Natylie Baldwin's Blog, page 110
January 13, 2024
Ben Aris: West moves closer to seizing CBR’s frozen $300bn of reserves
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.comBy Ben Aris, Intellinews, 1/2/24
The US is pushing for the expropriation of $291bn in Russian Central Bank reserves frozen in the West and urging the EU to transfer the funds to Ukraine.
The move marks a shift in the US stance on the use of these seized assets, with discussions taking place within the G7 in December to formulate a strategy for seizing Russian reserves by February 24, 2024, the second anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, The Bell reports.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, after a December visit to Washington, said that he had discussed the issue of transferring Russian reserves to Ukraine and believes that this money should be spent on protecting Ukraine.
Following the start of the war, approximately €260bn of the Russian Central Bank’s assets were frozen in G7 countries, mostly by Euroclear in Belgium, as well as other EU countries and Australia, comprising nearly half of Russia’s $643bn in international reserves as of February 2022.
In December both the FT and then The New York Times reported that the United States has changed its point of view on the use of Russian Central Bank reserves seized in the West and is now, albeit gently, insisting that this money should be transferred to Ukraine.
The majority of these funds, over €210bn, are located in EU countries, with €191bn held in the Euroclear depository in Belgium. Another €19bn is frozen in France, €7.8bn in Switzerland and only €4.6bn in the US.
While Western officials are considering various options for the use of these funds, including supporting Ukraine’s economy and financing its budget deficit, concerns about potential repercussions, both economic and geopolitical, accompany the decision.
The EU, particularly Germany, France, and Italy, has been reluctant due to fears that such a move could jeopardise financial stability and undermine trust in the euro’s status as a reserve currency, thus driving up borrowing costs for the EU that could cost it billions in the long run. The European Central Bank (ECB) has been especially outspoken in its opposition to any scheme that illegally seizes the CBR’s money.
An alternative scheme proposed by the EU is to impose a 100% tax on the profits these assets earn, which is legally much easier to do but would only generate about €3bn a year. The assets of the Russian Central Bank could also be used as collateral for borrowing by the Ukrainian government on the international market in another option.
Another issue being discussed is whether this money can be used only to restore the Ukrainian economy and finance the Ukrainian budget deficit or can be spent directly on the purchase of weapons, NYT sources say.
If the assets are seized one of the legal arguments to justify this is that the Russian money will be seized in lieu of reparations for the destruction Russia’s aggression has caused, but if this argument is used then the CBR’s assets could only be legally used for reconstruction and not the purchase of weapons to sustain the current conflict.
A written American presentation to the G7, seen by the NYT, proposes to allocate money in successive tranches through the World Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) – in this case there will be no talk of direct purchases of weapons, as the mandates of both development banks precludes them from dealing in arms.
A US official told The New York Times that the issue of using Russian reserves will remain on the agenda even if Republicans agree to unblock a $50bn aid package for Ukraine.
But momentum to expropriate Russian reserves is clearly building as Western countries cast about for alternative ways to fund Ukraine’s war and subsequent reconstruction. Ukraine fatigue has become palpable in the last six months of 2023 and financial support packages from both the US and the EU have run aground in the face of opposition but politicians. However, a renewed effort to pass these stalled packages will be made in January and February.
As the threat of expropriation builds, the Kremlin has made it clear it will retaliate by expropriating more Western assets that remain in Russia. When asked by journalists in the last days of December if there is an expropriation list, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied: “There is,” without giving more details.
Seizing the CBR funds would be entirely unprecedented. Other central banks have been frozen in other sanction regimes – including funds from the Central Banks of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Venezuela – but the money has never been seized and almost always returned to the object of the sanctions after the sanction’s regime is lifted. (Iranian funds remain frozen after 45 years but remain the property of Iran.) Central bank funds have always been seen as sacrosanct assets in the international financial system.
For third countries, including China, India and Saudi Arabia, which between them control more than $5 trillion in international reserves, the confiscation would send a signal that it is not safe to keep money in Europe and if they exit that could dramatically weaken the euro and the EU’s financial system.
As discussions unfold within the G7, the decision on the fate of the Russian reserves will be crucial, with potential repercussions on international financial dynamics and geopolitical relations for years to come should the CBR money be seized.
January 12, 2024
State Dept confirms death of US journalist (Gonzalo Lira) jailed by Ukraine – TASS
Gonzalo Lira. © YouTube / Gonzalo Lira
RT, 1/12/23
Chilean-American blogger Gonzalo Lira has died in a Ukrainian prison, Russian news agency TASS said on Saturday, citing a response it received from the US Department of State. The blogger’s death was first announced by his family on Friday.
Lira, 55 at the time of his death, lived in Kharkov and blogged as ‘CoachRedPill,’ but switched to YouTube commentary after Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. He was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) last May and accused of “discrediting” the Ukrainian leadership and the military.
“I cannot accept the way my son has died. He was tortured, extorted, incommunicado for 8 months and 11 days and the US Embassy did nothing to help my son. The responsibility of this tragedy is the dictator Zelensky with the concurrence of a senile American President, Joe Biden,” his father Gonzalo Lira Sr. wrote in a note published by The Grayzone.
Lira Sr. also reached out to X host Tucker Carlson, confirming the death of his son in Ukrainian custody. He had spoken to Carlson about the case in early December.
READ MORE: Who was the ‘tortured’ US journalist who died in Ukrainian captivity?
Lira resurfaced from custody in late July with a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), revealing his torture in jail and attempts by the SBU to extort him for money. He said he was trying to flee to Hungary and seek asylum. “Either I’ll cross the border and make it to safety, or I’ll be disappeared by the Kiev regime,” he wrote, in his last public message.
Two days later, a source confirmed to RT that Lira had been caught and imprisoned by Ukrainian authorities.
According to a handwritten note Lira’s sister received on January 4, provided to the Grayzone by her father, Gonzalo Lira Jr. had severe health problems caused by pneumonia and a collapsed lung, which began in mid-October. Ukrainian prison authorities only acknowledged the issue on December 22, and stated he would undergo surgery.
Following his father’s appearance on Carlson’s show, X owner Elon Musk personally inquired about Lira’s case with both US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, apparently to no effect.
Lira was a national of both the US and Chile. According to his thread from last July, the Chilean Embassy in Kiev at least tried to help him, while the US mission gave him only “empty bromides.” Lira suggested that this was because Victoria Nuland – currently the acting deputy to Secretary of State Antony Blinken – hated him personally.
Kyle Anzalone: An Increasing Number of Americans See Foreign Policy as a Top Issue
By Kyle Anzalone, Libertarian Institute, 1/2/24
According to a new poll, the number of voters who view foreign policy as a top issue has doubled during the past year. Joe Biden has defined his presidency by waging a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, backing the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, and engaging in a military buildup in the Asia-Pacific to fight a future war with China.
The Associated Press survey found, “About 4 in 10 US adults named foreign policy topics in an open-ended question that asked people to share up to five issues for the government to work on in the next year.” Last year, only 18% of Americans said foreign wars were a top issue.
About 20% of Americans are concerned about overseas wars, up from five percent. Five percent of Americans mentioned the Israel war in Gaza. Four percent named the war in Ukraine, down from six percent in the previous year.
President Biden is struggling in recent polling. Two demographics that Biden won in 2020 now prefer Trump. A USA Today poll found Trump at 39% ahead of Biden at 34% among Latino voters. The trend was repeated among young voters who preferred Trump, 37%, to Biden, 33%.
Younger voters are the most likely Americans to object to President Biden’s support for the Israeli war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. As the Israeli military operations in Gaza indiscriminately kill and starve Palestinian civilians, more Americans are protesting Biden’s support for Tel Aviv. The President has recently been confronted with chants of “Genocide Joe.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Biden has been more involved regarding Israel than any other issue and the White House has no plans to place conditions on the weapons sent to Tel Aviv for use amidst its brutal war.
“Biden has involved himself more intensely in the conflict than almost any other issue in three years in office,” the outlet reports. “But there is no serious discussion inside the administration of a meaningful change in policy, like cutting off the arms supply to Israel. Instead, Biden remains determined to navigate the crisis within the crisis by using the credibility he earned through steadfast support of Israel to shape its next chapter.”
January 11, 2024
January 10, 2024
January 9, 2024
Kyle Anzalone: Ukrainians Turn Against War But Are Afraid to Speak Out
Photo by Nati on Pexels.comBy Kyle Anzalone, Libertarian Institute, 1/2/24
As the war in Ukraine nears the end of its second year, Ukrainians are turning against fighting and towards diplomacy. One former official said that Ukrainian soldiers are currently fighting and dying for nothing.
The Times reports, “Many Ukrainians are growing tired and weary of the war. One Ukrainian military source admitted that average Ukrainians were talking of a truce yet there were questions around what the price of the truce would be.”
Most people in Ukraine wanted a truce but were “afraid to admit it to themselves,” Mykhailo Chaplyha, a political commentator and former vice-ombudsman of Ukraine, said. There was an atmosphere of “total mistrust and fear” in Ukraine and anyone who dared to think of a truce would immediately become an “outcast and a traitor.”
After Russia invaded Ukraine, President Zelensky targeted dissidents using the security state. The Ukrainian media and Zelensky’s main political opposition has been outlawed. Kiev has targeted branches of the Orthodox church perceived to be too close to Moscow.
A former Ukrainian official said that Zelensky was losing support. He said the West told Kiev not to give up, but there was no war strategy and soldiers were “sent to the front line to die.” The official continued, “It is nonsense to send in our soldiers to die if we don’t have enough armament and resources to win militarily. What is the strategy, to keep us dying for what? And not less important — where is our diplomacy?”
In the early months of the war in Ukraine, the West pushed Kiev to abandon talks with Moscow. The US and its allies promised Ukraine that it would provide Kiev with all the support it needs to win the war.
However, as the war nears its third year, the Western weapons stockpiles are approaching depletion. The White House has run out of funds for arming Ukraine, while future aid is being used as leverage in an immigration debate.
Since October 7, the Biden administration has started to prioritize arming Israel over Ukraine. Israel has received tens of thousands of 155 mm shells, a high-demand weapon for both Kiev and Tel Aviv.
January 8, 2024
January 7, 2024
Thomas Harrington: To Starve our Feudal Overlords of Attention
Though the focus of this article is on Covid policy, this point is very applicable to other areas, such as foreign policy:
As Covid showed us, an unusually high number of those trotted out to us by our “noble” class as possessing inordinate wisdom are little more than self-interested charlatans. But they retain much of their prominence because many people, having been told again and again that their own observational and reasoning skills are terminally inadequate, hand over those tasks to those presented to them as inordinately wise.
By Thomas Harrington, Brownstone Institute, 12/31/23
If there is one subliminal message we are sent again and again in the course of our days, it is that almost everything we think or do is measurable, and that by carefully collating all the data relating to these measurements, wise “experts” will give back to us the means to streamline our various life processes, and in this way, bring us to ever greater levels of health and happiness.
This is, to take just one of many examples that could be adduced, the premise behind instruments like the Fitbit. You hand over all of your private bodily data to the experts and they will give you back the outlines of a “data-based” philosophy for living a more healthy and happy life.
Whatever else they do with that personal data—like for example selling it to companies interested in bombarding you with new fears and would-be desires, or conjoining it to other databases in ways that might eventually cause you to not be able to get a decent mortgage rate or affordable health insurance—well, I guess it’s best not to ask.
No, your job is to be a “good kid” who blocks all that out and optimistically fixates on how much healthier and happier that device will make your life.
But have you ever noticed that those same commercial entities are much less interested in talking about the many other types of data they undoubtedly have collected from and about us?
For example, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything about how much extra profit they gain—while effectively robbing us of the same number of hours that we could use to make money, think, or simply relax—by keeping us on hold for hours at a time in the hopes of having a simple query answered, or problem they caused rectified?
Or how many billions they earn by having a poor Filipino or Indian with nothing more than a smattering of English and a script to repeat over and again—as opposed to someone earning a living US wage who is actually trained to resolve problems through dialogue—on the other end of the line?
Or exactly how long they have to keep us on hold to get us fed up enough to end the call in frustration, something which, of course, effectively exonerates them from the need to redress the problems caused by their poor work or poor service?
Or how long it takes you to cease and desist in your desire for a resolution of your problem when wrestling with a stupid AI chatbot that mindlessly runs you through circle after stupid useless circle?
The big holding companies that now control the majority of the services we use and the retail outlets where we buy most of our consumer goods never talk about these things, and needless to say, do not allow the commercial media they effectively control to fixate on these subjects.
And why should they?
Over the last several decades, the BlackRocks and State Streets of the world have steadily lowered the bar in terms of the attention we can expect after turning our money over to them.
During the first years of what I’m sure they surely categorize as a wonderful revolution in efficiency, you could still find a telephone number or two that would lead you to a living breathing human being more or less capable of responding to your needs.
But since the so-called pandemic, even that’s gone.
And I don’t think I’m alone in believing that eliminating the last vestiges of the belief that a merchant has a moral responsibility to back up their products and services was one of the key goals of those who planned this contrived social emergency.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that the governments we sustain with our taxes have gone down the same path, treating the copious information they collect on us as their own private patrimony, erecting barrier after barrier to prevent us, the stupid louts we are, from seeing what they know about the actual results of their brilliant programs, or how they are otherwise spending our money.
Here again, sadly, but also understandably given the day-to-day difficulty of their lives, most people eventually desist in their efforts to get answers to these queries.
And if you are one of the stubborn few who continue to insist on getting reasoned responses, and begin to enlist fellow citizens to your cause, well, they have a solution for that too. They’ll use the media they control to slap a pejorative label on you (racist, populist, anti-vaxxer, it really doesn’t matter which), then send an algorithmically-directed lynch mob your way to execute your social death.
There is a name for a social order of this type. It’s called feudalism.
In the feudalism we learned about in school the lords lived behind thick manor walls that separated them from the serfs in the field. Sure, if a dangerous enemy came along they’d open the gates and let the serfs huddle there until the danger passed.
But in general, most of the traffic went in the other direction; that is, the lord would go out of the gates to take what he wanted from the serfs: their daughters for sex, their sons for soldiering, and of course the fruits of their labors for their well-cladded warehouses within the gates.
And what if the serfs didn’t like this and some of the braver ones got the idea of scaling the walls and taking justice into their own hands?
Well, that’s when the boiling oil and rocks would usually rain down on them from the ramparts.
Today, our lords ostensibly live among us. But it’s not really so.
Over the last three to four decades, and with a special intensity since September 11th, 2001, they have built cyber-barriers that are every bit, if not more, impregnable than the walls that protected their medieval progenitors. And they have actively fomented the idea through their control of the media, that, as wrong as we might feel it to be, there is nothing we can do about it.
And maybe they’re right.
But then again, the first feudalism eventually did end.
How?
When growing numbers of the serfs realized that the threats “out there” that the lord claimed he was protecting them from with his occasional offers of refuge and safety within the walls, were not nearly as bad as he and his noble friends, and their in-house clerics said they were.
And with this realization they began to turn their eyes away from the thick walls that towered over their hovels and toward the horizon leading to the burghs, where one could live much more fully on the basis of his beliefs, skills, and convictions.
Our modern age, undergirded by the idea of linear time and linear progress, has an obvious bias toward doing; that is, toward resolving problems through purposeful, forward-looking actions.
This can obscure the fact that many improvements to our vital circumstance can also be achieved, not by doing more, but by simply ceasing to do many of the counterproductive things we have, out of laziness or unconsciousness, turned into key elements of our daily life.
Of all of these negative habits, perhaps none is more counterproductive than passively accepting the parameters of “reality” as articulated by supposedly wise and benevolent others. There are, of course today, as there were during medieval feudalism, a number of wonderfully wise and benevolent people out there. But in times of cultural disintegration such as our own they tend to be rather few and far between.
As Covid showed us, an unusually high number of those trotted out to us by our “noble” class as possessing inordinate wisdom are little more than self-interested charlatans.
But they retain much of their prominence because many people, having been told again and again that their own observational and reasoning skills are terminally inadequate, hand over those tasks to those presented to them as inordinately wise.
How about if we stop doing that?
If we do, we’ll strengthen ourselves and our fast-fading skills of discernment while depriving the self-interested charlatans of most, if not all, of their remaining aura of respectability.
January 6, 2024
RT: Putin’s Remarks About the West as Enemy and the State of the Russian Economy While Visiting a Military Hospital
January 1, 2024
Putin names Russia’s real enemies
Ukraine itself is not an enemy, while Western elites backing it are, the Russian president has said
Ukraine is a mere tool in the hands of the collective West, which has been using it to fight Russia, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. He made the remarks at a military hospital in Moscow where he was meeting Russian servicemen wounded during the Ukraine military operation.
Asked about the enduring Western support for Kiev, the president said the elites of the collective West were actually the true enemy of Russia, rather than Ukraine itself.
“The point is not that they are helping our enemy, but that they are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with [Ukraine’s] hands, that’s what it’s all about,” Putin stated.
The conflict between Moscow and Kiev was orchestrated by Western elites, who seek to defeat Russia, he suggested. However, the collective West has been unable to achieve its goals, with the failure already showing in the change of its rhetoric on the conflict, the president explained.
Those who only yesterday were talking about the need to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia are now looking for words on how to quickly end the conflict.
“We want to end the conflict too, and as quickly as possible, but only on our terms. We have no desire to fight forever, but we are not going to give up our positions either,” Putin said.
The battlefield situation is now changing despite all the aid Kiev has been receiving from the West, the president observed. Russia has been effectively outproducing the whole West militarily, he suggested, with the country’s output destined to grow even further.
“Despite the fact that from time immemorial [the West] has had such a goal – to deal with Russia, it looks like we will deal with them first,” Putin stated.
“You probably see it on the battlefield that they are gradually ‘deflating’. When a shell flies, it is probably difficult to tell whether they are ‘deflated’ or not, but in general you probably know: the situation on the battlefield is changing. And this is happening despite the fact that the entire so-called civilized West is fighting against us,” he told the servicemen.
According to Russia’s latest estimates, over 380,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded during the conflict. Ukraine has also sustained heavy materiel losses, with an estimated 14,000 tanks and other armored vehicles destroyed. Nearly 160,000 of the troop losses were during Kiev’s botched counteroffensive, launched in early June last year, Moscow says.
***
January 1, 2024
Russian economy is in a ‘structural shift’ – Putin
Western sanctions have forced the country to focus more on manufacturing than energy exports, and the change has been beneficial, according to Russia’s president
https://www.rt.com/business/590006-russia-economy-shift-putin/
The Russian economy is in good shape and is rapidly expanding despite pressure from Western sanctions, President Vladimir Putin said during his visit to Vishnevsky Military Hospital in Moscow on Monday.
The head of state noted that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 3.5% in 2023, which is a very promising development after the 2.1% contraction it suffered in 2022.
“Our GDP, the key indicator that shows how much our economy has produced… grew 3.5% in 2023. What this tells us is that our economy is functioning steadily. We recuperated our losses and moved forward. This is fundamental,” he stated, noting that while there are still problems facing the economy, like rising inflation, “we’re keeping everything under control.”
Putin noted that this growth stems from changes the country’s economy has gone through over the past year.
“We have never seen anything like that before: while we used to make money from oil and gas [exports], 2023 was the first year when our processing, our manufacturing sector has been growing much faster and generated much more revenue. What we’re witnessing are structural shifts in our economy, and they are very important,” he stated.
The president added that the West’s Ukraine-related sanctions, including Russia’s disconnection from the SWIFT financial messaging system, and the sanctions-induced exit of some large Western companies from the country’s market, have failed to cause lingering harm to Russia’s economic stability.
“The companies that left our market expected the Russian economy to crumble, our businesses and manufacturing to stop running, and thousands of Russians to lose jobs. Our adversaries expected people to take to the streets begging for bread… [but] our economy is stable and our financial system is stable as well,” he stated. Putin noted that unemployment rate in Russia is currently at its historic low of 2.9%, while real household incomes and real disposable income have both substantially increased.
The president also noted that Western departures were beneficial for Russia’s domestic companies.
“Everyone thought that our manufacturing would stop because [the West] stopped supplying components. It didn’t happen. Yes, they created problems, but these problems are being overcome… When certain foreign firms have left, our businesses immediately took over,” Putin said, adding that Russia has enough talent, qualified specialists and managers to “ensure that everything runs smoothly.”
