Author: nick

[ad_1] Joshua Scheer As the world reflects on the life and legacy of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, economist Yanis Varoufakis offers a reminder that the debate Greenspan helped shape is far from settled. For decades, Greenspan was celebrated as the high priest of market fundamentalism, championing the belief that markets could regulate themselves and that private self-interest would ultimately serve the public good. The financial crisis of 2008 shattered that faith, prompting Greenspan’s now-famous admission that he had “found a flaw” in the model that defined his understanding of the economy. Yet long before Greenspan’s confession, critics…

[ad_1] Image by Immo Wegmann. In the first few weeks of his presidency, Donald Trump announced a massive AI infrastructure project dubbed Stargate. It was an unexpected and rather odd event for a new administration’s first major initiative. It now seems obvious that the project was a highly coordinated initiative between the federal government and the Big Tech power base that puppeteers many of its programs as the US glides into full technocrat mode. Stargate is an ongoing $500 billion public-private partnership intended to fast-track AI. It includes tech behemoths such as OpenAI, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Oracle. In practical terms, that means only one thing: a massive…

[ad_1] Michelle Witte The Grayzone A wave of strange property attacks targeting Jewish sites in Canada is attributed to apolitical youth paid in crypto. The violence follows the same playbook seen in Australia and the UK. While Iran and Palestine solidarity campaigners are blamed, Israel exploits the tension. Canada is the latest in a string of nations to attribute a wave of high-profile but mostly low-consequence attacks to a mysterious online “gun-for-hire” plot. If Canada follows the pattern set in Australia, Europe and the UK, the “foreign entity” its government is already blaming for orchestrating the petty violence will…

[ad_1] The Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) was commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) to discover the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Unsurprisingly, a recent paper from members of SAGO concluded: “We did not find evidence to suggest that SARS CoV2 (sic) resulting from experimental manipulation was a more likely scenario than it emerging from naturally occurring mutations or recombination events.”  This conclusion is unsurprising because the WHO was clearly taking marching orders from China; right from the beginning of the pandemic, they were parroting bizarre talking points from China, such as SARS-CoV-2 was not airborne. Furthermore, a WHO…

[ad_1] For most of the modern era, capitalism justified itself through growth. Industrial societies converted vast amounts of fossil energy into production, wealth, and rising living standards. Roads, bridges, power grids, schools, and public institutions expanded alongside the economy. Inequality and exploitation remained deeply embedded in the system, but they were partly obscured by a broader story of material progress. That story is beginning to unravel. Across much of the developed world, economic life increasingly feels less like construction than demolition. Infrastructure deteriorates. Public institutions struggle to perform basic functions. Ecosystems degrade. Democratic norms weaken. Yet wealth continues to concentrate…

[ad_1] “God created war so that Americans would learn geography.” – Attributed to various sources. “One of the delightful things about Americans is that they have absolutely no historical memory.” – Zhou En-lai (cited by William Blum) There is no irreducible answer to this query. There are multiple factors driving US-Israeli aggression in that country, and the rest of the Middle East. Most visibly, US officials and their propaganda organs in the media and in government align with Israel’s cold-blooded, supremacist hostility toward Iran and other Muslim countries. American ruling circles, with few exceptions, appear incapable of understanding that the…

[ad_1] Today, the European External Action Service (EEAS) and Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation (CCD) are publishing a joint analytical report examining how Russian Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) targets Ukraine’s path towards European Union membership. The report documents a coordinated effort to undermine support for Ukraine’s accession among both Ukrainian and European audiences. While the narratives vary depending on the target audience, their strategic objective is to weaken political and public support for Ukraine’s European future. Ukraine’s European integration has become one of the Kremlin’s key information targets since the country was granted EU candidate status in June…

[ad_1] Former U.S. Army recruiter Jane Crosby pleaded guilty to bank fraud and aggravated identity theft after using seven prospective Army recruits’ personal information to steal $266,000. Prosecutors said Crosby used Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, and other documents she obtained through her recruiting job to open bank accounts, apply for loans and credit cards, deposit fraudulent checks, and withdraw money for her own use. Investigators eventually used phone records to link the fraud to her recruiting station. The post Brickbat: Sign Here appeared first on Reason.com. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Columbia Class Ballistic Missile Submarine. Image: U.S. Naval Systems Command. U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed a $1.5 trillion military budget for the fiscal year 2027, which would increase by 44 percent the acknowledged budget for 2026. While a roughly $500 billion increase would be unprecedented in modern U.S. history, the idea that the military budget only recently hit $1 trillion is incorrect. U.S. military spending has exceeded $1 trillion for many years. Adding $500 billion (and potentially $200 billionmore to fund war in Iran), as the president has proposed, would take the total military budget up to $2…

[ad_1] Keir Starmer at Number 10 Downing Street upon his appointment. Picture by Kirsty O’Connor/ No 10 Downing Street. OGL 3 But what we’re really seeing is a grotesque blend of the worst of Thatcherism with the worst of Blairism: bad aspects of “neoliberalism” coexisting with bad aspects of bureaucratic statism. The result combines top-down statist nitpicking with Thatcherite ownership models; corporate, Whitehall and town hall management structures amalgamating into a public-private-partnership blob…. – Political commentator Jonny Ball After Labour’s disastrous performance in local elections in England and parliamentary elections in Wales and Scotland in May, it became highly likely…