Image (source here) is of a section of the Yarlung Zangbo river, which forms the deepest canyon on the planet.
The idea of doing any sort of general preamble for China is a little absurd given how ubiquitous they are in economics and politics, so I'm just going to hop right in to a recent news item of interest: China is working on the construction of an enormous new hydropower project in Tibet (@Metabola@hexbear.net had brought this up just before the last news mega ended).
This project (consisting of, I believe, five dams) will be overall three times larger than the Three Gorges Dam, will cost $167 billion, and will supply 70 GW (by itself more power than several significant countries generate). There are, of course, meaningful concerns regarding concerning environmental damage, but helping to avert catastrophic climate change seems worth it. The news coming out of the clean energy sector of China has getting only more encouraging over the last few years, even as the fully neoliberalized Europe and America descend into climate skepticism and refuse to adequately fund projects that could avert the worst of climate change.
Geopolitically, given recent India-China tensions (for example, sending Pakistan the equipment to shoot down Indian jets, as well as run-of-the-mill border tensions) one expects India to not receive the news very well, as the river upon which the dam is being constructed proceeds to flow into Arunachal Pradesh. But from what I understand of the Indian hydrological situation (which is, admittedly, not much), I don't think enough of the water in India comes from the river for China to hypothetically cause any kind of water shortages in India - the monsoons seem to supply plenty of freshwater all by themselves. Nonetheless, as with all Chinese news, wild fearmongering abounds.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Article
Wait, so if I'm reading this correctly it's the tariffs are still up, paid fully by Americans? How does that benefit Trump lmao.
This is just lib spin relying on some somewhat over-simplified liberal economic understanding of tariffs. The importer pays the tariffs in America. This provides revenue for the government offsetting to some degree the inflationary effect of government spending, of course companies selling these goods have to charge higher prices which negates the revenue. Generally the exporting country can sell its goods elsewhere and doesn't need to take a hit to their margins to offset the higher cost of the goods their selling, but in some cases they might choose to do so to protect market share, which would in effect be the exporter paying the tariffs. Basic lib economics doesn't really model things in enough detail to capture some of the caveats, but conventional wisdom is that yes, the economic burden of the tariffs is borne entirely by the importing country.
Generally speaking, levying a tariff without facing retaliatory tariffs is a win in a trade war, but of course with countries like the Philippines and Indonesia there is very little they import from the US that they have domestic firms competing to produce so retaliatory tariffs wouldn't help their industry and would only hurt their economy. The only reason they would be used is as a bargaining chip to reduce tariffs levied by the US.
The kind of Government 'spending' OBBB did i.e. tax cuts for the rich aren't too inflationary, the rich are hoarders, they like financial assets, not real goods. The tariff revenue is very much a drain on demand and the U.S. will face consequences for it.
They will need to find something acceptable i.e. the currency they want, which is typically the Dollar or Euro. Would Indonesian exporters like to have Guinean Franc? Probably not, they will demand Dollars, Euros or their own currency. Global demand is limited, this is why export led growth is considered beggar-thy-neighbor, not every country can have a trade surplus.
This isnt true. The rich tend to buy up assets with their money. They don't tend to accumulate large quantities of pure cash. In fact, even if you have pure cash deposits in your bank account, the bank itself is likely using that to buy assets or lend.
So tax cuts for the rich cause inflation for assets. This increases the aparant wealth of the country, since "real" GDP and "real" value of money is typically measured using the consumer price index (so inflation occuring only in assets looks like a real gain). But it is not a real improvement, unless you are able to sell off those inflated assets to other countries, which the US is actually able to do.
That is because the US exports a lot of money with its trade deficit, so people around the world have a lot of dollars, which they then invest in US assets hoping to cash in on its ever inflating asset prices.
Is this a ponzi scheme? Yes. Is the ponzi scheme fueled by constantly shoving more wealth to the already wealthy? Yes. Are we currently seeing a level of inequality and ponzi inflation not seen even in 2008? Also Yes.
So basically, in a wierd way, the US cutting taxes on the rich is sucking up the wealth of the entire world and putting it in a bubble.
Banks can't buy just any assets, they usually only purchase Gov securities, lend in interbank market, take free interest on reserves or other bonds. They don't lend reserves or customer deposits. They lend to who they perceive as creditworthy without worrying about reserves, which is why QE didn't do much to increase lending other than drop long term rates.
See
What I was talking about was commodity prices. And yes true, sometimes managed money does flow into real commodities see early 2000s but this doesn't last too long.
True but it depends on the type of assets. Commodity price bubbles can blow up GDP. US Healthcare bloat increases GDP. However, certain financial asset purchases like shares or bonds don't increase GDP. But yeah even the last one can increase balance sheet net worth.
There is definitely a two way relationship. The US can only export Dollars because rest of the world is "willing" to accept it.
I do not think it will be that effective. It mostly only affects US residents.
I'm not as familiar with modern banking if this is true. Because this kind of just confuses me. Aren't deposits counted as reserves? Isn't all lending by banks subject to reserve requirements? Or did reserve requirements just get removed?
I looked online on the fed website and
What the fuck.
Yes.
The new measure is Liquidity Coverage Ratio for High Quality Liquid Assets, Central Banks take these and easily provide reserves to banks which they can use to make payments to other banks. There is also interest on reserves.
When you transfer money between banks, reserves are used for interbank clearing. For making loans they just add numbers to your account. Only when you withdraw to cash or transfer to other banks or the Government are reserves used.
The two sources of widely used money in the economy are Government spending and Commercial Bank lending. The Central Bank guarantees commercial bank money by making sure payments clear 1:1 to other banks money and Government money ie par clearing.
And even transfers to other banks may not instantly alter reserves at cental bank since they use netting. Ultimate net settlement is done by Central Bank.
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/career-map/sell-side/capital-markets/net-settlement/
Art of the deal