Scott75

I think you know that fractional reserve banking means that banks don't lend out money they have on hand- instead, they're allowed to lend out money they don't actually have at all, which is why banks fear "runs on the bank", because they simply don't have all the money they lend out. If anyone should have the power to lend out money they don't have, it should be the governments themselves, as they are at least elected by the people, unlike banks. The way things are now, governments borrow money from banks (which banks get to make out of thing air) and governments actually pay interest on all this borrowed money. There's absolutely no need for this- governments can borrow from themselves if need be. This is what Abraham Lincoln did with his greenback dollars and it worked quite well.

I think a good start would be to stop allowing banks the ability to create money out of nothing. If anyone should have that power, it should be the government itself, as it would essentially be a tax, which governments do anyway. A good documentary on the economic system that the world uses, focusing in on the U.S. can be seen here:

It's certainly true that certain western -elites- have some skin in the game. Russia's victories in Ukraine are making it clear that the west can't just walk all over anyone it pleases. From what I've read, there's no way that Ukraine can win. Either Russian wins completely, or the west goes to war with Russia, in which case -everyone- loses.

So what? Are you saying that justifies the persecution of outliers? No, just that in most cases, people can say that their sex is either male or female. Again: SO WHAT IS YOUR POINT? My point is that when most people are asked if their sex is male or female, they shouldn't have to say neither, or some variation of that.

So what? Are you saying that justifies the persecution of outliers? No, just that in most cases, people can say that their sex is either male or female. Ah ok, yes, that's a good point.

I can agree with all of that, but from what I've read, most people are either biologically male or biologically female.

I definitely think that creating fair international trade rules sounds like a good idea, regardless of who's proposing the idea.

Escalation to what? Mutually assured destruction? Yep, I think that Biden was dangerously close to that and I suspect that Kamala may have continued along those lines. Trump, on the other hand, seems to be backing away from such a possibility. I don't see it that way. I see the conflict of Ukraine the same way most Americans saw the Cuban Missile Crisis. Did you know that of the 9 times the U.S. and the USSR almost started a nuclear war, 4 of those times were during the Cuban Missile Crisis? There's an article about it here: https://www.businessinsider.com/when-nuclear-war-almost-happened-2018-4?op=1 From what I've heard, it looks like there's already been once such incidence during the Ukraine war: https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/19/scott-ritter-72-hours/ There should be no more and it looks like Trump is taking steps to ensure this. Yeah, Trump's done a real doozy there, I agree. You may well be right. It probably depends on whether Kamala would have started a nuclear war with Russia.

I certainly believe that Trump is pretty bad. Still not sure he's worse than Kamala would have been though. At least he's still set on avoiding an escalation with Russia. Recently, Rubio said that the U.S. was ready to move on from the war in Ukraine if a peace deal wasn't worked out soon, but it looks like Trump has since been more ambiguous as to whether that might happen: https://apnews.com/article/rubio-ukraine-russia-war-trump-a90e3e49c276b75ed2542f2f0422ddd6

The New York Times' article on the United States' involvement in the war in Ukraine is the first time that it's been publicly revealed just how extensive it is. There have ofcourse been many articles from alternative media outlets that have provided a lot of the information in it, but it's one thing to be a small news outlet saying such things, and quite another for the New York Times to be doing it. I don't know about your assertions above, but there's certainly been plenty of evidence that Nuland played a pivotal role in destabilizing Ukraine way back in 2014 with the Euromaidan role. The following article, published the day Russia's military operation in Ukraine began, gets into a lot of what happened during that time: https://off-guardian.org/2022/02/24/timeline-euromaidan-the-original-ukraine-crisis/

He's right. While I do believe that tariffs can at times be good, it's apparently never worked out when U.S. Presidents have gotten heavy handed with them. I started a thread that gets into this, as well as a better solution to American problems that doesn't involve tariffs here:

I've been following Ellen Brown for a while- she seems to focus exclusively on monetary policy and I've never found a flaw in her reasoning. I admit I'm pessimistic about the possibility that Trump would follow her advice, but what matters is that her advice certainly can be followed, if not by Trump then some successor down the line. Here is her article: https://scheerpost.com/2025/04/07/ellen-brown-mckinley-or-lincoln-tariffs-vs-greenbacks/ Quoting from the introduction and conclusion of Ellen Brown's article: ** April 7, 2025 President Trump has repeatedly expressed his admiration for Republican President William McKinley, highlighting his use of tariffs as a model for economic policy. But as critics note, Trump’s tariffs, which are intended to protect U.S. interests, have instead fueled a stock market nosedive, provoked tit-for-tat tariffs from key partners, risk a broader trade withdrawal, and could increase the federal debt by reducing GDP and tax income. The federal debt has reached $36.2 trillion, the annual interest on it is $1.2 trillion, and the projected 2025 budget deficit is $1.9 trillion – meaning $1.9 trillion will be added to the debt this year. It’s an unsustainable debt bubble doomed to pop on its present trajectory. The goal of Elon Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) is to reduce the deficit by reducing budget expenditures. But Musk now acknowledges that the DOGE team’s efforts will probably cut expenses by only $1 trillion, not the $2 trillion originally projected. That will leave a nearly $1 trillion deficit that will have to be covered by more borrowing, and the debt tsunami will continue to grow. Rather than modeling the economy on McKinley, President Trump might do well to model it on our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, whose debt-free Greenbacks saved the country from a crippling war debt to British-backed bankers, and whose policies laid the foundation for national economic resilience in the coming decades. Just “printing the money” can be and has been done sustainably, by directing the new funds into generating new GDP,; and there are compelling historical examples of that approach. In fact it may be our only way out of the debt crisis. But first a look at the tariff issue. Trump Channels McKinley Trump said at a 2024 campaign event, “In the 1890s, our country was probably the wealthiest it ever was because it was a system of tariffs.” And in his second inaugural address on January 20, 2025, he said, “The great President William McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.” That may have been true for certain industries, but it did not actually hold for the broader population. The Tariff Act of 1890, commonly called the McKinley Tariff because it was framed by then Representative William McKinley, raised the average duty on imports to almost 50%. The increase was designed to protect domestic industries and workers from foreign competition, but the 1890s were marked by severe economic instability. The Panic of 1893 plunged the U.S. into a depression lasting until 1897. Unemployment soared to 18.4% in 1894, with over 15,000 businesses failing and 74 railroads going bankrupt. The stock market crashed, losing nearly 40% of its value between 1893 and 1894. Far from being the wealthiest era, this period saw widespread hardship that tariffs not only failed to prevent but exacerbated. Farmers and factory workers were hit particularly hard. The McKinley Tariff raised the cost of imported goods, squeezing rural and working-class budgets. Farmers faced a deflationary spiral as crop prices plummeted. Real wages for industrial workers stagnated or declined, with purchasing power eroded from high tariffs inflating the prices of consumer goods. In the 1860s, President Lincoln issued debt-free money in the form of unbacked U.S. Notes or “Greenbacks;” but new issues of Greenbacks were discontinued in the 1870s, and gold was made the sole backing of currency. The resulting economic distress fueled the Greenback movement, which sought a return to the “lawful money” issued by President Lincoln. The Greenbacks were considered lawful because they were issued directly by the government as provided in the Constitution, rather than by private banks. The Greenback Party faded, but its policies were adopted by the Populist Party and were pursued by a grassroots movement called “Coxey’s Army.” It staged the first-ever march on Washington in 1894, seeking a return to the Greenback solution. The march was considered the plot line for the 1900 classic American children’s story, The Wizard of Oz, with the scarecrow as the farmers, the tin man as the factory workers, the lion as William Jennings Bryan, and Dorothy as populist leader Mary Ellen Lease. Like the powerless Wizard, then-President Grover Cleveland turned the marchers away at the gate. (For a fuller history, see my book, The Web of Debt.) As with McKinley’s tariffs, President Trump’s tariffs are said by critics to be backfiring, contributing to a dramatic stock market drop and prompting retaliatory tariffs and trade withdrawals from other countries. Economists warn of broader fallout. According to a New York Times analysis on March 9, tariffs and retaliation could slash U.S. GDP growth by a full percentage point in 2025, and households are potentially facing an extra $1,000 annually in costs due to tariff-driven inflation. Internationally, the tariffs have triggered withdrawals and realignments. Reuters highlighted on March 10 that the U.S. stock market had lost $4 trillion in value as recession fears grew, and the S&P 500 lost $1.7 trillion just on April 3. [snip] HR 4052, titled “The National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2023,” is currently before Congress and has 47 co-sponsors. Like Roosevelt’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the bank is designed to be a source of off-budget financing, without adding new costs to the federal budget. For more information, see https://www.nibcoalition.com/. At the local level, state-owned infrastructure banks could do something similar. Currently our only state-owned bank is the Bank of North Dakota, but it is a very successful model that not only funds state infrastructure and development but generates income for the state and acts as a “mini-Fed” for local banks. For more information, see the Public Banking Institute website. The U.S. could also issue money directly, as Lincoln did in the 1860s with Greenbacks, and the German government did in the 1930s with Mefo bills, among other examples. The German government avoided speculative exploitation of the funds by issuing Mefo bills as payment for specific industrial output. The British did something similar in the Middle Ages with tally sticks issued as payment for goods and services, a system that lasted over 600 years. Keeping federal payments honest and transparent is possible today with modern IT technology, one of the assigned tasks of the DOGE IT team.The possibilities were framed in an editorial directed against Lincoln’s debt-free Greenbacks, attributed to the 1865 London Times (though not now to be found in its archives): Without trade wars or kinetic wars, President Trump is in a position to achieve the vision for which President Lincoln might have taken a bullet, through the time-tested expedients of publicly-issued money and publicly-owned banks. **

My understanding is that both methods worked.

Here's the first article, which is fully viewable for free: New York Times Fantasy Tale of Ukraine’s Almost Great Victory Over Russia | Larry Johnson My favourite quote from this article: ** Entous, in the closing paragraphs of Part 3, grudgingly admits the [2023 Ukrainian] counteroffensive was a clusterf*ck, but refuses to assign any blame to the incredible US military leaders. =But to another senior Ukrainian official, “The real reason why we were not successful was because an improper number of forces were assigned to execute the plan.” Either way, for the partners, the counteroffensive’s devastating outcome left bruised feelings on both sides. “The important relationships were maintained,” said Ms. Wallander, the Pentagon official. “But it was no longer the inspired and trusting brotherhood of 2022 and early 2023.”= ** Here's the second article: New York Times Admits Ukraine Was An American Run Proxy War | The Dissident Here's its concluding remarks: ** The report notes that Biden “crossed his final red line” in 2024 by “expanding the ops box to allow ATACMS and British Storm Shadow strikes into Russia” both crossing the ATACMS red line and the red line prohibiting direct U.S. attacks on Russia. The report also noted that “The(Biden) administration also authorized the C.I.A. to support long-range missile and drone strikes into a section of southern Russia used as a staging area for the assault on Pokrovsk, and allowed the military advisers to leave Kyiv for command posts closer to the fighting.” The fact that this did not spiral into World War three or a nuclear war is truly a miracle, but this report shows that Biden again and again crossed all of Russia’s red lines and authorized direct American attacks into Russian soil. Earlier in the report, it quotes an official who opposed giving Ukraine direct intelligence as to where Russian officials were located saying “Imagine how that would be for us if we knew that the Russians helped some other country assassinate our chairman” with another U.S. official saying “Like, we’d go to war”. But the Biden administration and the CIA took it way farther than this, actively working with Ukraine to strike into Crimea and later deep into Russian territory, even after the U.S. intelligence estimated a “50 percent chance” Russia would use Nuclear weapons over Crimea. Final Thoughts The truth about war will always come out, but only when it’s too late. This information would have been crucial during the Biden administration, but mainstream media denied these facts for years, only to admit that they were true all along -after the damage had already been done. ** The mainly paywalled one is here: Secret History: 'Bombshell' NYT Report Uncovers True Depth of US Involvement in Ukraine War | Simplicius Here's the introduction to this last one: ** The following is a detailed ~4,300-word premium article delving into the more insightful nuggets and revelations found in the New York Times’ epic new report on the American involvement in the Ukrainian war. Some have dismissed the NYT report as chaff, filled with obvious realities long known to most. Which is why I’ve specifically concentrated on the rarer insights, and overlooked gems that provide a deeper understanding of just how enmeshed NATO and the US have been in the war since the beginning. This includes major confirmations of my reporting on the Delta Leaks from 2023, as well as fascinating intersections with Grayzone’s leaks about parallel and rival British secret programs to shore up Ukraine. NYT just released a bombshell exposé which goes into more detail than ever before on the secret US military and intelligence operation using Ukraine as a proxy, which consisted of the combined assets from the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency working in concert with military officials to provide everything from targeting and kill-chain control, to direct frontline tactical maneuver advisement—amongst other things. Of course, most of it is news only to the NPCs who’ve subsisted on main courses of MSM consumption. If you’ve been a subscriber here for a while, you will have already known everything ‘uncovered’ in the above exposé—which we’ll get in to later—but it’s at least refreshing to see the admissions finally rolling out, as well as more fleshed out details of the involvement. The article was allegedly the result of more than a year’s worth of research, comprising over 300 interviews “with current and former policymakers, Pentagon officials, intelligence officials and military officers in Ukraine, the United States, Britain and a number of other European countries.” =While some agreed to speak on the record, most requested that their names not be used in order to discuss sensitive military and intelligence operations.= It begins by describing how in the early months of the war, two Ukrainian generals embarked on one of the most ‘secretive’ missions of the war, to Clay Kaserne—the HQ of US Army Europe—in Wiesbaden, Germany. Right up front they make one of the most critical admissions of the conflict: =But a New York Times investigation reveals that America was woven into the war far more intimately and broadly than previously understood.= In particular, pay attention to the last pair of sentences: =Side by side in Wiesbaden’s mission command center, American and Ukrainian officers planned Kyiv’s counteroffensives. A vast American intelligence-collection effort both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field.= The last part in particular is what we had already uncovered here with the Delta Leaks two years ago, which exposed how the US was collating vast reams of actionable targeting data and transmitting it to Ukraine. We later learned through the Google-founded Project Maven that AI was utilized to further sift through these endless satellite/SAR data streams to identify ‘points of interest’. [snip] The article is more interesting for the small nuggets it reveals, rather than the grand scheme that had long been obvious to the astute not drinking from the propaganda fountain. For instance, it describes how early ‘successes’ in the US-Ukraine partnership led to a kind of honeymoon phase which culminated in the offensives of 2022, but soon after had curdled beneath growing resentment between the two sides. =The Ukrainians sometimes saw the Americans as overbearing and controlling — the prototypical patronizing Americans. The Americans sometimes couldn’t understand why the Ukrainians didn’t simply accept good advice. Where the Americans focused on measured, achievable objectives, they saw the Ukrainians as constantly grasping for the big win, the bright, shining prize. The Ukrainians, for their part, often saw the Americans as holding them back. The Ukrainians aimed to win the war outright. Even as they shared that hope, the Americans wanted to make sure the Ukrainians didn’t lose it.= **

On March 29, the New York Times published an article from a journalist named Adam Entous with the same name as this thread. I have a subscription to the New York Times, which allows me to share 10 articles a month. Here is the unlocked version: The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine | New York Times A great deal of what it revealed was already revealed through leaks, but this is the first time that a mainstream publication is actually coming forward with this. 3 journalists that I follow have come out with articles getting into what it had to say. The first 2 are free articles, the third is mostly behind a paywall, but still worth the first free part I think. I'll add the articles that talk about it later, as this site apparently has an issue with some of the text, so putting it in slowly.