Thursday, September 29, 2022

Maine Battles Ageism

How does a hiring company legally get your age for an interview?  Easy.  Make the person first fill out a job application and/or agree to a background check giving name, social security number, drivers license number, and birthdate.  A lot of companies like Sprint do that, and the EEOC says it’s perfectly OK. 
- Sneaky Way to Get a Job Applicant’s Age
 
The program is one of the latest efforts aimed at tackling the thorny problem of long-term unemployment. Millions of people have been jobless for months or years in the wake of the Great Recession, and its much tougher for them to work their way back into the labor force, particularly if they are older… “Subsidized employment allows older workers to dispel the myths many employers have about those over age 50, said Emily Allen, a vice president at AARP. “Older workers have the highest long-term unemployment rates of any age group.”
- Platform to Employment
 
As many as 25,000 complaints claiming age discrimination have been filed each year since 2008, according to the U.S. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION.
- Ageism, 2019

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How do you stamp out ageism? This state wants to try.

By Jessica Hall
Market Watch
September, 29, 2022

The state of Maine wants to end ageism in a decade. Really.

In a move to improve the health of Maines 1.3 million residents, reduce workforce struggles and improve the economy, the MAINE COUNCIL ON AGING said it launched an initiative to end ageism within 10 years.

Ageism refers to the stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination directed toward people based on their age no matter what their age might be. It can be institutional, interpersonal or even self-directed. Globally, one in two people are ageist against older people, according to a United Nations report.

“It’s also the right thing to do,” the council said.

“Americans don’t believe AGEISM IS REAL. Or that it’s not as bad as the other ‘isms’,” said Jess Maurer, executive director of the Maine Council on Aging. “But it costs us a lot financially. It costs us emotionally. It taxes our health systems. It affects housing. It affects our workforce. It costs us a lot.”

The Maine Council on Aging set a goal to eliminate ageism in the workplace, in the media, and other leading segments of Maine culture by 2032, in part, through targeted discussions with different business sectors, community leaders, and policy makers. Maine has the oldest population in the U.S.

Eradicating ageism is also important for the health of the economy. A STUDY from AARP found that the lost economic activity from older Americans not being able to find work, change careers, or earn promotions because of age discrimination cost the U.S. economy $850 billion in lost gross domestic product in 2018. In the long-term, age discrimination could cost the U.S. more than $3.9 trillion in 2050, AARP found.

Meanwhile, a Yale University study found that discrimination based on age increased healthcare costs by $63 billion annually.

The Maine Council on Aging isnt alone. Last year, the World Health Organization announced a global campaign to combat ageism with strategies such as educating people about ageism, fostering intergenerational contacts, and changing policies and laws to promote age equity.

Why now?

Maurer said the pandemic highlighted societyҒs prejudice against older people. Seniors with comorbidities were more vulnerable and died in increasing numbers from COVID-19 than younger, healthier people.

“COVID hit us over the head with a two-by-four. ‘Older lives do not have the same value as younger lives.’ People were willing to say that out loud. We knew we had to do something,” said Maurer.

“Were all ageists and we will all be victims of ageism. Every last one of us,” Maurer said. “The irony is that when you talk to people, 90% of them get it - that denigrating getting older is ultimately about them. Stop pretending it’s somebody else. You’re experiencing aging right now. Otherwise, youҒre dead.”

Last year, the council launched a program called the Leadership Exchange on Ageism to help Maine business and community leaders fight ageism. So far, 60 people have gone through the program and the council secured funding for an additional 40 participants, as well a chance to replicate the program in other states.

A similar effort has started in Australia, where more than 20 high-profile organizations and individuals formed a coalition to help fight ageism and age discrimination called EveryAGE Counts.

In Colorado, a different approach, called CHANGING THE NARRATIVE, has been used; it has raised awareness about ageism through workshops educating the public about ageist language, beliefs and practices. It also launched a campaign calling attention to ageism in healthcare and the workplace, and pushed for age-friendly policy initiatives and pop culture changes.

How will Maine actually wipe out ageism?

“We’re going to change hearts and minds one at a time. It’s a top-down, bottom-up and everyone in the middle approach,” Maurer said. We’re going to start with the early adopters. You don’t start with the people who are skeptical. You start where you can.”

One metric the Maine Council on Aging will track is the number of people over 65 who are in the workforce. Another metric will follow the number of healthcare institutions, from primary care practices up to hospitals, that implement the Age Friendly Healthy System program supported by the John A. Hartford Foundation and others.

The council also will push for a reduction in age-based stereotypes and language in reporting after an intervention with local media, as well as track the investment that the state of Maine makes financially in infrastructure that supports healthy aging. Other efforts will focus on giving older people an opportunity to make decisions on how public money is spent to develop affordable housing for older people.

“Its a lofty goal. Whenever we put our minds to tackling something as big as an ‘ism’ - it’s admirable. Addressing ageism is going to take a movement like this,” Tracey Gendron, chair for the Virginia Commonwealth University’s department of gerontology and executive director for the Virginia Center on Aging. “I do think this will make a difference. They’re putting action behind their words.”

Gendron likened the Maine campaign to other public health efforts such as getting people to wear seat belts, use sunscreen or stop smoking.

“People DON’T UNDERSTAND the consequences of ageism and this will help,” Gendron said. “It’s important for anyone to take the lead. What Maine is doing is creating a playbook that can be replicated. Here’s what we’re doing, here’s what were reading. This is the training we’re doing. Here’s the steps we’re taking. So it can be replicated in other states.”

Janine Vanderburg, director and chief catalyst at Changing the Narrative in Colorado, said she believes Maine’s efforts can make a difference and help eradicate ageism.

“We don’t wave a magic wand and ageism disappears. But goals are important. The more were all spreading these ideas around, the more work gets done” Vanderburg said.

Maurer admits that the amount of change needed will be tough to manage.

“Ageism is going to IMPACT EVERYONE and it’s uniformly bad. If we do nothing - this suffering is coming to a theater near you,” Maurer said. “Change is hard. Humans only change things when things don’t work. The next 10 to 20 years is going to involve a lot of change, and it’s going to be hard.”

SOURCE

Monday, September 26, 2022

The Return Of Fascism

The corporate world and our government are becoming indistinguishable, which is one of the hallmarks of FASCISM, or more accurately - CORPORATISM.
- War On Consciousness, Paul Levy, Awaken In The Dream, July 2007

AUSTERITY is the engine of U.S. capitalism in its late stages. The regime is driven by the unmitigated rule of finance capital over all levers of the state. Everything is looked upon as an opportunity for private profit and investment rather than human need.
- Austerity American Style, Part 18 - Progressive Letdown, 2020

In the popular Left Behind series, the Antichrist begins his plan by subsuming America into the One-World Government. This is based on the Book of Revelation. Orthodox Christians believe that the ultimate reason for the push for a one-world government is rebellion against God leading to the Antichrist. Globalist, Liberals and Socialists believe that their God has no authority over how the Earth is ran, including governments. Some globalists also want to effectively create a unified world religion.
- Biden’s New World Order, 2020

Fascism happens when a society falls into sudden, fresh poverty. In particular, when it holds debts it can’t repay - and the result is widespread economic stagnation. A feeling of discontentment and hopelessness become pervasive. SOCIAL BONDS FRAY. Trust collapses.  A society is hanging together by a thread.  Elites, whose status and prestige will be lost if they admit they’ve mismanaged society, don’t - and so the VICIOUS CYCLE OF POVERTY AND DESPAIR SIMPLY THUNDERS ON.

Soon enough, in the vacuum, a DEMAGOGUE ARISES, who blames the economic woes of the true and the pure on those it’s easiest to scapegoat. Long-hated, powerless minorities. “We will be Great Again!” he cries. “All you must do is annihilate the subhumans.” His flock - long ignored and derided by elites as the cause of their own problems, now have someone else to blame, to demonize. Those who they’ve hated for generations, usually, anyways.  Bang!  The fascist spark is lit. The rest is history.
- Fascist Implosion, 2020

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The Return of Fascism
As in the 1930s, a bankrupt liberalism, grotesque social inequality and declining living standards are empowering fascist movements in Europe and the U.S.

By Chris Hedges
Substack
September 24, 2022

Energy and food bills are soaring. Under the onslaught of inflation and prolonged wage stagnation, wages are in free fall. Billions of dollars are diverted by Western nations at a time of economic crisis and staggering income inequality to fund a proxy war in Ukraine. The LIBERAL CLASS, terrified by the rise of neo-fascism and demagogues such as Donald Trump, have thrown in their lot with discredited and reviled establishment politicians who slavishly do the bidding of the war industry, oligarchs and corporations.

The bankruptcy of the liberal class means that those who decry the folly of permanent war and NATO expansion, mercenary trade deals, exploitation of workers by globalization, AUSTERITY and neoliberalism come increasingly from the far-right. This right-wing rage, DRESSED UP in the United States as Christian fascism, has already made HUGE GAINS in HUNGARY, POLAND, SWEDEN, ITALY, BULGARIA and FRANCE and may TAKE POWER in the Czech Republic, where inflation and RISING ENERGY costs have seen the number of Czechs FALLING BELOW THE POVERTY LINE DOUBLE.

By next spring, following a punishing winter of rolling blackouts and months when families struggle to pay for food and heat, what is left of our anemic western democracy could be largely extinguished.

Extremism is the political cost of pronounced social inequality and political stagnation. Demagogues, who promise moral and economic renewal, vengeance against phantom enemies and a return to lost glory, rise out of the morass. Hatred and violence, already at the boiling point, are legitimized. A reviled ruling class, and the supposed civility and democratic norms it espouses, are ridiculed.

It is not, as the philosopher Gabriel Rockhill POINTS OUT, as if fascism ever went away. “The U.S. did not defeat fascism in WWII,” HE WRITES, “it discretely internationalized it.” After World War II the U.S., U.K. and other Western governments COLLABORATED with hundreds of former Nazis and Japanese war criminals, who they INTEGRATED into western intelligence services, as well as fascist regimes such as those in Spain and Portugal. They SUPPORTED right-wing anti-communist forces in Greece during its civil war in 1946 to 1949, and then BACKED a right-wing MILITARY COUP in 1967. NATO also had a secret policy of OPERATING fascist terrorist groups. Operation Gladio, as the BBC detailed in a now-forgotten investigative series, CREATED “secret armies,” networks of illegal stay-behind soldiers, who would remain behind enemy lines if the Soviet Union made a military move into Europe. In actuality, the “secret armies” carried-out assassinations, bombings, massacres and false flag terror attacks against leftists, trade unionists and others throughout Europe.

See my interview with Stephen Kinzer about the post-war activities of the CIA, including its recruitment of Nazi and Japanese war criminals and its creation of black sites where former Nazis were hired to interrogate, torture and murder suspected leftists, labor leaders and communists, DETAILED in his book Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control, HERE.

Fascism, which has always been with us, is again ascendant. The far-right politician GEORGIA MELONI is expected to become Italy’s first female prime minister after elections on Sunday. In a coalition with two other far-right parties, Meloni is FORCAST to win more than 60 percent of the seats in Parliament, though the left-leaning 5-Star Movement may put a dent in those expectations.

MELONI got her start in politics AS A 15-year-old activist for the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement, founded after the World War II by supporters of Benito Mussolini. SHE CALLS EU bureaucrats agents of “nihilistic global elites driven by international finance.” She PEDDLES the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory that non-white immigrants are being permitted to enter Western nations as part of a plot to undermine or “replace” the political power and culture of white people. She has called on the Italian navy to turn back boats with immigrants, which the far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini DID in 2018. Her Fratelli d’Italia, Brothers of Italy, party is a CLOSE ALLY of Hungary’s President, Viktor Orban. A European Parliament resolution recently DECLARED that Hungary can no longer be defined as a democracy.

Meloni and Orban are not alone. Sweden Democrats, which TOOK over 20 percent of the vote in Swedens general election last week to become the country’s second largest political party, was formed in 1988 from a neo-Nazi group called B.S.S., or Keep Sweden Swedish. It has deep fascist roots. Of the party’s 30 founders, 18 had Nazi affiliations, including several who served in the Waffen SS, ACCORDING TO Tony Gustaffson a historian and former Sweden Democrat member. France’s Marine Le Pen TOOK over 41 percent of the vote in April against Emmanuel Macron. In Spain, the hard-right Vox party is the THIRD LARGEST party in Spain’s Parliament. The far-right German AfD or Alternative for Germany party TOOK OVER 12 percent in federal elections in 2017, making it the third largest party, though IT LOST a couple percentage points in the 2021 elections. The U.S. has its own version of fascism embodied in a Republican party that coalesces in cult-like fashion around Donald Trump, embraces the magical thinking, misogyny, homophobia and white supremacy of the Christian Right and actively subverts the election process.

Economic collapse was indispensable to the Nazis’ rise to power. In the 1928 elections in Germany, the Nazi party RECEIVED less than 3 percent of the vote. Then came the global financial crash of 1929. By early 1932, 40 percent of the German insured workforce, six million people, were UNEMPLOYED. That same year, the Nazis became the largest political party in the German parliament. The Weimar government, tone deaf and hostage to the big industrialists, prioritized paying bank loans and austerity rather than feeding and employing a desperate population. It foolishly imposed severe restrictions on who was eligible for UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE. Millions of Germans went hungry. Desperation and rage rippled through the population. Mass rallies, led by a collection of buffoonish Nazis in brown uniforms who would have felt at home at Mar-a-Lago, denounced Jews, Communists, intellectuals, artists and the ruling class, as internal enemies. Hate was their main currency. It sold well.

The evisceration of democratic procedures and institutions, however, preceded the Nazis’ ascension to power in 1933. The Reichstag, the German Parliament, was as dysfunctional as the U.S. Congress.  The Socialist leader Friedrich Ebert, president from 1919 until 1925, and later Heinrich Brning, chancellor from 1930 to 1932, RELIED ON Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution to largely rule by decree to bypass the fractious Parliament. Article 48, which granted the president the right in an emergency to issue decrees, was a trapdoor through which Germany could fall into dictatorship,” historian BEJAMIN CARTER HETT writes.

Article 48 was the Weimar equivalent of the executive orders liberally used by Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, to bypass our own legislative impasses. As in 1930s Germany, our courts - especially the Supreme Court - have been seized by extremists. The press has bifurcated into antagonistic tribes where lies and truth are indistinguishable, and opposing sides are demonized. There is little dialogue or compromise, the twin pillars of a democratic system.

The two ruling parties slavishly serve the dictates of the war industry, global corporations and the oligarchy, to which it has given huge tax cuts. It has established the most pervasive and intrusive system of government surveillance in human history. It runs the largest prison system in the world. It has militarized the police.

Democrats are as culpable as Republicans. The Obama administration interpreted the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force as giving the executive branch the right to erase due process and act as judge, jury and executioner in assassinating U.S. citizens, starting with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Two weeks later, a U.S. drone strike KILLED Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, Anwar’s 16-year-old son, who was never linked to terrorism, along with 9 other teenagers at a cafe in Yemen. It was the Obama administration that SIGNED into law SECTION 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, OVERTURNING the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the military as a domestic police force. It was the Obama administration that bailed out Wall Street and abandoned Wall Streets victims. It was the Obama administration that REPEATEDLY USED the ESPIONAGE ACT to criminalize those, such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, who exposed government lies, crimes and fraud. And it was the Obama administration that massively EXPANDED the use of militarized drones.

The Nazis responded to the February 1933 burning of the Reichstag, which they likely staged, by employing Article 48 to PUSH THROUGH the Decree for the Protection of the People and the State. The fascists instantly snuffed out the pretense of Weimar democracy. They legalized imprisonment without trial for anyone considered a national security threat. They abolished independent labor unions, freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of the press, along with the privacy of postal and telephone communications.

The step from dysfunctional democracy to full blown fascism was, and will again be, a small one. The hatred for the ruling class, embodied by the establishment Republican and Democratic parties, which have merged into one ruling party, is nearly universal. The public, BATTLING INFLATION that is at a 40-year high and cost the average U.S. household AN ADDITIONAL $717 a month in July alone, will increasingly see any political figure or political party willing to attack the traditional ruling elites as an ally. The more crude, irrational or vulgar the attack, the more the disenfranchised rejoice. These sentiments are true here and in EUROPE, where energy costs are expected to rise by as much as 80 percent this winter and an inflation rate of 10 percent is eating away at incomes.

The reconfiguration of society under neoliberalism to exclusively benefit the billionaire class, the slashing and privatization of public services, including schools, hospitals and utilities, along with deindustrialization, the profligate pouring of state funds and resources into the war industry, at the expense of the nation’s infrastructure and social services, and the building of the worlds largest prison system and militarization of police, have predictable results.

At the heart of the problem is a loss of faith in traditional forms of government and democratic solutions. Fascism in the 1930s succeeded, as Peter Drucker observed, not because people believed its conspiracy theories and lies, but in spite of the fact that they saw through them. Fascism thrived in the face of “a hostile press, a hostile radio, a hostile cinema, a hostile church, and a hostile government which untiringly pointed out the Nazi lies, the Nazi inconsistency, the unattainability of their promises, and the dangers and folly of their course.” He added, “nobody would have been a Nazi if rational belief in the Nazi promises had been a prerequisit.”

As in the past, these new fascist parties cater to emotional yearnings. They give vent to feelings of abandonment, worthlessness, despair and alienation. They promise unattainable miracles. They too peddle bizarre conspiracy theories including QAnon. But most of all, they promise vengeance against a ruling class that betrayed the nation.

Hett defines the Nazis as “a nationalist protest movement against globalization. “The rise of the new fascism has its roots in a similar exploitation by global corporations and oligarchs. More than anything else, people want to regain control over their lives, if only to punish those blamed and scapegoated for their misery.

We have seen this movie before.

SOURCE

Friday, September 23, 2022

Bad Moon Rising Part 86 - Putin Threatens Nukes

Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.
- Wolfowitz Doctrine
 
Their military ambitions, in other words, knew no bounds; nor, it seemed, did the money and resources which began to flow into the Pentagon, the weapons industries, the countrys increasingly militarized intelligence services, mercenary companies like Blackwater and KBR that grew fat on a privatizing administrations war plans and the multi-billion-dollar no-bid contracts it was eager to proffer, the new Department of Homeland Security, and a ramped-up, ever more powerful NATIONAL SECURITY STATE.
- Entering the Soviet Style Era in America, 2010

What Putin’s Nuclear Threats Mean For The US

By Caitlin Talmadge
Wall Street Journal
March 3, 2022

Washington needs to develop new strategies for a world where nuclear weapons don’t deter conventional aggression, argues Caitlin Talmadge, associate professor of security studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the author of “The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes.” She received her PhD from MIT and is a research affiliate of the MIT Security Studies Program. This article first appeared here.

On the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, VLADIMIR PUTIN issued a nuclear warning. He admonished that “anyone who tries to interfere with us… must know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never before experienced in your HISTORY." In case anyone misunderstood his warning, he added that RUSSIA REMAINS “one of the most powerful nuclear powers” with “certain advantages in a number of the latest types of weapons” and stated that “no one should have any doubt that a direct attack on Russia will lead to defeat and dire consequences for a potential aggressor.” A few days later, he upped the ante further with the public announcement of a Russian nuclear alert.

The US cannot overlook these chilling threats. They are part of a deliberate strategy to advance Russias revisionist political and military goals. Countering them will require the US and its friends to tailor both their conventional and their nuclear postures to the emerging danger - not only in the current crisis with Russia but also to prepare for the possibility that China might follow the same playbook in a FUTURE WAR over Taiwan.

Mr. Putin’s unusually explicit rhetoric has sent a clear message to the West: Stay out of my attack on a third party or risk nuclear conflict.  Having bolstered in recent years its arsenal of nuclear weapons that can evade missile defenses and hit targets in Europe and the US, Russia is attempting to use these forces as a shield for conventional aggression. Mr. Putin is betting that despite the conventional military might of the US and its allies, they will shrink from confrontation at least partly out of fear of nuclear escalation.

This approach to nuclear deterrence calls into question the often-cited logic of mutually assured destruction, or “MAD.” This traditional notion assumes that mutual nuclear vulnerability - that is, a situation in which both sides have nuclear forces that can inflict significant retaliation on the other, even after suffering a nuclear first strike - can actually stabilize world politics and make conflict between nuclear adversaries, even over third parties, less likely. Under this condition, the risks of nuclear escalation become so dangerous and so inescapable that countries will hesitate even to provoke a crisis, much less to fight wars. Many credit MAD with keeping the Cold War cold.

The problem is that precisely because all-out nuclear war would be so costly for both the US and Russia, Mr. Putin likely believes it won’t happen. As a result, he may feel relatively safe engaging in conventional aggression or even limited nuclear use below that threshold - demonstration strikes, for example, or attacks on military targets - without much risk of a Western response. In general, he appears to believe that Russian nuclear weapons provide cover for Russian aggression, while American nuclear weapons don’t provide reciprocal freedom to respond, perhaps because the US is less invested in defending the status quo than Mr. Putin is in challenging it. Pakistan has honed exactly this strategy against India, and now a revisionist Russia is adopting it too.

Russia has longstanding grievances with the geopolitical status quo, including most notably the expansion of NATO after the humiliating contraction of the Soviet empire. These resentments, combined with a serious miscalculation about how the West would respond to his invasion, may have emboldened Mr. Putin to make nuclear threats, despite the powerful US arsenal. Ultimately, however, Russia doesn’t want to get into a nuclear war with NATO. It just wants NATO to stay out of Russia’s conventional war against Ukraine.

Unfortunately for the US, Russia isn’t the only opponent that could use its nuclear arsenal as a shield for conventional aggression against third parties. China is in the midst of modernizing its nuclear forces, building better nuclear weapons in larger numbers than it ever has before. These include both long-range forces that can threaten the US and medium-range nuclear weapons well-suited to limited attacks on US military targets and allies in the western Pacific.

Chinas arsenal likely will remain significantly smaller than those of both Russia and the US for some time. Nevertheless, Beijing is pushing Washington into a state of deeper mutual nuclear vulnerability. As with Russia, the U.S. would find an all-out nuclear war with China extremely costly, and both sides will have strong incentives to avoid it. Yet this strategic nuclear stalemate is unlikely to be stabilizing given that CHINA, LIKE RUSSIA, IS DEEPLY DISSATISFIED with the status quo, especially over Taiwan.

A more robust nuclear arsenal may not make China more cautious. Instead it may give China CONFIDENCE that if it conventionally challenges US friends or allies in the region, the US can’t simply lean on its nuclear status to get China to back down.

>b>By attempting to neutralize the US ability to make credible nuclear threats in a crisis, China may believe it can keep the fight conventional - which would play to China’s strengths. China overmatches Taiwan conventionally, just as Russia does Ukraine</b>. Likewise, Beijing cares about Taipeis status more than Washington does. Again, an opponent that has little desire to fight a nuclear war with the US may nevertheless rely on its nuclear forces to stiff-arm an American conventional response.

Russia and China have distinct relationships with the US, but they present a common problem: The US seeks to maintain credible commitments to allies and friends in the two regions. But how can it do this when conventionally strong, nuclear-armed US opponents seek to revise the status quo through the use of force?

As Ukrainian resistance has already demonstrated, robust conventional forces are a critical part of the answer, both on NATO’s eastern flank and along the first island chain in East Asia. An adversary’s nuclear threats aimed at keeping the US out of a conventional fight will matter much less if allies can make that fight conventionally costly for the opponent, regardless of whether, when or how the US intervenes. The key is to provide allies with defensive capabilities that don’t threaten adversaries unless they attack.

Especially for Taiwan, that means investing less in high-prestige aircraft and ships and more in mines, submarines, drones, missiles and air defenses that can impose heavy costs on a Chinese attempt to cross the strait. Improving the islands economic and military resilience in the event of air and missile attacks is also important, as is publicly signaling these measures.

Similarly, the US should focus its own conventional posture on the goal of denying Russia and China the ability to conduct rapid military campaigns that revise the territorial status quo. In coordination with allies, the US should prioritize intelligence assets, forward deployment of munitions and equipment, and investment in weapons systems such as nuclear-powered attack submarines and penetrating bombers that have the best chance of surviving a fight with a highly capable adversary. Even in the presence of large nuclear arsenals, these conventional capabilities will remain vital to keeping the peace against opponents who may otherwise believe that nuclear weapons give them cover for aggression.

The US nuclear arsenal remains the ultimate backstop of its alliance commitments. Distasteful as it is to contemplate, having the ability to threaten limited nuclear attacks, particularly against military targets, remains important for deterring Russia and China, both of which are readily deploying such weapons. The key is to signal prior to any war both that the US has no desire to initiate conflict and that threats of nuclear escalation won’t force the US to back down. The presence of the American arsenal can also help reassure allies that the US will defend them, making them less likely to seek nuclear weapons of their own.

About the author:

Caitlin Talmadge is associate professor of security studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the author of THE DICTATOR’S ARMY: BATTLEFIELD EFFECTIVENESS IN AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES. She received her PhD from MIT and is a research affiliate of the MIT Security Studies Program.

SOURCE

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Putin mobilizes 300,000 troops for war in Ukraine and warns he’s not bluffing with nuclear threat

By Holly Ellyatt
CNBC
September 21, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday announced a partial military mobilization in Russia, putting the countrys people and economy on a wartime footing as Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine continues.

In a rare prerecorded televised announcement, Putin said the West “wants to destroy our country” and claimed the West had tried to “turn Ukraine’s people into cannon fodder,” in comments translated by Reuters, repeating earlier claims in which he has blamed Western nations for starting a proxy war with Russia.

Putin said “mobilization events” would begin Wednesday without providing further details, aside from saying he had ordered an increase in funding to boost Russia’s weapons production, having committed (and lost) a large amount of weaponry during the conflict, which began in late February.

A partial mobilization is a hazy concept, but it could mean that Russian businesses and citizens have to contribute more to the war effort. Russia has not yet declared war on Ukraine, despite having invaded in February, and it calls its invasion a “special military operation.”

Putin confirmed that military reservists would be called up into active service, but insisted a wider conscription of Russian men of fighting age was not taking place.

“I reiterate, we are talking about partial mobilization, that is, only citizens who are currently in the reserve will be subject to conscription, and above all, those who served in the armed forces have a certain military specialty and relevant experience. Conscripts will obligatorily go through additional military training based on the experience of the special military operation before departing to the units,” he said according to an Associated Press translation.

In what was immediately greeted as an escalatory address, Putin also accused the West of engaging in nuclear blackmail against Russia and warned again that the country had “lots of weapons to reply” to what he said were Western threats - adding that he was not bluffing.

Putin has alluded to Russia’s nuclear weaponry at various points during the conflict with Ukraine but there are doubts over whether Moscow would actually resort to deploying such a weapon, with analysts saying it could be tantamount to starting a third world war.

Chinas Foreign Ministry called on all parties to engage in dialogue to find a way to address their security concerns, while British Foreign Office Minister Gillian Keegan told Sky News that PutinҒs comments should not be taken lightly.

“Clearly its something that we should take very seriously because, you know, weҒre not in control - I’m not sure he’s in control either, really. This is obviously an escalation,” she said.

Financial markets reacted negatively to Putins comments with oil prices spiking more than 2% and the Russian ruble slumping around 2.6% against the dollar.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu added more detail on the partial mobilization Wednesday morning, saying it would see 300,000 additional personnel called up to serve in the military campaign in Ukraine.

In an interview with Russian state television, Shoigu said that students and those who served as conscripts would not be called up, and that the majority of Russia’s reserves would not be drafted, Reuters reported.

Russia under pressure

Putin’s comments come as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in late February, approaches the winter period with momentum appearing to be on Ukraine’s side after it launched lightning counteroffensives in the northeast and south to reclaim lost territory.

Speculation mounted Tuesday that Putin could be about to announce a full or partial mobilization of the Russian economy and society, paving the way for possible conscription of Russian men of fighting age, after Moscow-installed officials in occupied areas of Ukraine announced plans to stage immediate referendums on joining Russia.

The votes - set to take place in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia this weekend and with the results widely expected to be rigged in favor of joining Russia - would enable the Kremlin to claim, albeit falsely, that it was “defending” its own territory and citizens, and that will require more manpower.

Putin said Wednesday that Russia supported the referendums and said that the decision to partially mobilize was “fully adequate to the threats we face, namely to protect our homeland, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, to ensure the security of our people and people in the liberated territories.”

Plans to hold such votes were widely condemned by Ukraine and its Western allies who said they would not recognize the ballots and efforts to annex more of Ukraine, as Russia did with Crimea in 2014.

Putin on Wednesday repeated earlier claims from Moscow that Russias aim is to “liberate” the Donbas, a region in eastern Ukraine in which there are two self-proclaimed, pro-Russian republics, and said he had ordered the government to give legal status to volunteers fighting in the Donbas, Reuters reported.

Morale is believed to be low among Russian troops fighting in Ukraine and on Tuesday the Russian Duma, the country’s parliament, voted to tighten up Russia’s criminal code around military service - including increasing the punishment for desertion and other “crimes committed in conditions of mobilization, martial law, armed conflicts and hostilities.”

SOURCE

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Address by the President of the Russian Federation

By Vladimir Putin
Kremlin
September 21, 2022

Friends,

The subject of this address is the situation in Donbass and the course of the special military operation to liberate it from the neo-Nazi regime, which seized power in Ukraine in 2014 as the result of an armed state coup.

Today I am addressing you all citizens of our country, people of different generations, ages and ethnicities, the people of our great Motherland, all who are united by the great historical Russia, soldiers, officers and volunteers who are fighting on the frontline and doing their combat duty, our brothers and sisters in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and other areas that have been liberated from the neo-Nazi regime.

The issue concerns the necessary, imperative measures to protect the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Russia and support the desire and will of our compatriots to choose their future independently, and the aggressive policy of some Western elites, who are doing their utmost to preserve their domination and with this aim in view are trying to block and suppress any sovereign and independent development centres in order to continue to aggressively force their will and pseudo-values on other countries and nations.

The goal of that part of the West is to weaken, divide and ultimately destroy our country. They are saying openly now that in 1991 they managed to split up the Soviet Union and now is the time to do the same to Russia, which must be divided into numerous regions that would be at deadly feud with each other.

They devised these plans long ago. They encouraged groups of international terrorists in the Caucasus and moved NATOs offensive infrastructure close to our borders. They used indiscriminate Russophobia as a weapon, including by nurturing the hatred of Russia for decades, primarily in Ukraine, which was designed to become an anti-Russia bridgehead. They turned the Ukrainian people into cannon fodder and pushed them into a war with Russia, which they unleashed back in 2014. They used the army against civilians and organised a genocide, blockade and terror against those who refused to recognise the government that was created in Ukraine as the result of a state coup.

After the Kiev regime publicly refused to settle the issue of Donbass peacefully and went as far as to announce its ambition to possess nuclear weapons, it became clear that a new offensive in Donbass Җ there were two of them before was inevitable, and that it would be inevitably followed by an attack on Russia֒s Crimea, that is, on Russia.

In this connection, the decision to start a pre-emptive military operation was necessary and the only option. The main goal of this operation, which is to liberate the whole of Donbass, remains unaltered.

The Lugansk Peoples Republic has been liberated from the neo-Nazis almost completely. Fighting in the Donetsk PeopleҒs Republic continues. Over the previous eight years, the Kiev occupation regime created a deeply echeloned line of permanent defences. A head-on attack against them would have led to heavy losses, which is why our units, as well as the forces of the Donbass republics, are acting competently and systematically, using military equipment and saving lives, moving step by step to liberate Donbass, purge cities and towns of the neo-Nazis, and help the people whom the Kiev regime turned into hostages and human shields.

As you know, professional military personnel serving under contract are taking part in the special military operation. Fighting side by side with them are volunteer units people of different ethnicities, professions and ages who are real patriots. They answered the call of their hearts to rise up in defence of Russia and Donbass.

In this connection, I have already issued instructions for the Government and the Defence Ministry to determine the legal status of volunteers and personnel of the military units of the Donetsk and Lugansk people֒s republics. It must be the same as the status of military professionals of the Russian army, including material, medical and social benefits. Special attention must be given to organising the supply of military and other equipment for volunteer units and Donbass peoples militia.

While acting to attain the main goals of defending Donbass in accordance with the plans and decisions of the Defence Ministry and the General Staff, our troops have liberated considerable areas in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and a number of other areas. This has created a protracted line of contact that is over 1,000 kilometres long.

This is what I would like to make public for the first time today. After the start of the special military operation, in particular after the Istanbul talks, Kiev representatives voiced quite a positive response to our proposals. These proposals concerned above all ensuring RussiaҒs security and interests. But a peaceful settlement obviously did not suit the West, which is why, after certain compromises were coordinated, Kiev was actually ordered to wreck all these agreements.

More weapons were pumped into Ukraine. The Kiev regime brought into play new groups of foreign mercenaries and nationalists, military units trained according to NATO standards and receiving orders from Western advisers.

At the same time, the regime of reprisals throughout Ukraine against their own citizens, established immediately after the armed coup in 2014, was harshly intensified. The policy of intimidation, terror and violence is taking on increasingly mass-scale, horrific and barbaric forms.

I want to stress the following. We know that the majority of people living in the territories liberated from the neo-Nazis, and these are primarily the historical lands of Novorossiya, do not want to live under the yoke of the neo-Nazi regime. People in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, in Lugansk and Donetsk saw and are seeing now the atrocities perpetrated by the neo-Nazis in the [Ukrainian-] occupied areas of the Kharkov region. The descendants of Banderites and members of Nazi punitive expeditions are killing, torturing and imprisoning people; they are settling scores, beating up, and committing outrages on peaceful civilians.

There were over 7.5 million people living in the Donetsk and Lugansk peoples republics and in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions before the outbreak of hostilities. Many of them were forced to become refugees and leave their homes. Those who have stayed Җ they number about five million are now exposed to artillery and missile attacks launched by the neo-Nazi militants, who fire at hospitals and schools and stage terrorist attacks against peaceful civilians.

We cannot, we have no moral right to let our kin and kith be torn to pieces by butchers; we cannot but respond to their sincere striving to decide their destiny on their own.

The parliaments of the Donbass people֒s republics and the military-civilian administrations of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions have adopted decisions to hold referendums on the future of their territories and have appealed to Russia to support this.

I would like to emphasise that we will do everything necessary to create safe conditions for these referendums so that people can express their will. And we will support the choice of future made by the majority of people in the Donetsk and Lugansk peoples republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.

Friends,

Today our armed forces, as I have mentioned, are fighting on the line of contact that is over 1,000 kilometres long, fighting not only against neo-Nazi units but actually the entire military machine of the collective West.

In this situation, I consider it necessary to take the following decision, which is fully adequate to the threats we are facing. More precisely, I find it necessary to support the proposal of the Defence Ministry and the General Staff on partial mobilisation in the Russian Federation to defend our Motherland and its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to ensure the safety of our people and people in the liberated territories.

As I have said, we are talking about partial mobilisation. In other words, only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, will be called up.

Before being sent to their units, those called up for active duty will undergo mandatory additional military training based on the experience of the special military operation.

I have already signed Executive Order on partial mobilisation.

In accordance with legislation, the houses of the Federal Assembly Җ the Federation Council and the State Duma will be officially notified about this in writing today.

The mobilisation will begin today, September 21. I am instructing the heads of the regions to provide the necessary assistance to the work of military recruitment offices.

I would like to point out that the citizens of Russia called up in accordance with the mobilisation order will have the status, payments and all social benefits of military personnel serving under contract.

Additionally, the Executive Order on partial mobilisation also stipulates additional measures for the fulfilment of the state defence order. The heads of defence industry enterprises will be directly responsible for attaining the goals of increasing the production of weapons and military equipment and using additional production facilities for this purpose. At the same time, the Government must address without any delay all aspects of material, resource and financial support for our defence enterprises.

Friends,

The West has gone too far in its aggressive anti-Russia policy, making endless threats to our country and people. Some irresponsible Western politicians are doing more than just speak about their plans to organise the delivery of long-range offensive weapons to Ukraine, which could be used to deliver strikes at Crimea and other Russian regions.

Such terrorist attacks, including with the use of Western weapons, are being delivered at border areas in the Belgorod and Kursk regions. NATO is conducting reconnaissance through Russia֒s southern regions in real time and with the use of modern systems, aircraft, vessels, satellites and strategic drones.

Washington, London and Brussels are openly encouraging Kiev to move the hostilities to our territory. They openly say that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield by any means, and subsequently deprived of political, economic, cultural and any other sovereignty and ransacked.

They have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction nuclear weapons ֖ against Russia.

I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.

The citizens of Russia can rest assured that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be defended I repeat - by all the systems available to us. Those who are using nuclear blackmail against us should know that the wind rose can turn around.

It is our historical tradition and the destiny of our nation to stop those who are keen on global domination and threaten to split up and enslave our Motherland. Rest assured that we will do it this time as well.

I believe in your support.

SOURCE

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Remarks by President Biden Before the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

President Biden
Whitehouse
September 21, 2022

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, my fellow leaders, in the last year, our world has experienced great upheaval: a growing crisis in food insecurity; record heat, floods, and droughts; COVID-19; inflation; and a brutal, needless war - a war chosen by one man, to be very blunt.

Let us speak plainly.  A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded its neighbor, attempted to erase a sovereign state from the map.

Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenets of the United Nations Charter - no more important than the clear prohibition against countries taking the territory of their neighbor by force.

Again, just today, President Putin has made overt nuclear threats against Europe and a reckless disregard for the responsibilities of the non-proliferation regime.

Now Russia is calling - calling up more soldiers to join the fight.  And the Kremlin is organizing a sham referenda to try to annex parts of Ukraine, an extremely significant violation of the U.N. Charter.

This world should see these outrageous acts for what they are.  Putin claims he had to act because Russia was threatened. But no one threatened Russia, and no one other than Russia sought conflict.

In fact, we warned it was coming.  And with many of you, we worked to try to avert it.

Putins own words make his true purpose unmistakable.  Just before he invaded, Putin asserted җ and I quote Ukraine was דcreated by Russia and never had, quote, ԓreal statehood.

And now we see attacks on schools, railway stations, hospitals, wa- ԗ on centers of Ukrainian history and culture.

In the past, even more horrifying evidence of Russias atrocity and war crimes: mass graves uncovered in Izyum; bodies, according to those that excavated those bodies, showing signs of torture.

This war is about extinguishing UkraineҒs right to exist as a state, plain and simple, and Ukraines right to exist as a people.  Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you believe, that should not җ that should make your blood run cold.

That’s why 141 nations in the General Assembly came together to unequivocally condemn RussiaҒs war against Ukraine.  The United States has marshaled massive levels of security assistance and humanitarian aid and direct economic support for Ukraine more than $25 billion to date.

Our allies and partners around the world have stepped up as well.  And today, more than 40 countries represented in here have contributed billions of their own money and equipment to help Ukraine defend itself.

The United States is also working closely with our allies and partners to impose costs on Russia, to deter attacks against NATO territory, to hold Russia accountable for the atrocities and war crimes.

Because if nations can pursue their imperial ambitions without consequences, then we put at risk everything this very institution stands for.  Everything.

Every victory won on the battlefield belongs to the courageous Ukrainian soldiers.  But this past year, the world was tested as well, and we did not hesitate.

We chose liberty.  We chose sovereignty.  We chose principles to which every party to the United Nations Charter is beholding.  We stood with Ukraine.

Like you, the United States wants this war to end on just terms, on terms we all signed up for: that you cannot seize a nationגs territory by force.  The only country standing in the way of that is Russia.

So, we each of us in this body who is determined to uphold the principles and beliefs we pledge to defend as members of the United Nations ח must be clear, firm, and unwavering in our resolve.

Ukraine has the same rights that belong to every sovereign nation.  We will stand in solidarity with Ukraine.  We will stand in solidarity against Russias aggression.  Period.

Now, itҒs no secret that in the contest between democracy and autocracy, the United States and I, as President ח champion a vision for our world that is grounded in the values of democracy.

The United States is determined to defend and strengthen democracy at home and around the world.  Because I believe democracy remains humanitys greatest instrument to address the challenges of our time.

WeҒre working with the G7 and likeminded countries to prove democracies can deliver for their citizens but also deliver for the rest of the world as well.

But as we meet today, the U.N. Charter the U.N. Charterגs very basis of a stable and just rule-based order is under attack by those who wish to tear it down or distort it for their own political advantage.

And the United Nations Charter was not only signed by democracies of the world, it was negotiated among citizens of dozens of nations with vastly different histories and ideologies, united in their commitment to work for peace.

As President Truman said in 1945, the U.N. Charter and I quote ח is proof that nations, like men, can state their differences, can face them, and then can find common ground on which to stand.Ӕ End of quote.

That common ground was so straightforward, so basic that, today, 193 of you 193 member states ח have willingly embraced its principles.  And standing up for those principles for the U.N. Charter is the job of every responsible member state.

I reject the use of violence and war to conquer nations or expand borders through bloodshed.

To stand against global politics of fear and coercion; to defend the sovereign rights of smaller nations as equal to those of larger ones; to embrace basic principles like freedom of navigation, respect for international law, and arms control no matter what else we may disagree on, that is the common ground upon which we must stand.

If youגre still committed to a strong foundation for the good of every nation around the world, then the United States wants to work with you.

I also believe the time has come for this institution to become more inclusive so that it can better respond to the needs of todays world.

Members of the U.N. Security Council, including the United States, should consistently uphold and defend the U.N. Charter and refrain җ refrain from the use of the veto, except in rare, extraordinary situations, to ensure that the Council remains credible and effective.

That is also why the United States supports increasing the number of both permanent and non-permanent representatives of the Council.  This includes permanent seats for those nations weve long supported and permanent seats for countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

THE UNITED STATES IS COMMITTED to this vital work.  In every region, we pursued new, constructive ways to work with partners to advance shared interests, from elevating the Quad in the Indo-Pacific; to signing the Los Angeles Declaration of Migration and Protection at the Summit of the Americas; to joining a historic meeting of nine Arab leaders to work toward a more peaceful, integrated Middle East; to hosting the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit in this December.

As I said last year, the United States is opening an era of relentless diplomacy to address the challenges that matter most to peopleגs lives all peopleגs lives: tackling the climate crisis, as the previous spoker [sic] speaker spoke to; strengthening global health security; feeding the world ח feeding the world.

We made that priority.  And one year later, were keeping that promise.

From the day I came to office, weҒve led with a bold climate agenda.  We rejoined the Paris Agreement, convened major climate summits, helped deliver critical agreements on COP26.  And we helped get two thirds of the world GDP on track to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

And now Ive signed a historic piece of legislation here in the United States that includes the biggest, most important climate commitment we have ever made in the history of our country: $369 billion toward climate change.  That includes tens of billions in new investments in offshore wind and solar, doubling down on zero emission vehicles, increasing energy efficiency, supporting clean manufacturing.

Our Department of Energy estimates that this new law will reduce U.S. emissions by one gigaton a year by 2030 while unleashing a new era of clean-energy-powered economic growth.

Our investments will also help reduce the cost of developing clean energy technologies worldwide, not just the United States.  This is a global gamechanger and none too soon.  We don’t have much time.

We all know we’re already living in a climate crisis.  No one seems to doubt it after this past year.  We meet we meet ח much of Pas- as we meet, much of Pakistan is still underwater; it needs help.  Meanwhile, the Horn of Africa faces unprecedented drought.

Families are facing impossible choices, choosing which child to feed and wondering whether theyגll survive.

This is the human cost of climate change.  And its growing, not lessening.

So, as I announced last year, to meet our global responsibility, my administration is working with our Congress to deliver more than $11 billion a year to international climate finance to help lower-income countries implement their climate goals and ensure a just energy transition.

The key part of that will be our PEPFAR [PREPARE] plan, which will help half a billion people, and especially vulnerable countries, adapt to the impacts of climate change and build resilience.

This need is enormous.  So let this be the moment we find within ourselves the will to turn back the tide of climate demastation [sic] - devastation and unlock a resilient, sustainable, clean energy economy to preserve our planet.

On global health, we’ve delivered more than 620 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to 116 countries around the world, with more available to help meet countries’ needs all free of charge, no strings attached.

And we’re working closely with the G20 and other countries.  And the United States helped lead the change to establish a groundbreaking new FUND for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response at the World Bank.

At the same time, we’ve continued to advance the ball on enduring global HEALTH CHALLENGES.

Later today, I’ll host the Seventh Replenishment Conference for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.  With bipartisan support in our Congress, I have pledged to contribute up to $6 billion to that effort.

So I look forward to welcoming a historic round of pledges at the conference resulting in one of the largest global health fundraisers ever held in all of history.

We’re also taking on the food crisis head on.  With as many as 193 million people around the world experiencing acute җ acute food insecurity a jump of 40 million in a year ח today Im announcing another $2.9 billion in U.S. support for lifesaving humanitarian and food security assistance for this year alone.

Russia, in the meantime, is pumping out lies, trying to pin the blame for the crisis җ the food crisis onto sanctions imposed by many in the world for the aggression against Ukraine.

So let me be perfectly clear about something: Our sanctions explicitly allow ח explicitly allow Russia the ability to export food and fertilizer.  No limitation.  Its RussiaҒs war that is worsening food insecurity, and only Russia can end it.

Im grateful for the work here at the U.N. җ including your leadership, Mr. Secretary-General establishing a mechanism to export grain from Black Sea ports in Ukraine that Russia had blocked for months, and we need to make sure it’s extended.

We believe strongly in the need to feed the world.  Thats why the United States is the world’s largest supporter of the World Food Programme, with more than 40 percent of its budget.

We’re leading support - were leading support of the UNICEF efforts to feed children around the world.

And to take on the larger challenge of FOOD INSECURITY, the United States introduced a Call to Action: a roadmap eliminating global food insecurity - to eliminating global food insecurity that more than 100 nation member states have already supported.

In June, the G7 announced more than $4.5 billion to strengthen food security around the world.

Through USAIDs Feed the Future initiative, the United States is scaling up innovative ways to get drought- and heat-resistant seeds into the hands of farmers who need them, while distributing fertilizer and improving fertilizer efficiency so that farmers can grow more while using less.

And we’re calling on all countries to refrain from banning food exports or hoarding grain while so many people are suffering.  Because in every country in the world, no matter what else divides us, if parents cannot feed their children, nothing nothing else matters if parents cannot feed their children.

As we look to the future, we’re working with our partners to update and create rules of the road for new challenges we face in the 21st century.

We launched the Trade and Technology Council with the European Union to ensure that key technologies key technologies are developed and governed in the way that benefits everyone.

With our partner countries and through the U.N., we’re supporting and strengthening the norms of responsibility responsible state behavior in cyberspace and working to hold accountable those who use cyberattacks to threaten international peace and security.

With partners in the Americas, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific, we’re working to build a new economic ecosystem while where every nation - every nation gets a fair shot and economic growth is resilient, sustainable, and shared.

Thats why the United States has championed a global minimum tax.  And we will work to see it implemented so major corporations pay their fair share everywhere - everywhere.

Its also been the idea behind the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which the United States launched this year with 13 other Indo-Pacific economies.  We’re working with our partners in ASEAN and the Pacific Islands to support a vision for a critical Indo-Pacific region that is free and open, connected and prosperous, secure and resilient.

Together with partners around the world, were working to secure resilient supply chains that protect everyone from coercion or domination and ensure that no country can use energy as a weapon.

And as Russias war riles the global economy, were also calling on major global creditors, including the non-Paris Club countries, to transparently negotiate debt forgiveness for lower-income countries to forestall broader economic and political crises around the world.

Instead of infrastructure projects that generate huge and large debt without delivering on the promised advantages, let’s meet the enormous infrastructure needs around the world with transparent investments high-standard projects that protect the rights of workers and the environment ח keyed to the needs of the communities they serve, not to the contributor.

Thats why the United States, together with fellow G7 partners, launched a Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.  We intend to collectively mobilize $600 billion
in investment through this partnership by 2027.

Dozens of projects are already underway: industrial-scale vaccine manufacturing in Senegal, transformative solar projects in Angola, first-of-its-kind small modular nuclear power plant in Romania.

These are investments that are going to deliver returns not just for those countries, but for everyone.  The United States will work with every nation, including our competitors, to solve global problems like climate change.  Climate diplomacy is not a favor to the United States or any other nation, and walking away hurts the entire world.

Let me be direct about the competition between the United States and China.  As we manage shifting geopolitical trends, the United States will conduct itself as a reasonable leader.  We do not seek conflict.  We do not seek a Cold War. We do not ask any nation to choose between the United States or any other partner.

But the United States will be unabashed in promoting our vision of a free, open, secure, and prosperous world and what we have to offer communities of nations: investments that are designed not to foster dependency, but to alleviate burdens and help nations become self-sufficient; partnerships not to create political obligation, but because we know our own success - each of our success is increased when other nations succeed as well.

When individuals have the chance to live in dignity and develop their talents, everyone benefits.  Critical to that is living up to the highest goals of this institution: increasing peace and security for everyone, everywhere.

The United States will not waver in our unrelenting determination to counter and thwart the continuing terrorist threats to our world.  And we will lead with our diplomacy to strive for peaceful resolution of conflicts.

We seek to uphold peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits.

We remain committed to our One China policy, which has helped prevent conflict for four decades.  And we continue to oppose unilateral changes in the status quo by either side.

We support an African Union-led peace process to end the fight in Ethiopia and restore security for all its people.

In Venezuela, where years of the political oppression have driven more than 6 million people from that country, we urge a Venezuelan-led dialogue and a return to free and fair elections.

We continue to stand with our neighbor in Haiti as it faces political-fueled gang violence and an enormous human crisis.

And we call on the world to do the same.  We have more to do.

We’ll continue to back the U.N.-mediated truce in Yemen, which has delivered precious months of peace to people that have suffered years of war.

And we will continue to advocate for lasting negotiating peace between the Jewish and democratic state of Israel and the Palestinian people. The United States is committed to Israels security, full stop.  And a negotiated two-state solution remains, in our view, the best way to ensure IsraelҒs security and prosperity for the future and give the Palestinians the state which - to which they are entitled - both sides to fully respect the equal rights of their citizens; both people enjoying equal measure of freedom and dignity.

Let me also urge every nation to recommit to strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime through diplomacy.  No matter what else is happening in the world, the United States is ready to pursue critical arms control measures.  A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.

The five permanent members of the Security Council just reaffirmed that commitment in January.  But today, were seeing disturbing trends.  Russia shunned the Non-Proliferation ideals embraced by every other nation at the 10th NPT Review Conference.

And again, today, as I said, theyҒre making irresponsible nuclear threats to use nuclear weapons.  China is conducting an unprecedented, concerning nuclear buildup without any transparency.

Despite our efforts to begin serious and sustained diplomacy, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea continues to blatantly violate U.N. sanctions.

And while the United States is prepared for a mutual return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action if Iran steps up to its obligations, the United States is clear: We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.

I continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome.  The nonproliferation regime is one of the greatest successes of this institution.  We cannot let the world now slide backwards, nor can we turn a blind eye to the EROSION of human rights.

Perhaps singular among this body’s achievements stands the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, which is the standard by which our forebears challenged us to measure ourselves.

They made clear in 1948: Human rights are the basis for all that we seek to achieve.  And yet today, in 2022, fundamental freedoms are at risk in every part of our world, from the violations of in Xinjiang detailed in recent reports by the Office of U.N. ח U.S.  reports detailing by the U.S. [U.N.] High Commissioner, to the horrible abuses against pro-democracy activists and ethnic minorities by the military regime in Burma, to the increased repression of women and girls by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

And today, we stand with the brave citizens and the brave women of Iran who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights.

But hereגs what I know: The future will be won by those countries that unleash the full potential of their populations, where women and girls can exercise equal rights, including basic reproductive rights, and contribute fully to building a stronger economies and more resilient societies; where religious and ethnic minorities can live their lives without harassment and contribute to the fabric of their communities; where the LGBTQ+ community individuals live and love freely without being targeted with violence; where citizens can question and criticize their leaders without fear of reprisal.

The United States will always promote human rights and the values enshrined in the U.N. Charter in our own country and around the world.

Let me end with this: This institution, guided by the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is at its core an act of dauntless hope.

Let me say that again: It’s an act of dauntless hope.

Think about the vision of those first delegates who undertook a seemingly impossible task while the world was still smoldering.

Think about how divided the people of the world must have felt with the fresh grief of millions dead, the genocidal horrors of the Holocaust exposed.

They had every right to believe only the worst of humanity.  Instead, they reached for what was best in all of us, and they strove to build something better: enduring peace; comity among nations; equal rights for every member of the human family; cooperation for the advancement of all humankind.

My fellow leaders, the challenges we face today are great indeed, but our capacity is greater.  Our commitment must be greater still.

So let’s stand together to again declare the unmistakable resolve that nations of the world are united still, that we stand for the values of the U.N. Charter, that we still believe by working together we can bend the arc of history toward a freer and more just world for all our children, although none of us have fully achieved it.

WE’RE NOT PASSIVE WITNESSES to history; WE ARE the authors of history.

We can do this - we have to do it - for ourselves and for our future, for humankind.

Thank you for your tolerance, for listening to me.  I appreciate it very much.  God bless you all.

SOURCE

The Next Depression Part 66 - Interest Rates Hikes, and Forced Unemployment

 
In the boardrooms of corporate America, profits aren’t everything - they are the only thing. A JPMorgan research report concludes that the current corporate profit recovery is more dependent on falling unit-labor costs than during any previous expansion.
- Why The Rich Love Unemployment
 
After saying that “the halls of Congress are no joke,” Ocasio-Cortez said that “standing up to corporate power, and established interests is no joke. It’s not just about standing up and saying these things, but behind closed doors, your arm is twisted, the vise pressure of political pressure gets put on you, every trick in the book, psychological, and otherwise is to get us to abandon the working class.”
- AOC - Bernie Sanders Won’t Abandon the Working Class, 2020
 
To Wall Street and its backers, the solution to any price inflation is to reduce wages and public social spending. The orthodox way to do this is to push the economy into recession in order to reduce hiring. Rising unemployment will oblige labor to compete for jobs that pay less and less as the economy slows.
- Austerity American Style Part 22 - Forced Unemployment
 
Fed Chair Powell says
(1) interest rate hikes will inflict pain,
(2) no other choice exists.
 
Both points mislead.
(1) Pain will fall unjustly on those losing jobs (they did not cause an inflation the FED failed to prevent).
(2) Powell’s FED refuses to discuss price/wage controls that COULD DISTRIBUTE PAIN DIFFERENTLY.
- Richard Wolff on Facebook, 9/21/2022
 
THANK YOU President Obama for bailing out the BANKS, so the American People are the big owners, and thank you very much for the new Credit Card bill thats supposed to stop THE BIG BANKS from SCREWING US on on our credit cards starting next February.  I’ve had my CWA branded Union Plus Credit Card for at least 25 years, and don’t think I’ve ever missed a payment in all that time.  Saturday I got a letter from the bank that the INTEREST RATE IS GOING UP from 12% to 18% starting next month.
- Obama’s Big Business Bailout Screws The Public, 2009
 
The combination of lost jobs and millions of foreclosures means a lot of folks are homeless and hungry for the first time in their lives. One of the consequences of the recession that you don’t hear much about is the record number of children descending into poverty. The government considers a family of four to be impoverished if they take in less than $22,000 a year. Based on that standard, and the government projections of unemployment, it is estimated that the poverty rate for kids in this country will soon hit 25 percent.
- Poverty In Central Florida, November 2011
 
Today I had the opportunity to speak before Congress about a major driver of inflation that’s being ignored - price gouging corporations.
- Robert Reich’s Full Testimony Regarding Corporate Profits and Inflation to House Oversight Committee, September 21, 2022
 
Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates jumped by more than a quarter-point this week to their highest level since 2007 as the Federal Reserve intensified its effort to tamp down decades-high inflation and cool the economy.
- CBS News, Moneywatch, September 22, 2022
 
The only thing that can possibly transform the U.S. government to one that cares for the voters who elect it, rather than for the plutocracy that controls it, is a UNIFIED OPPOSITION BY ALL OF THE PEOPLE, irrespective of their social class or political beliefs. The energy driving such a mass movement must flow from the personal actions taken by each of its individual participants.
- Challenging America’s Plutocracy

---

Axios Macro

By Neil Irwin, Courtnay Brow
Axios
September 22, 2022

The overriding message out of the Fed’s communications yesterday was a simple one: Its leaders believe that some meaningful economic pain is necessary to bring inflation down, and they are willing to impose it.

It is a contrast with just three months ago, when the policymakers clung to a more optimistic story in which inflation resolves itself with a mere bumpy patch for the economy.

Why it matters: The Fed is now forecasting a meaningful rise in unemployment over the next year as it pushes interest rates to their highest levels since 2007 - which implies that it will not only tolerate a recession or near-recession, but see it as evidence of success.

“We have got to get inflation behind us,” chair Jerome Powell said in his news conference. “I wish there were a painless way to do that. There isn’t.”

The big picture: What matters most for both the economic and political outlook is who will feel that pain, and how. Already, some on the left are assailing the Fed for throwing workers under the bus in its inflation-fighting campaign.

Perhaps most prominently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted yesterday that she’s “been warning that Chair Powell’s Fed would throw millions of Americans out of work - and I fear he"s already on the path to doing so.”

If yesterday’s projections prove accurate meaning a 4.4% unemployment rate late next year, up from a low of 3.5% in July ח that would imply another 1.5 million Americans unemployed.

Hypothetically, unemployment could rise that much due to a mere soft patch in the economy. But in practice, historical examples of that playing out are scarce. Unemployment only rises that much in recessions.

There’s no doubt that in this scenario, moderately HIGHER UNEMPLOYMENT IS, IN FACT, A GOAL OF THE FED, with all the moral and political consequences that implies. But it goes too far to say workers bear the entire brunt of the war on inflation.

Tighter money from the Fed has its first-order effects through financial markets, as witnessed in the S&P 500’s 21% collapse this year.

Indeed, if you believe, as many people do, that the era of zero interest rates and quantitative easing made the rich richer and increased inequality, then the era of rate hikes and quantitative tightening ought to have the reverse effect.

There are many channels through which the Fed tightening can help bring down demand and inflation without people losing their jobs.

For example: An affluent investor decides they can’t afford a vacation home because of stock market losses. Or a business accepts lower profit margins because it believes it can’t raise prices in a slump.

Reality check: But just because those channels exist doesn’t mean job losses won’t be the most salient in how people experience the economy.

The bottom line: The 1.5 million people who may lose their jobs in the Fed’s scenario will experience a lot more pain than the tens of millions who experience a moderately lower balance in their investment portfolio.

SOURCE

Fleeing America Redux 6

These Are The Best Countries To Grow Old In

By Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
September 23, 2022

NORWAY is the best country for RETIREES.

In this year’s GLOBAL RETIREMENT INDEX by investment bank Natixis, the Scandinavian country takes first place.

As Statista’s Martin Armstrong DETAILS, for the ranking, 44 countries worldwide were assessed, according to factors such as health, finances in retirement, quality of life and material wellbeing in old age. An index score was then assigned, with 100 points the best possible result.

Iceland is one of the biggest fallers this year. With 79 points, the island nation is only good enough for third place in 2022. In last year’s ranking, Iceland scored four points more and held the top position.

Switzerland stubbornly holds on to second position despite a loss of points, as this infographic shows.

The UNITED STATES DOESN’T MAKE THE TOP TEN, only scoring 69 points and finding itself in rank 18 (11th for Finances in Retirement, 17th for Health, 21st for Quality of Life, and 30th for Material Wellbeing)…

SOURCE

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