assets at the behest of the USA so maybe they will delist Chinese companies from European stocks exchanges as well.
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  77. A classic trope of westerners is that the Chinese – Asians in general – are quite unable to innovate or invent things. This is a truly strange belief to hold seeing as it flies in the face of historical fact given all the inventions that have come out of China in the last 2½ millennia.
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  78. That man is a libertarian extremist. He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the US economy.
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  79. China and Russia must get together with other countries and start blocking access to raw materials like oil and minerals. On their own they can do little. As Lenin (or somebody else) said, your can't have a revolution in just one country.
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  80. She's a US agent of influence. Indeed, the EU is an organisation that serves the interests of the USA.
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  81. She's an agent of the influence working for the USA. Indeed, the EU itself is an organisation set up to serve the interests of the USA as much as it serves the interests of European capitalists.
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  82. The USA and its corporate controllers are killing Europe!
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  83. The corporate elite want the world to be divided between a West led by the USA and the rest of the world. The banks and corporations want a captive market and a base of operations. The EU provides them with that.
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  84. The EU wants to permanently alienate Russia on behalf of the USA. Cold war 2.0.
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  85. They are under the influence of the USA and any incompetence, corruption or manipulation by them is reflected in their actions.
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  86. Better a communist 'dictorship' for the majority then a fascist dictorship for the elite.
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  87. Like I keep saying, the corporates in the West want a captive market. As rentiers/monopoly capitalists they don't like genuine competition. They like to live off the unearned increment of other people's labour rather than do the hard graft themselves.
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  88. It's designed to hurt Europe more than the USA. Indeed, the USA will probably still source its uranium from Russia but through third parties like India.
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  89. For as long as the EU exists. The EU and NATO, together with its military bases are how the USA dominates Europe. As long as France and Germany – the core of the EU – are under the thumb of the USA we can expect no change.
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  90. Maybe it was all planned as part of the Great Reset.
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  91. How will the USA react to this action by China?
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  92. It's all part of a plan. It must be. Even Trump and co. can't be this stupid. They must want to crash the dollar and start anew.
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  93. Yes, the Brown Shirts of capitalism (social democracy) have 'won' the elections – whatever that means – and might make some minor cosmetic changes. The Black Shirts will wait until it's their turn again.
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  94. MMT is not Keynesianism, it's just a name for neo-liberal economics à la Thatcher and Reagan. And we know after 50 years where that's leading us. Also, Keynesianism worked well enough from the late 1940's to the 1970's. It has its problems like any other economic theory but in modified form (eg. China) it can be very successful. As for protectionism, it is good (and often necessary) for an economy when properly applied.
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  95. You don't have a genuine, functioning democracy in any meaningful sense of the word; certainly not one accountable to the majority. What you have is a plutocratic oligarchy that gives you a choice between two factions, one representing the FIRE sector and the other the MIC and both under the control of banksters.
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  96. The USA wants to apply the same shock therapy to western Europe the way it did to eastern Europe. It wants to reduce Europe to the same level of dependency and inequality as Latin America.
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  97. The automobile industry would not be able to survive without them, much less compete. This goes for the airline industry and many other industries as well. Every country that's ever developed has done this and every country that wishes to stay developed will continue to do this. It's best if you leave the free market BS to American neoliberal think tanks. The Chinese government isn't listening.
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  98. Surprised 'she' wasn't mixed race and transgender too.
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  99. Basically, the American strategy is to divide the world along cold war lines with the USA having its own trading bloc centred around Europe. It wants a captive market with a currency area like that of the Sterling Area used by Britain during the interwar years where its colonies were forced to conduct business exclusively in pounds sterling. The USA is practicing mercantilism/protectionism and forcing the nations that make up its imperium dependent upon itself and unable to trade with the wider world (or even amongst themselves) without its permission. It wants to lock down Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Canada and a much as South and Central America as it can and force them into a US dollar preference and free trade area.
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  100. Nor from both.
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  101. They think they can simply poach them from India. Or, without any shame or introspection, China.
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  102. Exactly! The United States wants to hurt Europe and others and make them dependent on on itself as much as possible.
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  103. And the stealing of others resources (Syria, Venezuela) and unfair trade practices against the competition (Russia, China.
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  104. ​ @GoodCitizen1300 Because it doesn't need to: the island of Taiwan is already acknowledged by the international community as being the sovereign territory of the PRC.
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  105. No, he's listening to his planners in the deep state. There is method behind the madness of all these apparently crazy ideas. I know leaders can be stupid but not this stupid.
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  106. ​ @ZhenYae  like Trump @justiceofthecross didn't think his comment through before typing. 😅 He thinks the USA can just create whole supply chains, hi-tech factories and a workforce of experienced, highly educated and well trained employees to run them out of thin air. 🤦‍♂️🤷‍♀️
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  107. The government of the United States doesn't care as it has already decided what fiscal changes are going to occur in the not too distant future.
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  108. Than have it confiscated by the state. Bail ins AND bail outs. The governments and banks of the West have already prepped for this and the private banking cartels intend to steal your money.
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  109. Because they're hypocrites and gas lighting the Chinese.
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  110. It stood up to the USA and its colony Israel.
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  111. China is nominally communist so why would it care about the owners of what amounts to de facto private property if such ownership undermines the state? Let them take a 'haircut'.
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  112. The USA wants a replay of the cold war. Back then it pretty much managed to isolate the whole of the communist bloc from world trade, especially with western Europe, with the USA having the West all to itself. Things have changed since then, however, and the Chinese and Russians will no longer allow the United States to cut them off from the world again. They have opened up and shown the world what the USA had previously kept from them: that an open world is more prosperous than one that is closed.
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  113. The USA now seems to be in the same position as Britain in the 1820's. Back then Britain wanted porcelain, tea and silk from China but they wanted nothing in return except silver. The British had nothing else the Chinese wanted and were going bankrupt. They solved the problem with classic gun boat diplomacy, the so‐called Opium Wars. The rest is history. This marks the beginning of what the Chinese call their Century of Humiliation. I wonder what démarche the USA will take to cut this proverbial Guardian Knot. The British used the barrel of a gun but this time around I don't think that is an option.
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  114. So am I to understand that price controls never work and should under no circumstances be tried; that the invisible hand of the market, akin to a law of nature, should just be allowed to play out even to the point where prices have risen to the point where large numbers of the population are starving or chronically malnourished? Sounds just like what a fascist junta would do.
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  115. That's why the financial elites of the USA are hellbent on disrupting and monopolising international trade between Europe, the Americas and Asia, a strategy that involves the creation of a BIS/Federal Reserve/EU central bank CBDC to be used in trade between the USA and Europe, as well as the cutting off and corralling of Europe from Asia and from Russia and China in particular à la cold war.
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  116. Spot on! Cogent! 🫡
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  117. The neo-liberal/neo-classical theory of western economics doesn't allow for a true understanding of how a real, properly run economy works. It's an economic theory designed by and for rentiers and as such blindsides economists with an ideology masquerading as scientific truth. It's an apologia for the parasite class, the bankers. China's economy, on the other hand, is largely grounded in reality. That's why China is succeeding where the USA is failing.
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  118. Wake up! It's capitalism that's causing these crises. Communism has nothing to do with it. And if the system collapses (which is what all ponzi schemes and fiat currencies do) the rich certainly won't be sharing their wealth with the rest of us, you can be sure of that.
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  119. A fortiori the countries of the European Union.
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  120. Officially Biden, unofficially Blinken. Together with a sort of regency council acting as the real power behind the president during his, shall we say, incapacity.
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  121. ​​ @SUHSeungJi Doesn't the USA have gold though, albeit not enough to pay the multi-trillion dollar debt? Can't it back up its fiat currency with gold and turn it into a non-fiat currency, if only to a limited extent?
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  122. And if the USA gets hyper-inflation or goes bankrupt the government will probably seize their assets with bail-ins and gold/silver confiscations/forced selling. The government and business could very probably seize the funds from which pensions are paid.
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  123. The USA is trying to damage Europe and create a situation similar to the 1950's where the USA had most of the technology, funds and industry that Europe lacked.
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