Scott75

Something to be said about a division of labour. Canada should focus on what it can make at a competitive price. I think Dave Chappelle did a good skit on this:

Zelensky's already rejected it: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/zelensky-calls-putin-s-three-day-ceasefire-offer-manipulation/ar-AA1DQUqu

What are you talking about? "The west" was not walking all over anyone here. Russia started this war and has been pushing it for over a decade now with the take over of Crimea, then their shadow war in the Donbas to full scale invasion. No, the U.S. started this war when it helped overthrow Viktor Yanukovych during Euromaidan back in 2014, the elected President of Ukraine at the time. There's a great article on the subject if you'd like to learn more. It can be seen here: https://off-guardian.org/2022/02/24/timeline-euromaidan-the-original-ukraine-crisis/ After that happened, Crimeans held a referendum wherein they decided to request to rejoin Russia. Russia granted their request and annexed Crimea shortly thereafter. A good article on that can be seen here: https://www.mintpressnews.com/return-russia-crimea-story-referendum-lives-since/262247/ A little after, the Donbass region rebelled, instigated by the new Ukrainian regime's intolerance towards Russian ties and the Russian language. Russian historian Evgeny Norin wrote an article on this shortly after Russia's military operation in Ukraine began which I found to be quite compelling on how the Odessa massacre played a pivotal role in this. His article can be seen here: https://www.rt.com/russia/554860-burned-alive-2014-odessa/ There's an old saying that lies can get half way around the world before truth gets the chance to get its pants on, but after a while, people can finally learn of it. There was a recent court case that shows a bit of the truth of this massacre, which can be seen here: https://alethonews.com/2025/03/18/european-court-of-human-rights-finds-ukraine-guilty-of-the-odessa-massacre/ From what I've read, the main reason the U.S. and its western allies isn't giving much more munitions to Ukraine is that they're running low. I think that's a good thing, because I don't think any amount of munitions would get Ukraine to win. As I've said in the past, I firmly believe that either Russia achieves its objectives or everyone loses via a nuclear war. If I'm right, I think it should be obvious as to which outcome any rational person would prefer.

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. **