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1
Ian Welsh1 day ago
Open Thread[image: Open Thread]
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts. AKA: no Ukraine or Covid.
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Sooner is better. As soon as you can is best.
2
Ian Welsh2 days ago
Addendum To My Fifteen Points On The Ukraine War[image: Addendum To My Fifteen Points On The Ukraine War]
Decided a little more needed to be added to the post, but email went out
just before I added it, so I’m putting it here.
*Addendum:*
My argument, from the beginning, has always been simple: Russia can
mobilize more men than Ukraine and has reason to do so. Unless they are
weaker internally/China than I think or NATO intervenes more than I think,
they will eventually have a conventional military victory.
Of course, I could be wrong, but nothing which has happened yet has changed
my view. What has happened is that NATO was wi... read more
Noise.
3
Ian Welsh2 days ago
Fourteen Points About the Future of the Ukraine War[image: Fourteen Points About the Future of the Ukraine War]
Let’s lay it out.
First: the next two to three months belong to Ukraine. They have the
initiative and new Russian troops will take time to arrive.
Second: Russia is almost certainly mobilizing more than 300K troops, the
bill allowed for one million. The more they mobilize the more training time
will be required; not just because there are more troops but because they
are reaching deeper into reserves to people who have been out for longer.
Third: When enough of those troops reach the front, Russia will stop their
territo... read more
Putin is wrong on Ukraine.
The energy infrastructure of the "West" will lose fossil carbon.
4
Rationality Is A Process, Not A Conclusion (Nuclear Weapons Edition)
[image: Rationality Is A Process, Not A Conclusion (Nuclear Weapons
Edition)]
A lot of mistakes come from assuming rationality means “thinks the same way
I do” rather than “reasons from premises I might not share.”
Left than 1/1000 economists predicted the financial collapse, because they
reasoned from assumptions like “the market is self-correcting” or “housing
prices never go down.” (Sometimes both at the same time, which is rarely
rational.)
Back in 2008 I wrote an article saying the next war w/Russia would be over
Sevastopol/Crimea. I was told by Eurocrats that was impossible,... read more
Rationality is defined by the thinker's axioms.
Russia has not the axioms of NATO.
5
Ian Welsh5 days ago
Vaccine And Mask Effectiveness[image: Vaccine And Mask Effectiveness]
I have mostly avoided the vaccine debate, but let’s take a brief pass.
This isn’t because vaccines don’t work.
This doesn’t mean I’m entirely happy with MRNA vaccines, I’m not and I
think there’s some validity to them having negative side-effects. I’m even
more unhappy with the uneven way they were applied, which allowed for Covid
to gain repeated mutations which made vaccines less effective. I personally
would have taken Sputnik-V if it were allowed in my country.
But the vaccines are protective against death and serious illness is
indicate... read more
Zero Covid is not possible.
Strategies to reduce infection do work mostly.
6
Ian Welsh1 week ago
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 2, 2022[image: Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 2, 2022]
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 2, 2022
by Tony Wikrent
*Global power shift as USA and west commit suicide by neoliberalism*
*The U.S. Is Winning Its War On Europe’s Industries And People *
[Moon of Alabama, via Naked Capitalism 9-27-2022]
*The epidemic*
*“‘Other Places in the Country Didn’t Do This’: How One California Town
Survived Covid Better Than the Rest”*
[Politico, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 9-27-2022]
t
“Even with its world-class technologies, the university’s labs didn’t have
equipment ... read more
Other news.
The Times should be accessible to you as it was.
7
Open Thread
[image: Open Thread]
Use to discussThe topics unrelated to recent posts. No Covid or Ukraine
related discussion.
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Sooner is better. As soon as you can is best.
8
Ian Welsh1 week ago
America Defeats Germany Again[image: America Defeats Germany Again]
There’s a good article in Der Spiegel on the German energy/industrial
crisis which is worth your time.
Basically industries which have high energy costs are being crushed. In
particular this means chemical and automotive, both big in Germany, but
extends far further.
(Indeed, the chemical industry was essentially invented by Germany in the
19th century, and American industry exists because the patents were broken
in WWI and not reinstated after the war.)
This has a lot of knock-on effects, not only in price increases (which are
big), but sho... read more
International relations are difficult.
9
Ian Welsh1 week ago
The Attacks On Nord Stream I & II[image: The Attacks On Nord Stream I & II]
Let’s point out the obvious. Russia had no reason to attack its own
pipelines. If it doesn’t want gas to go thru them it just turns off the
tap. Sabotage to the pipelines weakens Russia’s position, since it will be
months before they can offer to turn fuel back on, which they would have
wanted to offer during the winter in order to pressure Germany in specific
and Europe in general. Anyone who says or believes that Russia did this is
either a moron, a propagandist or has had their mind so twisted by
Russia-hatred they can no longer think s... read more
Possibly big oil.
10
Ian Welsh1 week ago
No The Solution To Ending Mandatory Masking Isn’t "Well YOU can still mask”[image: No The Solution To Ending Mandatory Masking Isn’t]
Few things make more more tired or contemptuous of someone than, when a
masking mandate is removed, someone saying “well, you still have the choice
to wear a mask, we’re not effecting you” or some variation.
Masking is not primarily about protecting yourself. Only a respirator and a
well-fitted N95 offer good protection from Covid if other people aren’t
masking.
Now that chart may be making you feel safe if you go quickly in and out of
businesses, but realize that there are multiple people in those buildings
and that in... read more
Reduced contagion is not zero.
11
Ian Welsh1 week ago
How Peace In Ukraine Has Been Made Almost Impossible[image: How Peace In Ukraine Has Been Made Almost Impossible]
To make peace either one side has to be unable to fight any more, or both
sides must want to make peace.
One problem in Ukraine is that both sides (and I don’t mean Ukraine and
Russia, but Ukraine/NATO v. Russia) have put themselves into a trap where
the leaders of various countries can’t afford to lose the war, because they
will lose power.
Support for Ukraine is popular in Europe, but it is also true that such
support has cost the Europeans a great deal, and that ordinary Europeans
have seen bad economic times as a re... read more
Only the headline matters.
12
Ian Welsh2 weeks ago
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 25, 2022[image: Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 25, 2022]
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 25, 2022
by Tony Wikrent
*The Making Of “LINCOLN” Behind The Scenes*
[TW: A enthralling discussion of how they strove to make the film as
authentic as possible. The clock ticking heard in the background of some
scenes, for example, was a recording made of a watch Lincoln had actually
owned. And Daniel Day Lewis describing how he researched and came to love
Lincoln as a person is simply marvelous.]
*Light Under a Bushel: Eric Foner, interviewed by Nawal Arjini*
[The New... read more
More domestic news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0CQsifJrMc
13
Ian Welsh2 weeks ago
Open Thread[image: Open Thread]
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts. (No Ukraine, in other
words.)
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Sooner is better. As soon as you can is best.
14
Ian Welsh2 weeks ago
Effects of the 300K Russian Mobilization[image: Effects of the 300K Russian Mobilization]
Putin has called up 300K Russian reservists. These are people who had
military service, but unlike the National Guard in the US or other similar
reserve forces they do not attend regular training.
I’m seeing both reports of Russian men fleeing the country and of
volunteers not in the call-up reporting. Bear in mind that Russia has
somewhat more than 2 million reservists, this is a little over one-seventh
of the men they can call up. The quality of these forces will be low, but
they aren’t raw recruits.
Russia’s primary liability i... read more
Russia is slow off their mark.
Their lines are thinly held.
15
Ian Welsh2 weeks ago
Machiavelli On Putin[image: Machiavelli On Putin]
Back in 2014 I wrote an article which started from the problems that Russia
was happening at the Sochi Winter Olympics. It wasn’t running smoothly, and
that was interesting and a warning of the limits of what Putin had done in
Russia. The Beijing Olympics ran almost like clockwork, the 1980 Moscow
Olympics worked relatively well, but not Sochi.
Russia’s got problem, big ones, and Sochi has highlighted them. Putin has
failed to transition the economy from resources, and he has not kept
corruption under limits: corruption is one thing, that the system ca... read more
Putin has not governed the middle population.
16
Ian Welsh3 weeks ago
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 18, 2022[image: Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 18, 2022]
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 18, 2022
by Tony Wikrent
*Economics as cultural warfare*
*Our Ancestors Thought We’d Build an Economic Paradise. Instead We Got
2022 *
Brad DeLong [Time, via Naked Capitalism 9-11-2022]
Adapted from DeLong’s new book, Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic
History of the Twentieth Century, published by Basic Books….
…the first half of the Big Story of twentieth-century economic history is a
triumphant one. Friedrich von Hayek was a genius. He saw clearly that the
market e... read more
The left and the right object to the center.
17
Ian Welsh3 weeks ago
Open Thread[image: Open Thread]
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent comments.
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Sooner is better. As soon as you can is best.
18
Ian Welsh3 weeks ago
Understanding and Surviving the Post-Prosperity Era[image: Understanding and Surviving the Post-Prosperity Era]
I don’t usually write about my personal life much, but today will be an
exception.
The other day I had to go the hospital, to a cancer clinic (nothing to
sweat, I have the type of cancer with a 98% survival rate) and the clinic I
was at had only one doctor. It normally has three or four. I asked the
nurse, and she told me that the others were out with Covid.
Emergency departments across Canada are having shut-downs because they
don’t have enough nurses. Covid, either temporary, or nurses having quit
because they can’t ta... read more
If developments follow this path billions will die.
19
Ian Welsh3 weeks ago
Lazy V.S. Uninterested & Quiet Quitting[image: Lazy V.S. Uninterested & Quiet Quitting]
Being lazy and being uninterested are two different things. When I was a
kid I was usually reluctant to do most farm work, because it was boring,
but would go for 10 miles runs or long runs, or read multiple books in a
day (which many people who love farm work would hate doing.)
Most of what passes for lazy is uninterested in drag.
The old maxim: “work is what you wouldn’t do for free” is part of it, but
there are four types of activities on this spectrum.
1. “I enjoy doing it for itself and would do it even if I wasn’t getting
... read more
"Incentives work, but they work best at getting people to do things which shouldn’t be done in the first place."
20
Ian Welsh3 weeks ago
Solutions: Cash and Cashlessness[image: Solutions: Cash and Cashlessness]
Recently I saw the observation that you can track gentrification by the
spread of shops that won’t take cash.
This is a problem because a lot of people don’t have credit or debit cards,
even still. It’s easy to wind up “unbanked”. It’s also the case that
cashless societies have walked a fair way down the authoritarian path.
The solution is simple enough:
1. make it illegal for retail stores to refuse cash.
2. Create a national “cash card”, similar to gift cards, and mandate
that it must be accepted by any retailer, offline or onli... read more
Cashless stores are just a nuisance.
They will not survive in a broken society.
There must be functioning banks,
Use the Times.
The access works again.
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