Trade could be about to hit the proverbial political fan as US election pressure is being brought to bear on institutions that regulate, including those that regulate commerce, by boosting shipping lines’ ability to challenge rules.
Trump’s radical reforms could put a spanner in US supply chains
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Caracas, December 4, 2023 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelans voted to support the country’s sovereignty claim over the Essequibo Strip in a non-binding referendum on Sunday.
Venezuela: Referendum Delivers Overwhelming Backing for Essequibo Claim
An air of bonanza has raised the projections of the Exxon Mobil corporation, which accumulated around 414 billion dollars in 2022, an unprecedented income in its history, which represents 44.8% more than the previous year. It is a gigantic increase if compared to its crisis in 2020, when its losses put its place in the stock market in jeopardy. Also from the research of that American corporation, it is said that Guyana could become “the country that produces the most barrels of oil per inhabitant in the world, surpassing Kuwait, in that case, when measuring the wealth per capita of its 800 thousand inhabitants, it would become a rich country, since in 2021 its GDP increased by 57.8% and in 2022 by 37.2%”.
Guayana Esequiba: Geo-economics of an Occupation
To counteract the Soviet influence in Europe, at the end of WWII the United States created a network of pro-American elites. Thus, the CIA financed the Congress for Cultural Freedom in which many European intellectuals participated. Among the most distinguished ones were Raymond Aron and Michel Crozier. Responsible for designing an anti-communist ideology welcomed by the conservative right as well as the socialist and reformist left of Europe during the Cold War, these networks were reactivated by the Bush administration. Today, they are the European sounding board of American conservatives.
When the CIA financed European Intellectuals
Related:
Tom Braden, Real-Life Dad Behind ‘Eight Is Enough’ and ‘Crossfire’ Pundit, Dies
As a CIA official in the early 1950s, Mr. Braden was head of the International Organizations Division, which promoted anti-communism by secretly funding groups including the AFL-CIO and the National Student Association, sending the Boston Symphony Orchestra on a European tour and publishing Encounter magazine. After Ramparts magazine exposed the CIA’s system of funding anti-communist front organizations all over the globe, Mr. Braden defended the program in an article in a 1967 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. He said the secret program was his idea.
Yves here. We’re featuring a post from openDemocracy on Argentina’s primary results that had far-right candidate Javier Milei beating the candidates of the two parties that have been in power for two decades. The post is telling, and not in a good way. Milei does advocate extreme views (not that he can go as far as he likes since even if he won a plurality again, he would still be leading a coalition government). And too many commentators forget that voters regularly move to the right in bad economic times, which Argentina is certainly suffering. It’s that the piece depicts him as a Trumpian outsider/madman, when Nick Corbishley’s post right after the primary results were in describes Milei’s considerable, if sometimes seamy, establishment connections…including to the Kochs:
How Javier Milei Upset Argentina’s Political Status Quo
Previously:
Is Argentina’s presidential frontrunner Javier Milei US’ “boy?” Rejects China+Mercosur, embraces $$
Orinoco Tribune Editor: There Was a Coup Against Pedro Castillo in Peru + Some Notes
As American monopolies fix prices higher and higher, the Federal Reserve bizarrely has concluded that employment is to blame for inflation. For months, Fed chairman Jerome Powell has increased interest rates in the hopes of throwing workers out in the street and thus supposedly reducing prices. While I’m sure that corporate, donor-bought congressmembers appreciate his struggles in the class war against the poor and middle class, it’s all a crock.
Monopolies Cause Inflation, While Fed Chairman Powell Blames Workers
When we speak of concepts like “totalitarianism” and “corporatism,” it is often assumed that fascism stands very far from the liberal market society that went before it, and which we are still experiencing today. But if we pay closer attention to Italian fascism’s economic policies, especially during the 1920s, we can see how some combinations typical of both the last century and our own were experienced already in the first years of Benito Mussolini’s rule. A case in point is the association between austerity and technocracy. By “technocracy,” I refer to the phenomenon whereby certain policies that are common today (such as cuts in social spending, regressive taxation, monetary deflation, privatizations, and wage repressions) are decided by economic experts who advise governments or even directly take over the reins themselves, as in several recent cases in Italy.
When Liberals Fell in Love With Benito Mussolini
NPR is a problem. Good and proper leftists who read Current Affairs may already realize this. “Of course. NPR (Neoliberal Propaganda Radio) is a bastion of establishment groupthink and orthodoxy that gives cover to imperialism and corporate capitalism.” By contrast, readers on the Right who find themselves consuming Current Affairs may have an equally disdainful but entirely different critique. “Of course. NPR is an elitist liberal propaganda cult that serves as a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, is openly hostile to any conservative voices, and ought to be defunded!”
NPR is Not Your Friend
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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