Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 27, 2023

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 27, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

War

Economic Warfare Is Cruel and Useless 

Daniel Larison [via Naked Capitalism 8-22-2023]

Economic warfare can cause destruction and dislocation, but it doesn’t deliver the political and policy goods that sanctions advocates promise. Even if one accepts the twisted ends-justifying-the-means logic of using the economic weapon on an entire country, sanctions policies almost never reach their stated goals. When supporters of economic warfare claim that sanctions “work,” all that they mean is that it causes harm to the targeted economy.

Yes, it obviously does that, but that is not what anyone, including sanctions advocates, used to think of as sanctions success. If economic warfare can’t compel any desired changes in the targeted regime’s behavior, it doesn’t work except as the crudest bludgeon. It is a measure of how useless sanctions are that this is what their defenders are reduced to arguing.

Global power shift

[Twitter-X, via Naked Capitalism 8-25-2023]

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[TW: Just a matter of time until Nigeria and Venezuela are invited to join BRICS (expanded). 

Lavrov Explained How Russia Envisages BRICS’ Global Role

[Andrew Korybko's Newsletter, via Mike Norman Economics, August 21, 2023]

This is Russia’s most direct debunking of the Alt-Media Community’s false perceptions about BRICS thus far. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov published an article in South Africa’s Ubuntu Magazine on the eve of the 15th BRICS Summit that’ll be hosted in that country. Titled “BRICS: Towards a Just World Order”, he explained how Russia envisages its global role and built upon the efforts earlier this month by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov to clarify false perceptions of BRICS. This includes the Alt-Media Community’s (AMC) most popular one imagining that it’s driven by de-dollarization and is resolutely anti-Western.

Lavrov began by describing the global systemic transition to multipolarity, particularly its economic-financial dimensions, so as to set the context within which this week’s BRICS Summit is taking place. Of pertinence, he mentioned that “not only Russia, but also a number of other countries are consistently reducing their dependence on the US dollar, switching to alternative payment systems and national currency settlements.”

The abovementioned trend isn’t de-dollarization like the AMC understands it to be in the sense of advancing a political decision aimed at phasing out the use of that currency in totality. Rather, it can more accurately be described as diversification from the dollar in order to hedge against forex and other risks posed by dependence on it. While they might appear identical to the average member of the AMC since both goals decrease the dollar’s share in the economy, their motivations are entirely different....

Does India’s disruption of the global rice market pose new threat to food security? 

[East Asia Forum, via Naked Capitalism 8-21-2023]

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 20, 2023

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 20, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

Climate and environmental crises

‘This Is Huge’: Judge Sides With Montana Youths in Historic Climate Ruling 

[Common Dreams, via Naked Capitalism 8-15-2023]

Climate Jurisprudence Gets a New Blueprint 

Gabrielle Gurley, August 17, 2023 [The American Prospect]

A Montana judge delivers a stunning, historic decision on the Mountain West state’s culpability for surging climate dangers that hit young people hard.

Montana Climate Lawsuit: Youths Win Landmark Case 

[Rolling Stone, via Naked Capitalism 8-15-2023]

Biden DOJ: “No Constitutional Right To A Stable Climate”

David Sirota, August 16, 2023 [The Lever]

As a heatwave scorched America with record-breaking temperatures this June, the Biden administration attempted to block a landmark climate lawsuit by declaring that “there is no constitutional right to a stable climate system,” according to court records reviewed by The Lever.

The assertion in Juliana v. United States — which echoed both the Trump and Obama administrations’ legal claims in the same long-running case — was part of the Justice Department’s latest attempt to halt the suit brought by children who assert that the Constitution requires the federal government to maintain a climate that supports human life.

That suit’s momentum could be bolstered by a separate legal victory in Montana this week, but neither the victory nor the intensifying climate disaster appear to have stopped the Biden administration’s crusade to kill the federal case. Indeed, Biden’s Justice Department filed its most recent motion to dismiss the case in the same week that large swaths of the country were under extreme heat warnings.

That filing came as President Joe Biden has refused repeated calls to declare a climate emergency, and as his administration backed a court case designed to accelerate the construction of a massive fossil gas pipeline, despite scientists’ climate warnings. Biden’s administration has also declared that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s scientific report about climate change “does not present sufficient cause" to halt a massive expansion of fossil fuel drilling.

The world’s infrastructure was built for a climate no longer existing

Bill Haskell [Angry Bear, via Mike Norman Economics, August 15, 2023]

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 13, 2023

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 13, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

Heather Cox Richardson, August 12, 2023 [Letters from an American]

In Marion, Kansas, yesterday morning, four local police officers and three sheriff’s deputies raided the office of the Marion County Record newspaper; the home of its co-owners, Eric Meyer and his 98 year old mother, Joan Meyer; and the home of Marion vice mayor Ruth Herbel, 80. They seized computers, cell phones, and other equipment. Joan Meyer was unable to eat or sleep after the raid; she collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at her home.

The search warrant alleged there was probable cause to believe the newspaper, its owners, or the vice mayor had committed identity theft and unlawful computer acts against restaurant owner Kari Newell, but Magistrate Laura Viar appears to have issued that warrant without any affidavit of wrongdoing on which to base it. Sherman Smith, Sam Bailey, Rachel Mipro, and Tim Carpenter of the nonprofit news service Kansas Reflector reported that federal law protects journalists from search and seizure and requires law enforcement instead to subpoena materials they want.

On August 2, Newell had thrown Meyer and a Marion County Record reporter out of a meeting with U.S. Representative Jake LaTurner (R-KS), and the paper had run a story on the incident. Newell had complained on her personal Facebook page,

On August 7, Newell publicly accused the newspaper of illegally getting information about a drunk-driving charge against her and giving it to Herbel. Eric Meyer says the information—which was accurate—was sent to him and Herbel over social media and that he decided not to publish it out of concerns it was leaked to help Newell’s estranged husband in divorce proceedings. Those same concerns made him take the story to local police. Newell accused the newspaper of violating her rights and called Meyer to accuse him of identity theft….

The Marion County Record will sue the city and the individuals involved in the raid, which, the paper wrote in its coverage, “legal experts contacted were unanimous in saying violated multiple state and federal laws, including the U.S. Constitution, and multiple court rulings.” “Our first priority is to be able to publish next week,” Meyer said, “but we also want to make sure no other news organization is ever exposed to the Gestapo tactics we witnessed today. We will be seeking the maximum sanctions possible under law.”

Executive director of the Kansas Press Association Emily Bradbury noted “An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an infringement on the rights of journalists but an assault on the very foundation of democracy and the public’s right to know. This cannot be allowed to stand.”

Global power shift

Oil sanctions have failed after budget revenues surge as Russia completes the switch from European to Asian markets 

[Intellinews, via Naked Capitalism 8-6-2023]

Russia overtakes Germany to become fifth biggest economy in the world in GDP on a PPP basis 

[BNE Intellinews, via Naked Capitalism 8-9-2023]

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 6, 2023

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 6, 2023
by Tony Wikrent

Climate and environmental crises

Is A Mega Ocean Current About to Shut Down? 

[Scientific American, via Naked Capitalism 7-30-2023]

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Commentary:

[Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 7-30-2023]

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South America is topping 100 degrees, even though it’s winter 

[Washington Post, via Naked Capitalism 8-3-2023]

I searched hell on Earth for a story. What I found will haunt me forever 

[Los Angeles Times, via Naked Capitalism 7-30-2023]

As a kid in Miami, I thought I knew heat.

In the mornings before school, the windows of my parents’ house would be fogged with humidity, as if the swamp of South Florida were trying to press its way in.

As an adult in Los Angeles, I thought I knew heat — that sizzling dryness that arrives each summer and fall, curing the grasses and prickling the skin.

But never have I felt anything like Death Valley last week, where the temperature climbed to 128 degrees, within striking distance of the all-time world record the valley set in 1913 — 134 degrees.

It was the kind of heat that burns your eyeballs, that shocks your brain and makes your body feel nauseous and weak….

We can’t afford to be climate doomers 

Rebecca Solnit [Guardian, via Naked Capitalism 7-31-2023]

The Case Against Both Climate Hope and Climate Despair 

Liza Featherstone, July 31, 2023 [The New Republic]

There’s ample fodder for both optimism and pessimism on climate—but all that matters is what we do.