Instruction: Write an article about: Richest 1% took 2/3rds of global wealth since 2020 – twice as much as 99% of population earned. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: inequality, Oxfam, poverty, taxes

Output:
In 2020 and 2021, the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population took nearly two-thirds of all new wealth – six times greater than the wealth made by the poorest 90% of workers. And while billionaires get richer, global poverty is increasing, Oxfam warns.

In the past decade, the richest 1% of people on Earth sucked up half of all new wealth. In 2020 and 2021, the richest 1% took nearly two-thirds of all new wealth – six times greater than the wealth made by the poorest 90% of the global population.
“Since 2020, for every dollar of new global wealth gained by someone in the bottom 90%, one of the world’s billionaires has gained $1.7 million”, wrote Oxfam.
In the meantime, global poverty is getting worse, not better.

These shocking statistics were published in “Survival of the Richest“, a report authored by Oxfam, an international humanitarian organization dedicated to fighting poverty and hunger.
The document details how, while billions of working people across the planet suffer from hunger, insecurity, rising costs of living, and decreasing wages, “The very richest have become dramatically richer and corporate profits have hit record highs, driving an explosion of inequality”.

Oxfam wrote:
The report was published on January 16, to coincide with the beginning of the World Economic Forum (WEF), an annual meeting that brings together the world’s capitalist elites.
Oxfam explained, “As billionaires, government leaders and corporate executives jet in to meet atop their mountain in Davos, Switzerland, the world faces a dramatic, dangerous and destructive set of simultaneous crises. These are having a terrible impact on the majority of people” on the planet.
According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), human development is decreasing in more than 90% of countries.
In 2022, the human development index declined for two years in a row – the first time ever, since the UNDP began calculating it 32 years before.
In its “Survival of the Richest” report, Oxfam asserts that the “very existence of booming billionaires and record profits, while most people face austerity, rising poverty and a cost-of-living crisis, is evidence of an economic system that fails to deliver for humanity”.

Oxfam argues that one of the main reasons for this breath-taking increase in inequality is a big decline in taxation.
Since the rise of the neoliberal phase of capitalism in the 1980s, taxes on the rich have significantly dropped all across the world, in Western countries, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Today, billionaire oligarchs pay almost no taxes. Elon Musk has paid a tax rate of just 3.2% in recent years, while Jeff Bezos paid less than 1%.

“Top rates of tax on income have become lower and less progressive, with the average tax rate on the richest falling from 58% in 1980 to 42% more recently in OECD countries”, Oxfam reported. “Across 100 countries, the average rate is even lower, at 31%”.
“Rates of tax on capital gains – in most countries the most important source of income for the top 1% – are only 18% on average across more than 100 countries”, the humanitarian organization added.
The data clearly show that, as taxes on the rich declined, the percent of income that went to the top 1% increased. Fewer taxes mean the rich get richer.

Oxfam noted, “Taxes on the richest used to be much higher. In the United States, the top marginal rate of federal income tax was 91% from 1951 to 1963; top inheritance tax rates stood at 77% until 1975; and the corporate tax rate averaged just above 50% during the 1950s and 1960s. There were similar levels of tax in other rich nations”.
It pointed out that “these high levels of tax … existed side by side with some of the most successful decades of economic development we have seen”.
The humanitarian organization called for governments around the world to boost taxes on the rich, and to invest more money in social services and programs that help working people.
“To break the discredited cycle of never-ending billionaire wealth accumulation, governments need to address all the many ways in which the economy is rigged in their favour, including on labour laws, privatization of public assets, CEO compensation and much more”, Oxfam urged.
It also highlighted how inequality exacerbates the global climate change crisis.
Oxfam said its research shows that “a billionaire emits a million times more carbon than the average person, and billionaires are twice as likely as the average investor to invest in polluting industries like fossil fuels”.


Instruction: Write an article about: West’s neoliberal ‘age of abundance’ is over, as war and sanctions boomerang home. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: capitalism, China, economics, Emmanuel Macron, France, neoliberalism, podcast, Russia

Output:
France’s President Macron warned of the end of “an era of abundance.” Western wars and sanctions are boomeranging back at home. The neoliberal phase of capitalism is collapsing, having lost cheap Russian energy and cheap labor and consumer goods from China, and with regime-change ops failing.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron, a former banker, warned that “we are living the end of what could have seemed an era of abundance,” calling it “a kind of major tipping point or a great upheaval.”
Western wars and sanctions are boomeranging back at home. The neoliberal phase of capitalism is collapsing.
Neoliberalism has lost the key pillars it was built on: cheap energy and raw materials from Russia, cheap labor and consumer goods from China, an unsustainable bubble of household debt, low to zero interest rates, and Washington’s ability to organize regime-change operations in any country where a government tried a socialistic or state-led economic model.

Russian gas exports to Europe, by country, from 1970-2005, via ResearchGate
China’s GDP per capita from 1978–2017, via Unicef
US household debt from 1945 to 2018, via the New York Federal Reserve
US household debt from 2000 to 2021, via Statista


Instruction: Write an article about: Most important stories of 2023: Gaza, Ukraine, China, BRICS, dedollarization, bank crises, inflation. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Argentina, Brazil, BRICS, China, crypto, de-dollarization, debt, dollar, Donald Trump, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fed, Federal Reserve, Gaza, Gina Raimondo, Imran Khan, India, interest, Iran, Israel, Janet Yellen, Javier Milei, Jerome Powell, Joe Biden, Lula da Silva, Narendra Modi, Pakistan, Pedro Castillo, Peru, Russia, Sam Bankman-Fried, Saudi Arabia, SBF, UAE, United Arab Emirates

Output:
These were the most important geopolitical and economic issues of 2023, including the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, US-China tensions, BRICS expansion, growing de-dollarization, inflation crisis, crypto fraud, bank crashes, European de-industrialization, and more.

These were the most important geopolitical and economic issues of 2023, including Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and NATO’s failure to defeat Russia in Ukraine, expansion of BRICS and growth of the de-dollarization movement, inflation crisis and rising interest rates, crypto fraud scandals and several bank collapses, stagnation and de-industrialization in Europe amid an escalating US tech war on China, and much more.
Journalist Ben Norton reviews the chaotic year.

Washington Post: “More than 20,000 dead in Gaza, a historic human toll”
Geopolitical Economy Report: “Gaza is one of the most heavily bombed areas in history: Israel has turned Gaza into one of the most heavily bombed areas in history, according to a report in the Financial Times. Top UN experts warn that the Palestinian people are at risk of genocide”
United Nations: “Two Thirds of Gaza War Dead Are Women and Children, Briefers Say, as Security Council Debates Their Plight”
Save the Children: “Gaza: 3,195 children killed in three weeks surpasses annual number of children killed in conflict zones since 2019”
Reuters: “Gaza war ‘most dangerous ever’ for journalists, says rights group”
Wall Street Journal: “More U.N. Workers Killed in Israel-Gaza War Than in Any Single Conflict”
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Gaza: UN experts call on international community to prevent genocide against the Palestinian people”
Haaretz: “‘We’re Rolling Out Nakba 2023,’ Israeli Minister Says on Northern Gaza Strip Evacuation”
South Africa’s Department of International Relations & Cooperation: “South Africa approaches the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention with respect to acts committed by Israel in the context of its attacks on Gaza”
READ | The Republic of South Africa institutes proceedings against the State of Israel and requests the Court to indicate provisional measures. pic.twitter.com/du9DaHUF0H
— DIRCO South Africa (@DIRCO_ZA) December 29, 2023

Geopolitical Economy Report: “US blocks Gaza peace proposal at UN for 3rd time, holding world hostage: The US government has paralyzed the United Nations, voting against the rest of the world and preventing peace in Gaza by vetoing three different resolutions in the Security Council. Meanwhile, Washington continues giving weapons to Israel”
Wall Street Journal: “U.S. Sends Israel 2,000-Pound Bunker Buster Bombs for Gaza War”
Washington Post (2022): “U.S. wants Russian military ‘weakened’ from Ukraine invasion, [Defense Secretary Lloyd] Austin says”
New York Times (2022): “Commando Network Coordinates Flow of Weapons in Ukraine, Officials Say: A secretive operation involving U.S. Special Operations forces hints at the scale of the effort to assist Ukraine’s still outgunned military”
The Economist (2023): “Putin seems to be winning the war in Ukraine—for now”
The Telegraph (2023): “Ukraine is losing, but the UK must stand by it”
AFP / France 24 (2023): “‘We’re losing’: Ukrainians reel from war chief’s stalemate warning“: “The frontline between the Ukrainian army and Russian forces occupying the east and south of the country has barely moved since last November [2022]”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “Ukraine war is frozen, no territorial changes expected, says Council on Foreign Relations chief, while dismissing peace talks: The president of the US government-linked Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, said the proxy war in Ukraine is frozen and he expects no territorial changes in the next year of fighting. At the same time, he dismissed the possibility of peace negotations”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “West sabotaged Ukraine peace deal with Russia, admit Zelensky official and Germany’s ex leader: Russia wanted to sign a peace deal with Ukraine in March 2022, but NATO countries sabotaged it, according to Germany’s former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and the parliamentary faction leader of Zelensky’s political party, Davyd Arakhamia”
To the last Ukrainian: People with "amputated limbs, practical blindness, absence of one lung or eye and bilateral deafness" can be conscripted into military based on draft of new law on mobilization.
"The large draft law on mobilization exempts from military service on the… pic.twitter.com/c1yS7P1Wui
— Ivan Katchanovski (@I_Katchanovski) December 25, 2023

Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “US/France threaten intervention in resource-rich Niger: Fears of war in West Africa: The US and France have threatened intervention to re-install a pro-Western regime in Niger, which produces uranium needed for nuclear energy, has untapped oil reserves, and hosts strategic US drone bases and French troops. This follows coups led by nationalist, anti-colonial military officers in West Africa”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “Burkina Faso’s new president condemns imperialism, quotes Che Guevara, allies with Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba: Burkina Faso’s new President Ibrahim Traoré has vowed to fight imperialism and neocolonialism. Pledging a ‘refoundation of the nation’, invoking revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara, and quoting Che Guevara, his government has allied with Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba”
The Economist (2023): “After Niger’s coup, the drums of war are growing louder“: “Canvassing by Premise Data, a polling firm, for The Economist in the first survey conducted since the coup found that 78% of respondents support the actions of the junta and that 73% think it should stay in power ‘for an extended period’ or ‘until new elections are held'”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “Richest 1% took 2/3rds of global wealth since 2020 – twice as much as 99% of population earned: In 2020 and 2021, the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population took nearly two-thirds of all new wealth – six times greater than the wealth made by the poorest 90% of workers. And while billionaires get richer, global poverty is increasing, Oxfam warns”
Oxfam (2023): “Survival of the Richest” report
When you exclude China's remarkable growth, the economic gap between "emerging and developing" countries in the Global South and rich imperialist countries in the North has not changed in over a decade.
Global inequality is not getting better over timehttps://t.co/Jd70GJOB3F pic.twitter.com/9kIYCSGP5T
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) June 14, 2023

Geopolitical Economy Report: “BRICS expanding into economic powerhouse: Petrodollar under threat: In its South Africa summit, BRICS invited six new members: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The bloc now represents 37% of global GDP (PPP), 40% of global oil production, and roughly 1/3rd of global gas production, challenging the US petrodollar system
UPI: “Argentina’s Milei says his nation won’t join with China, Russia in economic alliance”
Geopolitical Economy Report: “BRICS New Development Bank de-dollarizing, adding Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe as members: The BRICS bloc’s New Development Bank, an alternative to the US-dominated World Bank, is de-dollarizing its loans, promoting local currencies, and adding new members: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe”
Geopolitical Economy Report: “‘World becoming more multipolar’, Western hegemony declining, admits European Central Bank: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde acknowledged “the tectonic plates of geopolitics are shifting faster” and “we may see the world becoming more multipolar”, with the decline of US dollar hegemony, war in Ukraine, and rise of China”
CNBC: “Calls to move away from the U.S. dollar are growing — but the greenback is still king”
Foreign Policy: “A BRICS Currency Could Shake the Dollar’s Dominance: De-dollarization’s moment might finally be here”
Geopolitical Economy Report: “Countries worldwide are dropping the US dollar: De-dollarization in China, Russia, Brazil, ASEAN: The global de-dollarization campaign is gaining momentum, as countries around the world seek alternatives to the hegemony of the US dollar. China, Russia, Brazil, India, ASEAN nations, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are now using local currencies in trade”
Bloomberg: “Dollar’s Share in Central-Bank Reserves Declines, IMF Data Shows”
Geopolitical Economy Report: “‘Dollar suffered stunning collapse in 2022’: Share of global reserves fell to 47%, decreasing at 10 times rate: ‘The dollar suffered a stunning collapse in 2022 in its market share as a reserve currency’, largely due to US sanctions, falling from 73% of reserves in 2001 to 47% in 2022, according to economist Stephen Jen. Countries in the Global South are seeking economic alternatives in a multipolar world”
Geopolitical Economy Report: “US Congress plots to save dollar dominance amid global de-dollarization rebellion: The US Congress held a hearing titled ‘Dollar Dominance: Preserving the U.S. Dollar’s Status as the Global Reserve Currency’, as countries around the world join the de-dollarization rebellion against Washington’s ‘exorbitant privilege'”
Geopolitical Economy Report: “Sanctions ‘undermine hegemony of dollar’, US Treasury admits: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted to CNN that Washington’s unilateral sanctions on countries around the world ‘could undermine the hegemony of the dollar'”
Washington Post: “U.S. intensifies push to use Moscow’s $300 billion war chest for Kyiv: Considerable amounts of Kremlin funds are frozen in Western nations, and the Biden administration is increasingly interested in using them to benefit Ukraine”
New York Times: “U.S. and Europe Eye Russian Assets to Aid Ukraine as Funding Dries Up: Despite legal reservations, policymakers are weighing the consequences of using $300 billion in Russian assets to help Kyiv’s war effort”
Wall Street Journal: “Central Banks Look to Increase Gold Reserves as Geopolitical Worries Mount: Up to 24% of central banks were looking to raise gold holdings in 2023, according to a new survey from the World Gold Council”
St. Louis Fed: Federal Funds Effective Rate data and chart
Geopolitical Economy Report (2022): “US Federal Reserve says its goal is ‘to get wages down’: US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said his goal is “to get wages down,” complaining workers have too much power in the labor market. Economist Michael Hudson says this is “junk economics,” and corporate monopolies are driving inflation, not wages”
The Guardian (2023): “Greedflation: corporate profiteering ‘significantly’ boosted global prices, study shows: Multinationals in particular hiked prices far above rise in costs to deliver an outsize impact on cost of living crisis, report concludes”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “Corporate profits were biggest driver of inflation in Europe, IMF admits: Rising corporate profits have caused 45% of inflation in Europe, compared to 40% for rising import prices and just 15% for workers’ wages, according to research by IMF economists”
UN Global Crisis Response Group (2023): “A world of debt: A growing burden to global prosperity” report
Economists Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram Development and Change journal (2023): “Chronicles of Debt Crises Foretold”
The Economist (2023): “Africa faces a mounting debt crisis: Rising rates are hurting some of its brightest economic stars”
Reuters (2023): “Debt squeeze leaves sub-Saharan Africa’s governments in fiscal bind”
Reuters (2023): “Ethiopia becomes Africa’s latest sovereign default”
France 24 (2023): “G77+China summit in Cuba calls on Global South to ‘change the rules of the game‘: The G77+China, a group of developing and emerging countries representing 80 percent of the world’s population, kicked off a summit in Cuba Friday with a call to “change the rules of the game” of the global order”
DW (2023): “G77 summit in Cuba calls for new global order: The G77 is a bloc of countries from the Global South representing 80% of the world’s population. At the summit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world is failing developing countries”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “4 US banks crash in 2 months: Banking crisis explained by economist Michael Hudson: Economist Michael Hudson discusses the collapse of four US banks in two months, giant JP Morgan Chase taking over First Republic Bank, and how government regulators are in bed with the bankers”.
American Banker (2023): “Dramatic collapses made 2023 the biggest year ever for bank failures”
New York Times (2023): “3 Failed Banks This Year Were Bigger Than 25 That Crumbled in 2008”
The Guardian (2008): “Greenspan – I was wrong about the economy. Sort of: Former Fed chief admits ‘mistake’ over regulation”. “I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” said Greenspan.
Reuters (2017): “Fed’s Yellen expects no new financial crisis in ‘our lifetimes’“: “Would I say there will never, ever be another financial crisis?” then Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen said. “You know probably that would be going too far but I do think we’re much safer and I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes and I don’t believe it will be”.
UBS (2023): “UBS completes Credit Suisse acquisition”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “US government bailout of Silicon Valley and banks is $300B gift to rich oligarchs: The US Federal Reserve printed $300 billion in a week to save collapsing banks and bail out Silicon Valley oligarchs. 93% of Silicon Valley Bank’s deposits were uninsured, over the FDIC limit of $250,000, but the government still paid them. 56% of SVB’s loans went to venture capitalist and private equity firms”.
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “US bank bailout benefited billionaires, exposing corruption: ‘I understand why Americans are angry’: Before it collapsed and its billionaire depositors were bailed out by the US government, Silicon Valley Bank successfully lobbied Congress to remove regulations on it. A senator admitted, ‘I understand why Americans are angry, even disgusted'”.
Reuters (2023): “Crypto scam: Inside the billion-dollar ‘pig-butchering’ industry”
The Block (2023): “Crypto users lost $1.8 billion in 2023 hacks and scams, Immunefi says”
NPR (2023): “FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is found guilty of all charges including fraud”
MarketWatch (2023): “Here are the politicians who received money from FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried”
The Guardian (2023): “Eurozone economy shrinks by 0.1%, putting it at brink of recession: Ireland posts biggest decline, while Germany contracts by 0.1% and France grows by 0.1%”
Political economists Charlotte Sophia Bez and Lorenzo Feltrin at LSE (2023): “Why Europe must address the problem of ‘noxious deindustrialisation’”
European Council on Foreign Relations (2023): “The art of vassalisation: How Russia’s war on Ukraine has transformed transatlantic relations“: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revealed Europeans’ profound dependence on the US for their security, despite EU efforts at achieving ‘strategic autonomy’… Europe becoming an American vassal is unwise for both sides”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “US blew up Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, journalist Seymour Hersh reports: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reported the US government destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines that delivered Russian gas to Germany. The Biden administration approved the CIA operation, which used explosives and Navy divers, with help from NATO member Norway”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “Facebook censors journalist Seymour Hersh’s report on Nord Stream pipeline attack: Facebook censored a report by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh on the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Germany, forcing users to instead read a website funded and partially owned by NATO member Norway”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “German lawmaker denounces Ukraine ‘proxy war’ and US ‘terrorist attack’ on Nord Stream pipelines: In this interview, German Member of Parliament Sevim Dağdelen, of the Left Party, Die Linke, condemned the NATO ‘proxy war’ in Ukraine, saying EU members are acting as US ‘vassal states’. She also denounced the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines as a ‘terrorist attack'”
Reuters (2023): “IMF upgrades China’s 2023, 2024 GDP growth forecasts“: “China’s economy is set to grow 5.4% this year, having made a ‘strong’ post-COVID recovery, the International Monetary Fund said on [November 7], making an upward revision to its earlier forecast of 5% growth, while expecting slower growth next year”.
Bloomberg (2017): “Housing Should Be for Living In, Not for Speculation, Xi Says”
Caixin (2020): “Regulators’ Three Red Lines on Debt Spur Property Developers to Curb Leverage”
This is probably one of the most important charts right now about the Chinese economy. To offset the collapse in the real estate sector, Beijing has managed to surge credit to the manufacturing sector, which has helped prevent a total collapse of domestic credit growth and demand pic.twitter.com/YPa0LQYYjZ
— Shanghai Macro Strategist (@ShanghaiMacro) October 9, 2023

For example, Chinese production of solar cells and EVs have absolutely gone through the roof. pic.twitter.com/eZslX9HniV
— Shanghai Macro Strategist (@ShanghaiMacro) October 9, 2023

Reuters (2023): “China to lead global renewable growth with record installations – Woodmac”
Wall Street Journal (2023): “China’s Green Revolution Is Quietly Succeeding”
BBC (2023): “China overtakes Japan as world’s top car exporter”
People’s Republic of China’s State Council (2020): “New development plan for NEVs unveiled: The State Council on Nov 2 issued a circular aimed at boosting the high-quality development of new energy vehicles (NEV) from 2021 to 2035″
Bloomberg (2023): “Chinese Carmaker Overtakes Tesla as World’s Most Popular EV Maker: Elon Musk once scoffed at the notion that BYD could compete with his company. Now, the automaker run by billionaire Wang Chuanfu is poised to be the new No. 1 in electric vehicles”
In 2011, Elon Musk scoffed at the idea of BYD competing with Tesla in a Bloomberg TV interview.
Now, the Chinese carmaker is set to become the world's No. 1 EV maker https://t.co/Ilio0p6mYG pic.twitter.com/EX4mwqbdq7
— Bloomberg (@business) December 27, 2023

Los Angeles Times (2015): “Elon Musk’s growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidies”
Business Insider (2021): “Elon Musk is speaking out against government subsidies. Here’s a list of the billions of dollars his businesses have received”
NBC News: “Air Force general predicts war with China in 2025, tells officers to prep by firing ‘a clip’ at a target, and ‘aim for the head’”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2022): “US waging ‘unilateral’ economic and tech war to halt China’s rise, DC insiders say openly: The Biden administration’s aggressive sanctions aim to ‘kneecap’ China’s tech sector. A former Pentagon official acknowledged it is a ‘disproportionate’ and “unilateral” attack, a ‘form of economic containment'”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “Chinese balloon was not spying, US gov’t admits months after manufactured crisis”
Reuters (2023): “Biden calls Xi a dictator after carefully planned summit”
Politico (2023): “Raimondo chides Congress on China tech threat“: US Commerce Secretary Gina “Raimondo defends export controls: Gina Raimondo over the weekend said China is ‘the biggest threat we’ve ever had’ and that the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security needs a bigger budget to help the United States outpace the country’s technological innovation. ‘We cannot let China get these chips. Period,’ she said at the Reagan Defense Forum, a symposium of government and industry officials in California”
CNBC (2021): “U.S. needs to work with Europe to slow China’s innovation rate, [Commerce Secretary Gina] Raimondo says“: “If we really want to slow down China’s rate of innovation, we need to work with Europe,” Raimondo said.
Financial Times (2023): “How Huawei surprised the US with a cutting-edge chip made in China: The inside story of how the country’s flagship tech company kept its edge in the semiconductor war despite sanctions”
Economic Times (2023): “From India to UK, here are the countries that have ban on TikTok”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “US woos India’s far-right PM Modi to help wage new cold war on China: The US government is trying to divide the BRICS bloc and recruit India for its new cold war on China. Biden doesn’t care that far-right Prime Minister Modi is closely linked to fascistic Hindu-supremacist groups that violently oppress minorities”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “Europe pays more for banned Russian oil, resold by India – as EU wages fall: The EU sanctioned Russia and boycotted its oil, yet is still buying it indirectly from India, at a higher price. This is fueling both de-dollarization and inflation in the Eurozone, where workers’ real wages dropped 6.5% from 2020 to 2022″
Financial Times (2023): “The west’s Russia oil ban, one year on: How a shadow fleet undermined the price cap”
A “shadow fleet” of secretively run tankers has helped Russia avoid the oil price cap imposed by the G7.
Flows of Russian oil to Europe have almost run dry, going instead to India, China and Turkey. @FT graph. https://t.co/ySvukY0drj pic.twitter.com/wVudgQMZWV
— EU Energy News (@EUEnergyNews) December 11, 2023

The Intercept (2023): “Secret Pakistan Cable Documents U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan: ‘All will be forgiven,’ said a U.S. diplomat, if the no-confidence vote against Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan succeeds”
The Guardian (2023): “Exiled Bolsonaro lives it up in Florida as legal woes grow back home: Ex-Brazilian president faces criminal inquiries, including an investigation into his alleged role in the Brasília uprising”
El País (2023): “Brazilian military caught in the crossfire after failed coup attempt against Lula’s government: The Armed Forces is facing a slump in popular credibility amid the requirement to punish those possibly responsible for backing an attempt to annul the result of the 2022 elections”
Financial Times (2023): “Brazil’s Lula calls for end to dollar trade dominance: Leftist president lends his voice to Beijing’s efforts to boost renminbi’s role in global commerce”
France 24 (2023): “Brazil’s Lula criticises US dollar and IMF during China visit: The two countries have recently announced a deal to trade in their own currencies, dropping the dollar as an intermediary. Lula also criticised the IMF, accusing it of ‘asphyxiating’ the economy of certain countries”
Associated Press (2023): “Brazil’s Lula proposes South America currency to rival US dollar: The president is hosting a regional summit as he seeks to to revive a bloc of 12 politically polarised countries. Lula also gave a warm welcome to Venezuela’s Maduro, and criticised sanctions imposed on the nation by the US and others”.
The Guardian (2023): “‘Prison or bullet’: new Argentina government promises harsh response to protest: President Javier Milei and his allies are preparing new security guidelines in anticipation of protests against currency devaluation”
The Guardian (2023): “Javier Milei’s radical economic policies for Argentina met with protests: New libertarian president accused of drawing up a ‘battle plan against working people’”
The Conversation (2023): “Release of Alberto Fujimori in Peru rekindles fears of backsliding on human rights”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “Peru’s natural resources: CIA-linked US ambassador meets with mining and energy ministers to talk ‘investments’: Peru has large reserves of copper, gold, zinc, silver, lead, iron, and natural gas. After a coup overthrew left-wing President Pedro Castillo, the US ambassador, CIA veteran Lisa Kenna, met with mining and energy ministers to discuss ‘investments’. Europe is importing Peruvian LNG to replace Russian energy”.
Goldman Sachs (2022): “Green Metals: Copper is the New Oil”
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “Peru’s coup-plotting congress has 6% approval, 91% disapproval (but full US backing): A polling firm found that Peru’s coup-plotting, right-wing-controlled congress has 6% approval and 91% disapproval. Unelected leader Dina Boluarte has 15% approval and 78% disapproval. But they have the full support of the US, Canada, and foreign mining corporations”.
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “US President Bush praised dictator Fujimori as ‘Peru’s hope for the future’: US President George H. W. Bush welcomed far-right Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori to the White House in 1991, heroizing him as “Peru’s hope for the future” and praising his neoliberal economic policies”.
Geopolitical Economy Report (2023): “‘Mexico is not a US colony!’: AMLO condemns invasion threats, celebrates nationalization of oil, lithium: Mexico’s leftist President AMLO condemned ‘hypocritical’ Republicans who want the US military to invade, declaring ‘Mexico is an independent and free country, not a US colony or protectorate!’ In a massive rally, López Obrador also celebrated the expropriation of oil and lithium, condemning exploitative foreign corporations”.
Politico (2023): “GOP embraces a new foreign policy: Bomb Mexico to stop fentanyl: Republicans suggest everything from terrorist labels to an invasion to decimate drug cartels in Mexico”.
US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York: “U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, His Wife, And Three New Jersey Businessmen Charged With Bribery Offenses”
Gallup (2023): “Biden Ends 2023 With 39% Job Approval”
New York Times (2023): “Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds“


Instruction: Write an article about: Michael Hudson: Why the US bank crisis is not over. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: banks, bonds, Fed, Federal Reserve, interest, Jerome Powell, Michael Hudson, MMT, Silicon Valley Bank, SVB, treasury bonds

Output:
Economist Michael Hudson argues banks like Silicon Valley Bank have behaved in a selfish and greedy way, yet get de facto US government bailouts, while regulatory capture and campaign contributions prevent the systemic change needed to stop these crises.

Economist Michael Hudson, co-host of the program Geopolitical Economy Hour, first responded to the crash of California-based Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate in another article here.
When interest rates rise, bond prices fall (and stock prices tend to follow).
However, banks don’t have to mark down the market price of their assets to reflect this declining valuation. They can simply hold on to their securities.
Banks only have to reveal the market-price decline when there is a run on the bank and they have to actually sell these bonds or packaged mortgages to raise the cash to enable the withdrawals to be made.
For Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), it turned out that they gambled to make a capital gain by buying long-term Treasury bonds, whose interest rates were being raised sharply by the Fed’s tightening.
The bank expected that the Fed couldn’t keep rates high without bringing on a serious recession – and indeed, Fed Chairman Powell said that a recession was indeed what he wanted.
But instead of lowering interest rates, Mr. Powell announced that not enough American workers were unemployed, so he planned to raise interest rates even more than he had expected to. Interest rates rose, and bond prices fell.
SVB “was left sitting on an unrealized loss of close to $163bn – more than its equity base. Deposit outflows then started to crystallize this into a realized loss,” as the Financial Times noted.
Banks across the country were losing deposits sharply. This was not a “run on the banks” resulting from fears of mismanagement.
This was because banks have behaved in so selfish and greedy way that, as they have made soaring profits on rising interest rates – the rates they charge borrowers, and the rates yielded by their investments – they have been paying depositors only about 0.2%.
Banks were acting as monopolies, together refusing to pay depositors a fair rate. But their monopoly did not extend to control of the U.S. Treasury.
The result is a widening gap between what investors can earn by buying risk-free Treasury securities – about 4% – and the pittance that banks pay their depositors. So depositors were taking their money away from the banks to earn a more fair market return elsewhere.
It would be wrong to call this a “bank run” or “panic.” The depositors withdrawing their money were not irrational. They were fed up with the bank’s selfishness.
And SVB was one of the worst offenders. That’s why its stock had soared so sharply in the last few years.
The threat of a “bank run” may apply more to foreign depositors. On March 13, the US dollar index fell by 1 percentage point. That actually is a lot for one day.
Europeans were selling US stocks. That is why the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell at the opening (9:30 AM EST was 3:30 in the afternoon continental European time, so the European sell orders had piled up).
Will Europeans withdraw from the US bank market? Are they losing trust?
President Biden has done everything that he could to confuse the public as to what is happening. His March 13 speech assured voters that the SVB “rescue” was not a bailout. But of course it was a bailout.
Uninsured SVB depositors who did not qualify for safety from losing a penny were rescued without losing a penny.
What Biden implied, correctly, was that it was not a taxpayer bailout. But then what was it?
It was a demonstration of how powerful Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is. The banking assets sufficient to “make depositors whole” was simply created by the banking authorities.
The $9 trillion in the Fed’s quantitative easing for the banks since 2008 was not money creation; it was a balance-sheet exercise – technically a kind of “swap” with offsets of good Federal Reserve credit for “bad” bank securities pledged as collateral – way above current market pricing.
That is what “rescued” the banks after 2009. Federal credit was created without taxation.
A few political considerations are appropriate here. For one thing, deregulatory corruption played a role.
SVB was overseen by the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB). The FHLB is notorious for regulatory capture by the banks who choose to operate under its supervision.
Yet SVB’s business was not mortgage lending. It was high-tech private equity entities being prepared for IPOs – to be issued at high prices and then talked up – and left to fall in the usual pump and dump ploy.
Another political consideration is that Silicon Valley is a Democratic Party stronghold – and a rich source of campaign financing. The Biden administration was not going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs of campaign contributions.
Of course it was going to bail out the bank and its private-capital customers. The financial sector is the core of Democratic Party support, and it is loyal to its supporters.
As President Obama told the bankers who worried that he might follow through on his campaign promises to write down mortgage debts to realistic market valuations in order to enable exploited junk-mortgage clients to remain in their homes: “I’m the only one between you [the bankers visiting the White House] and the pitchforks” – that is, his characterization of voters who believed his “hope and change” patter talk.
The Biden administration’s plan is the usual one: kick the bank problem down the road, flood the economy with bailouts (for the bankers, not for student debtors) until election day in November 2024.
The Federal Reserve did indeed pull back on March 13, just as SVB had anticipated. That reduction of interest rates by the Plunge Protection Team did make huge gains for investors in the long-term government bonds that SVB had bought.
The problem was timing. That’s always the problem when there’s a crash.
And there must always be a financial crash at some point. That is because interest-bearing debt grows exponentially, but the economy follows an S-curve and then turns down.
And when the economy turns down – or is deliberately slowed down when labor’s wage rates tend to catch up with the price inflation caused by monopoly prices and U.S. anti-Russian sanctions that raise energy and food prices – the magnitude of financial claims on the economy exceeds the ability to pay.
That is the real financial crisis that the economy faces. And it goes beyond banking. The entire economy is saddled with debt deflation (of incomes), even in the face of Federal Reserve-backed asset-price inflation.


Instruction: Write an article about: How Western sanctions blow back, hurting Europe, deepening Asian integration. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Angela Merkel, ASEAN, China, dollar, energy, France, Francois Hollande, Germany, gold, Nord Stream, RCEP, Russia, sanctions, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, technology, Ukraine

Output:
Western sanctions led Russia to greatly increase trade with Asia, while devastating Europe’s economy. The US tech war against China is damaging its own industry.

Economic coercion, through the imposition of sanctions, is an act of war. Many of these sanctions have caused hardship, especially for the civilian populations of targeted countries.
But just as a rifle recoils on the shooter’s shoulder, potentially causing injury, so too can sanctions backfire on the user. That is the title of a new book, “Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests.”
This is not to say that sanctions don’t cause suffering, but they have a mere 13% success rate in altering a targeted state’s behavior in the way desired.
The failure of sanctions has long been recognized, although that seems not to have dampened U.S. persistence in adding ever more of them.
The blowback effect has begun, and more is predictably on the horizon. This present analysis will focus on the two main geopolitical targets of U.S. policy: Russia and China.
At the moment, the U.S. is in a proxy war with Russia, with Ukraine in the military forefront. Before that, and alongside it now, is a running war of sanctions.
The longest cause was the rise to power of Vladimir Putin, who restored Russia’s economic power and sovereignty by undoing some of the predatory effects of Russia’s privatization following U.S.-supported “shock therapy.”
An early “Western” strategy to prevent a return of Russia as a great power was to bring many of its bordering states in Eastern Europe into NATO. Ukraine would be the last piece in what Russia perceives to be a military front of potential aggression. Whatever the outcome of that fight will be, sanctions are likely to continue.

The U.S. first sanctioned 60 Russian individuals in 2012 with the Magnitsky Act, to punish those supposedly responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky, an accountant for a tax-evader who was charged with corruption, and who was also politically linked to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny – himself later a cause for further sanctions.
In 2014, a U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine led to eight years of civil war, giving rise to separatist movements in the east of the country.
Apparently following the 2019 report “Extending Russia” from the Pentagon-backed RAND Corporation, the U.S. selected Ukraine as the best option among neighboring countries to provoke Russia into over-extending itself.
This proposed strategy seemed confirmed in December 2022 by Germany’s former chancellor, Angela Merkel, in an interview with the newspaper Die Zeit. She admitted that the “2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to buy time for Ukraine. Ukraine used this time to become stronger.”
The Minsk agreements had been overseen by Germany and France. Former French President François Hollande confirmed the same soon after, stating, “Angela Merkel is right on this point.”
Their strategy succeeded in “extending Russia” into Ukraine in February 2022.
Sanctions have been raining down on Russia ever since, against individuals, companies, and government agencies, most importantly against its oil exports, but also against its sale of aluminum, uranium, and agricultural goods.
Initial harm included a sizeable drop in Russia’s GDP and living standards, the loss of foreign investment, a sharp increase in inflation, and a temporary depreciation of the ruble.
The U.S. later restricted Russia’s access to capital markets and to oil and gas extraction technology, which can inhibit Moscow’s financing of oil field development, notably in the Arctic, where Russia has the longest shoreline.
However, Putin turned much of this around with policies of import substitution, government subsidies, and the nationalization of private oil companies, which by 2018 had grown back up to almost 40% more than before sanctions.1
In fact, the value of Russian exports grew after the 2022 sanctions.
Russian farmers gained from import substitution and ensured the country’s food security.
And while Russia exports less now to Britain, Sweden, the U.S., South Korea, and Germany, it exports more to Brazil, Japan, China, India, Turkey, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
India and China have increased their purchase of Russian oil; France relies on Russian uranium; Belgium still trades in diamonds with Russia; and the Netherlands offers access to Dutch ports for such cargo, the New York Times reported.
While Russia’s exports to the U.S., the United Kingdom and other markets have fallen, its trade with China, India, Turkey and even Belgium and the Netherlands has boomed, driven in part by higher energy prices this year. https://t.co/MJLmBYdzzV pic.twitter.com/dbc4VYtSXw
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 2, 2022

Financial sanctions have also fallen short of their goal.
The Bank of Russia’s reserve system has a surplus of pre-war levels. By the end of 2022, Russia’s foreign-exchange reserves were $581.7 billion USD, the fourth-highest in the world – while its ally China remained firmly in first place, with more than $3 trillion USD worth of assets.
By contrast, Germany is facing the most collateral damage from the loss to its markets and the sanctions on energy, notably bringing an end to the supply of cheap Russian gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
In 2020, U.S. Congress imposed secondary sanctions on banks that processed transactions related to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines and on ship insurers that serviced them.
When construction of Nord Stream 2 was finished in 2021, Washington imposed new sanctions on insurance and certification companies to keep it from opening.
Finally, both pipelines were sabotaged in an undersea explosion in September 2022.
As a result, the industries that had made Germany preeminent in Europe, such as steel, chemicals, machinery, and automotives, are suffering from high energy costs and the loss of Russia’s aluminum, titanium, and palladium.
As a consequence, one in four German companies is considering moving production to other countries, amid the energy crisis.
While European nations like Germany and France appear publicly to support U.S. attempts to weaken the Russian government, they are furious at the cost to themselves in the form of lost trade agreements and investment opportunities.
EU leaders are furious that the US is making lots of money from the proxy war in Ukraine by selling weapons and expensive natural gas
Meanwhile European industries are being destroyed as high energy prices and US subsidies push its companies overseas https://t.co/cgtLK0ONC0
— Geopolitical Economy Report (@GeopoliticEcon) December 11, 2022

Their unease is compounded by suspicion of U.S. cupidity in substituting its energy sources – like liquified natural gas (LNG), which is several times more expensive – for cheaper Russian ones, and by record U.S. profits from selling more weapons.
Furthermore, the Joe Biden administration’s attempt to re-shore manufacturing through its “Made in America” policy has led U.S. allies to charge that such protectionism violates international trade laws.
In addition to the mounting costs of production due to the higher price of U.S. energy, this could push Europe into relative deindustrialization.
Some countries have reacted by moving their factories to the U.S. to take advantage of the “Inflation Reduction Act”, which would subsidize a factory in the U.S. by up to $800 million.
A move to the U.S. may save some companies, but will only further deindustrialize Europe.
Another strategy being considered is European protectionism, which may put the trans-Atlantic political alliance on shakier footing.2
It is not just Europe that is mobilizing against U.S. protectionism. China, much of Southeast Asia, and some Latin American countries are acting similarly.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a political and economic union created by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Larger than the European Union and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, RCEP includes China, the Philippines, Laos, Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia, Singapore, and Thailand, as well as U.S. political allies Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea.
Members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade bloc
Of course, this pits political and economic interests against each other in some cases, causing tensions that are a feature of blowback to U.S. economic coercion.
The U.S. Congress has also used the financial sector to enforce its policies, imposing secondary sanctions on banks that process transactions with sanctioned parties.
Secondary sanctions are imposed on countries that attempt to trade with the targets of primary sanctions. They are technically illegal, but many countries observe them out of fear of U.S. retaliation.
Importantly, shipping companies and insurers often over-comply with sanctions that may not technically apply, which has delayed shipments of grain and fertilizer that are needed to prevent famine, notably in Africa.
However, blowback looms in global finance, which could eventually erode U.S. power as exercised through the hegemony of the dollar.
One of the ways to avoid primary and secondary sanctions is by trading in local currencies, rather than by using SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications), a member-owned system made up of banks and financial institutions worldwide, widely used for transactions that are denominated in dollars.
SWIFT blocks payments that breach U.S. sanctions. Thus, more and more countries are trading in other currencies.
Russia trades with India in rubles and rupees, and with China in rubles and renminbi.
Also trading in national currencies are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes China, India, Pakistan, Russia, Iran, and numerous Central Asian states, making up half the world’s population.
The 2022 meeting of the heads of state of the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Alternative financial networks are being formed. The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) are working to develop a new reserve currency based on a basket of their national currencies.
China has formed CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System), a SWIFT-like payment network to internationalize the renminbi. Its co-founders included even some Western banks like Citi, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, along with numerous Asian and African banks. With about 1,300 banks in all, it is a challenge for the future.3
China is slowly edging its Renminbi into becoming an international currency, which would push the dollar into being only one member in a basket of currencies, rather than the dominant currency used in trade.
Finally, there is the growth of digital currencies – electronic state-backed national currencies that act like cash, not to be confused with blockchain cryptocurrencies.
National digital currencies will allow countries to trade directly, without having to go through mechanisms like SWIFT.
The decline of dollar hegemony is expected, but with a long time horizon of two or three decades.
However, the weaponization of finance has cost the U.S. a loss of trust. When foreign reserves can be frozen, as they have been for Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and Afghanistan, then no country can feel that its assets are safe.
Many central banks, including China’s, have been buying gold for their reserves and selling U.S. securities.
One important, contradictory result of the measures taken so far has been the growing closeness of Russia and China, who now hold joint military exercises.
In terms of Beijing, whose spectacular growth presents a clear challenge to U.S. global dominance, Washington has begun a stronger form of economic coercion: export controls.
Here the danger of blowback is even greater, possibly leading to a long-lasting trade war over semiconductors or microchips, the key to advanced civilian and military technology.
In October 2022, the U.S. Commerce Department barred Chinese chip, biomedical, and chemical companies from importing highly advanced American chip design and manufacturing tools. The goal is to prevent Chinese companies from developing their own ability to manufacture comparable technology.
Should secondary sanctions be applied in this case, other technology companies may be affected – like Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which trade with China’s large market.
However, a considerable illicit trade of chip smuggling is going on. An amusing, miniature version of this was the attempt to bring in chips in a fake baby bump.
One possible blowback to U.S export controls could be China potentially retaliating by denying the U.S. rare earth minerals that are needed for the batteries used in most modern technological products. China oversees 60% of rare earth production.
U.S. business interests have expressed concern about the consequences, especially given that Washington has failed to persuade its allies to adopt similar export controls.
Moreover, the loss of the China market would be a “death warrant” for some U.S. semiconductor firms, whose decline in revenue could lead them to reduce their investment in research and development, and thus decline.4
Hence, the semiconductor industry prefers a narrower target on China’s defense and security industry.
Finally, who sets the standards for microchips also holds considerable power. Chinese engineers are increasingly influential in the International Organization for Standardization and International Electrotechnical Commission, which gives Beijing a presence in help setting the rules.
China has even set up a competitor to WiFi on its Digital Silk Road. And its global positioning system, Beidou, is three times more accurate than GPS.5
Decoupling into two world systems of technology would probably backfire on many levels. Semiconductor production consists of a highly integrated global network of resource extraction, design and manufacture.
At present, Taiwan’s TSMC has the largest concentration of production, amounting to 92% of the most advanced chips. That makes Taiwan a key factor in the U.S.-China competition. And, for now, it provides the island with a “silicon shield” from military operations.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the U.S. sanctions policies to maintain global dominance, although harmful and escalating, may have passed the peak of their effectiveness.
Export controls could be more effectively destructive, but even their outcome is likely to fall short of the ultimate goal.
Most observers consider that, in two or three decades, the U.S. will have come to terms with being only one of several important powers. The dollar will become one part of a basket of reserve currencies.
The question is if Washington can commit itself to cooperation rather than competition, in matters of concern to humanity at large.
The benefits could be enormous.
1 Jeremy Kuzmarov, “Trying to Unbalance Russia: The Fraudulent Origins and Impact of US Sanctions on Russia,” in Davis and Ness, p. 300, citing Richard Connolly, “Russia’s Response to Sanctions: How Western Economic Statecraft is Reshaping Political Economy in Russia,” Cambridge University Press, 2018
2 Rawi Abdelal and Aurelie Bros, “The End of Transatlanticism? How Sanctions are Dividing the West”, in Horizons: Journal of International Relations and Sustainable Development, no. 16, Pandemics & Geopolitics: The Quickening (Spring 2020) pp. 114-135.
3 Agathe Desmarais, Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests. Columbia University Press, 2022, pp. 129-131.
4 Desmarais, p. 180.
5 Desmarais, p. 185.


Instruction: Write an article about: How could a BRICS+ bank and settlement currency work? Economist Michael Hudson explains. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: bancor, BRICS, de-dollarization, dollar, John Maynard Keynes, Michael Hudson, Vladimir Putin

Output:
Economist Michael Hudson details how BRICS could create a mutual settlement currency for payment imbalances among central banks and build an alternative to the financialized neoliberal model of the dollar/NATO bloc.

This first week of October has seen U.S. interest rates soar to the 5% level on long-term Treasury bonds. That has made long-term Treasuries one of most attractive investment vehicles in the world, or even the most attractive.
One obvious result is that countries aiming to de-dollarize their central-bank reserves would make an untimely decision to move out of the dollar at this point. To avoid holding dollars in the form of US Treasury securities would mean holding foreign reserves denominated in a currency that is declining against the dollar. No other government is willing to make its currency so attractive to international investors (including central banks) by raising interest-rates so high.
At 5%, US bonds are the most secure and best investment around. There is a huge move into the dollar – and hence, pushing up its exchange rate against most other currencies. That has made it much more expensive for Global South countries to service their foreign debts denominated in dollars to the IMF, World Bank, and private bondholders. If they try to pay these debts – which are now much more expensive in their own currencies – they will have to suffer austerity, and use their economic surplus to pay dollar-holders instead of using it to develop their own economies.
That strain imposed by international debt service is the most serious since the late 1920s – with the same refusal of creditor countries to see how today’s foreign-debt overhead cannot be paid. We have seen this before, in the austerity caused by Germany trying to pay its World War I reparations debts, and by England and France trying to pay their inter-Ally debts despite the self-destruction of adhering to creditor demands.
The world refused to negotiate a write-down of these inter-governmental debts until the 1929 crash forced realistic observers to agree to the 1931 moratorium on German reparations and inter-Ally debts. By that time the Great Depression was underway.
Today’s 5% interest rate threatens to destabilize the domestic US economy and federal budget just as much as it is increasing the cost of debtor countries servicing their foreign dollar bonds. A 5% interest rate on 30-year bonds means a doubling time in 14 years. (The Rule of 72: Divide 72 by the interest rate to get the doubling time.) For a 30 year bond, a million-dollar purchase will quadruple in face value, to $4 million by the time the bond matures in 2053, thirty years from now.
Think of the effect that this will have on the US budget by that time. A much larger share will have to be allocated to pay bondholders – most of whom make themselves tax-exempt, for instance by holding their savings offshore.
The world’s debtor countries, if not the creditors, are finally coming to realize that many government debts can’t be paid – except by throwing their economies into depression and austerity. That might be in store for the US economy too if it tries to tax the economy to pay creditors instead of simply printing the money.
Obviously there needs to be an alternative. It needs to beyond merely the first step of declaring a debt moratorium. A longer-term restructuring of the international financial system is needed, because the present system has become dysfunctional.
This recognition has been most explicit by the statements of China’s and Russia’s government. Although they are positioned to become creditor countries in the coming world realignment, they recognize the need to create a way for countries to run balance-of-payments surpluses or deficits without polarizing the international economy between creditors and debtors, creating a new split such as is now occurring.
At the Valdai Club meeting in Sochi on October 5, Russia’s President Putin explained how he viewed the needed restructuring. Contrary to much discussion in the West, what is planned is not a “BRICS currency,” but something much more limited: a means of settling payments imbalances along quite different lines from those that have led to today’s crisis.
As far as BRICS is concerned, we don’t need to create a single currency, but we need to set up a settlement system, create financial logistics in order to ensure settlements between our countries, switch to settlements in national currencies, while understanding what is happening with our national currencies, and keep in mind the macroeconomic indicators of our economies, exchange rate differences, inflationary processes.
…
I have already said, and many believe, that the Bretton Woods system is outdated. After all, this is not me talking, these are Western experts. It needs to be changed. Of course, it leads to such ugly phenomena as, say, debt obligations of developing economies, of course, this is the absolute, complete domination of the dollar in the world system. It’s only a matter of time before this happens.
What is needed certainly is not a “new Bretton Woods.” The old Bretton Woods system was designed in 1944 by US planners first and foremost to break down Britain’s Imperial Preference based on block sterling holdings (government reserves that could not be spent outside of the sterling area) and the prospect of depreciation of the pound sterling. US planners consolidated American power by basing international monetary policy on the asset that the US Treasury held: gold, of which the U.S. held three-fourths of the world’s monetary gold reserves by 1950.
Along with insistence on free trade and free capital movements (no capital controls or restrictions on how India and other British Empire countries could spend their accumulation of sterling reserves during World War II), the US “rules-based order” turned British sterling into a satellite currency. Having obtained British acquiescence, the US Bretton Woods proposals were imposed on Europe and other countries. Their fate has followed that of Britain’s domestic budget squeeze and “stop-go” austerity policies.
John Maynard Keynes proposed an alternative to holding dollars – something like an anti-Bretton Woods. His aim was to avoid US financial dominance by creating a fiat currency, the bancor. That was not a form of international money, but had a special purpose as an asset of “paper gold,” akin to what the IMF later introduced as Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) in response to the US government itself needing a bailout as its foreign military spending pushed its balance of payments deeply into deficit during the 1970s war in southeast Asia. Bancors or SDRs could be issued to countries running balance-of-payments deficits to pay payments-surplus countries.
This is the problem that the BRICS+ and Global South countries are trying to solve today. The popular press has confused matters by referring to a “BRICS currency.” It is not a currency like the euro or the ruble or renminbi. It is not a currency that anyone could spend at the grocery store or to pay rent. It is not “money” as generally understood. It is not a currency that can be traded on foreign-exchange markets, and certainly cannot be bought by speculators (although they could gamble on what it might exchange for, something like betting on a horse race without having a horse or jockey in the race).
Domestic money, like the dollar or euro, ultimately derives its value from being accepted by national governments in payment of taxes or other transactions with the public sector. That makes such money fungible. Money in that sense can be thought of as a public utility. But providing such currency for a number of countries requires a common government, fiscal authority and legal system. If the currency is to be issued by a number of countries – like the euro – it therefore requires a political union empowered to allocate who gets how much of the currency. No such political foundation yet exists for the BRICS. In President Putin’s words, countries are “at different stages of development.” More to the point, their mutual trade and investment is nowhere near in balance at present. That imbalance is the major problem to be solved, just as it was in 1944-45. It is a balance-of-payments problem, not one of financing domestic government budgets and spending.
How can countries with chronic balance-of-payments deficits (like most Global Majority countries looking to an association with BRICS+) can run up debts to payments-surplus countries (like China and Russia), without being forced to impose austerity. How can inter-governmental debt be prevented from causing the problems that the US/Bretton Woods system and IMF “conditionalities” have created?
The first step has been a stop-gap of making swap agreements. That enables countries to settle for trade and investment imbalances among themselves with their own national currencies. The advantage is that there is no need to involve “hard line” creditors such as the United States, and to avoid the risk of US/NATO countries simply grabbing their central-bank monetary reserves as they seized $300 billion from Russia.
But the problem goes beyond simply avoiding the use of dollars and euros. A system of international finance needs to be created that does not impose austerity on debtor countries. That self-defeating policy simply makes it even more impossible to pay the buildup of foreign debts.
Most international payments occur on “capital account,” for foreign investment, lending, flight capital. But academic textbooks of international trade theory treat it as barter – as if money, currency speculation and flight capital are only a veil. If foreign trade and payments were in balance, there would not be any need for international reserves being accumulated. The books would be cleared. But international payments rarely are balanced.
What is now under discussion is how to denominate the financial claims that result from this imbalance. The buildup of international reserves is not a healthy economic sign if they grow faster than the pace of world trade. When these imbalances – not only of trade, but foreign investment, war-making, currency flight, speculation – rise and accrue interest year after year, they become increasingly unpayable. That is the situation in which the world finds itself today.
The vast majority today’s central-bank reserves are still foreign holdings of US dollar securities – that is, nominal US debt to foreign governments. The US Treasury did not “borrow” this money. Rather, they spent dollars into the international economy, headed by US military spending in an increasingly aggressive and belligerent way. One could think of foreign dollar reserves as their bearing the costs of US military encirclement of the globe. (This is the process that I have described in Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire.)
Most international payments occur on “capital account,” for foreign investment, lending and flight capital. If foreign trade and payments were in balance, there would not be any need for international reserves being accumulated. The books would be cleared. But international payments rarely are balanced.
As noted above, the present stop-gap solution is for countries to pay in their own currency, and for payments-surplus nations to accept this. But currency swaps are subject to their own problems. Not only governments exchange their currencies, but speculators not directly involved in exporting and importing. George Soros made his fortune mobilizing lenders to break the bank of England and force it to depreciate by outspending it at the currency poker tables.
The currencies of many countries seem destined to decline – imposing a loss on payments-surplus nations. This has become a problem especially with the euro. At the Valdai meetings, President Putin explained why the euro is unlikely to be one of the currencies into which BRICS+ countries hold as they dedollarize:
Do you understand what happened? The competitiveness of the European economy has fallen, and the competitiveness of their main competitor in terms of the economic component of the United States has increased dramatically, and other countries, including in Asia, have also increased. As a result of the loss of part of their sovereignty, they were forced to make decisions to their own detriment.
Why do we need such a partner? … we are largely moving away from the fading European market and increasing our presence in growing markets in other regions of the world, including Asia.
Among the BRICS+ countries, Argentina is a case in point. Its foreign dollar debt has grown largely by IMF sponsorship. The IMF’s main political function in US foreign policy has been to enable pro-American client oligarchies to move their money out of countries whenever there is a chance of a left-wing or simply democratic reformer being elected. Convert their Argentinean currency into dollars lowers the peso’s exchange rate. Without IMF intervention, that would mean that as the exchange rate falls, the wealthy classes engaging in capital flight receive fewer and fewer dollars. To support the currency – and hence, the hard-currency dollars that capital-flight actors receive – the IMF lends the right-wing government dollars to buy up the excess pesos that the client oligarchy is selling off. That enables Argentineans to move their money out of the country to obtain a much higher amount of US dollars than they would if the IMF were not lending money to the right-wing puppet government.
When the new reform government comes in, it finds itself loaded down with a huge foreign debt owed to the IMF. This debt has not been taken on in a way that helped Argentina develop its economy and earn dollars to pay back the loan. It is simply a result of IMF support of right-wing governments. And the IMF then tells the new government (whether Argentina or any other debtor) to pay off its foreign loans by lowering the wages of labor. That is the only way that the IMF recognizes for countries to “stabilize” their balance of payments. So the reform government is obliged to behave just like a right-wing government, intensifying the class war of capital against labor. The “cure” for their balance-of-payments deficits thus becomes even worse than the original disease, that is, its rentier oligarchy moving their money out of the country.
Recently, the IMF paid back part of one of these odious IMF loans. It did so with money that it borrowed from China. And China has been in discussions about raising its quota in the IMF to reflect its rising economic power. Yet US politicians have designated China as America’s number-one long-term enemy, and are seeking to expand NATO into the Pacific to ramp up military threats to China. The US/NATO war in Ukraine has been described as a strategy to destroy Russia’s economic ability to support China in the coming Cold War. And to support the West’s arms supply to fight Ukraine, the IMF has lent Ukraine seven times its quota – despite this large a loan being against the IMF rules, despite Ukraine being at war, and despite the fact that this loan obviously cannot be repaid. The Germans have helpfully suggested giving the $300 billion in confiscated Russian reserves to Ukraine to pay its foreign creditors and pay for more US arms.
It therefore seems quite obvious that the IMF cannot play a role in any BRICS bancor arrangement. But it also shows how hard it is to create an alternative economic system to the present legacy of World War II.
The most serious problem has not been discussed publicly. There is no way that a viable and resilient economy for Global South countries and their arrangement for central banks can take shape without repudiating the overhang of US dollar debt. This unpayably high foreign-debt burden is a legacy of US-sponsored financial colonialism. As long as this debt is kept on the books, countries will remain obliged to use their trade surplus and sales proceeds from selling off their property to foreign investors to pay their former colonial powers and post-colonial creditors.
When one talks of dedollarization and the creation of a BRICS+ bank, this is the kind of quandary from which they need to escape. The first need is to create a vehicle to handle the inevitable payments imbalances. At present, these are settled by debt obligations. A key feature of Keynes’s bancor proposal was that if chronic credits accrued to a payments-surplus country – and if their counterpart in chronic debts occurred in deficit countries – these imbalances would be wiped off the books. Keynes’s intention was to prevent debt imbalances from destroying the global economy as they had destroyed European economies in the 1920s.
There is no way that today’s international debt overhand can be repaid. That is as true for the United States as it is for Global South debtors. The US Treasury owes much more to foreign governments the form of their holdings of US securities than it can foreseeably repay. It has post-industrialized its economy, and has committed to spending enormous sums abroad, while its dependency on foreign imports is rising and its prospects for collecting its existing debt claims on deficit countries is looking shaky.
The past half-century’s foreign investment has taken the form of privatization of the public domain of debtor countries. This investment has not helped them develop, but has merely transferred ownership of their oil and mineral rights, public utilities and other assets. A viable international financial system requires productive investment such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative that can help countries prosper, not asset stripping.
Perhaps Islamic sharia law has a hint for a solution, in replacing debt obligations with equity arrangements (with buy-back agreements). If the plans being designed by China, Russia and other BRICS members work as intended, countries would be able to pay the investment sponsors out of the growth that would occur – not by imposing austerity as under today’s predatory financial “rules-based order.”
Dollar dominance will continue over Europe and other US satellites. Other countries that need dollar reserves for their trade and investment with the United States. Existing US trade can continue as it has. But what will be changed is a new basis for the international economy iself.
There will not be a new BRICS currency in the sense of a dollar or euro that could become a medium for trade, investment or international speculation. There will only be a mutual “currency of settlement” of payments imbalances among central banks joining the new system. And that system itself will be based on principles opposite from the financialized neoliberal model being promoted by the dollar/NATO bloc. That is the real context for the current discussion of BRICS+ economic reform.


Instruction: Write an article about: BRICS+ and the future of the international order. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Brazil, BRICS, China

Output:
A new kind of globalization is being born, and the political future of the BRICS+ and the Global South in general depends greatly on China.

The emergence and rise of new poles of power to the detriment of existing ones is nothing new in history. Since the 18th century, there have been countless examples of transitions in international hegemony. This accelerated with the emergence of industrial capitalism in England, which was more advanced than the Portuguese and Spanish commercial capitalism that for centuries had dominated much of the world, especially Latin America.
Even the capitalist dynamic inaugurated by England has characteristics that are not unfamiliar to economic historians with great theoretical and conceptual rigor.
Well known is Vladimir Lenin’s discovery of the uneven nature of the development of nations and the tendency of the most developed countries to lose dynamism while others begin to enjoy what economist Alexander Gerschenkron called the “advantages of backwardness”.
So the international order cannot be observed, from a historical point of view, as a march where countries change positions like in a military parade.
The emergence of monopolistic capitalism brought with it the tendency toward war, for example. We have witnessed two great world wars where the center of the dispute was world power, with results that consolidated new political actors on the international stage, mainly the United States.
I start from the historical principle that reality has shown Lenin to be correct, regarding the uneven development of the system and the tendency toward stagnation in the developed centers. These processes open spaces of power in the world.
I also say that we will have little to offer in terms of explanation for the future if we do not relate the transformation of the United States into a unified continental economy at the end of the 19th century, and its impacts on the development of the international capitalist system, with what we have witnessed in China over the past decades: the emergence of a unified continental economy in the third-largest country in the world, which is generating huge impacts on the international political economy – and is still little investigated by so-called experts.
This is a fundamental point when we want to develop a sophisticated thinking about the BRICS+ and the future of the international order. I will return to this point.
On the other hand, we are witnessing a new wave of systemic transition today. This time, there is the emergence of new poles of global power on one side, while on the other there is an accelerated stage of political, social, moral, and economic decomposition of a hegemonic power: the United States of America.
It is interesting to note that the new order that is emerging is itself the product of the order created by the United States after World War II, which accelerated in the late 1970s with the rise of neoliberalism, and especially after the end of the Soviet Union.
Globalization led by the powerful finance of the United States was a reality that transformed the economic geography of the world, but which is eroding within its own limits. Since the moment when financialization became the dominant dynamic of accumulation in capitalism, and neoliberalism won hearts and minds around the globe, the world has entered a spiral of greater instability and unpredictability.
Since the 1990s, financial crises have become recurrent – at the same time as countries that have designed national development projects outside the precepts of the Washington Consensus have been gaining greater space in the world.
Interestingly, China and India, two countries that became independent in the late 1940s, have gone from being miserably poor countries to great economies. The two together correspond to 51% of the world’s economic growth today.
Russia, too, is reconstituting itself with a state capitalism as an atomic, energy, and military power, after the brutal fall in its GDP following the end of the Soviet Union. Russia is beginning to reoccupy lost spaces in the world. Its previous energy integration with Europe and now transition toward growing economic and technological integration with China reinforces its position of regional power.
Despite following a contradictory path in the last 40 years, Brazil has managed to establish itself as a central country in the southern hemisphere of the world.
The African continent has undergone a new process of independence in the last 20 years, largely due to China’s economic presence, in contrast to the old colonial powers. New anti-colonial revolts such as those in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger are proliferating on the continent, as China and Russia present themselves as progressive alternatives compared to the West’s historic relations with Africa.
The formation of the so-called BRICS follows this historical logic of the functioning of capitalism, with its tendency toward the cyclical emergence of alternative poles of power in relation to the dynamic center of the international economy.
This trend accelerated with the international financial crisis of 2008, where there was an apparent inability of central capitalist countries to manage the crisis in a way that would overcome the impasse created by financialization.
Simultaneously, the tendency of the United States to lose influence over the international economy has led to a contradictory movement in which the hegemonic country breaks the rules it itself created.
Hence, the globalization nurtured by the United States is declining as a cause and consequence of its own protectionism, the use of the dollar as a weapon of financial mass destruction, and the widespread breakdown of global value chains exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The impasse we are witnessing in the world today is reflected in global governance institutions, such as the United Nations, which are increasingly impotent in the face of facts. And the emergence of new weighty actors in the global economy is making the institutions formed under Bretton Woods obsolete, incapable of meeting the new demands of a global order that is emerging amidst the old.
Thus, there arises a so-called Global South that can become a large international market capable of operating – starting with energy markets and local currencies.
Currency swap agreements between China and other Asian economies, for example, have created a large local payment system that already dispenses with the use of the dollar.
Historical rivals such as the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have not only resumed diplomatic relations, but also become part of the BRICS in its new composition, consolidated at the bloc’s 2023 summit in South Africa.
It has been remarkable to see the contours of what has been called the “Global South”, a heterogeneous set of countries, with differentiated levels of development, located outside the Atlantic axis, but which have the ability to converge on some fundamental issues for their own future, and for that of humanity itself.
The political future of the BRICS+ is increasingly related to the persistent search for convergence of this group of countries, and of the “Global South” as a whole.
It is interesting to note that, after the international financial crisis and the exposure of Western hypocrisy across the board, what has resurfaced is the centrality of the struggle for the right to development – a struggle that was so present in anti-colonial struggles, and which found its brightest representatives in the Soviet Union and China.
The “Global South” and particularly Africa have experienced a new wave of struggle for independence, against neocolonialism.
This means that the political future of the BRICS+ is also related to the way this type of global struggle against misery and underdevelopment will occur.
Another fundamental element to understand our common future is the emergence of another kind of globalization.
The chancellor of the People’s Republic of China, Wang Yi, stated:
Our circle of friends will always be in the Third World. Remember: developed countries in the West will not call us to play and, in their eyes, will always have a ‘superiority complex’. The West will always despise our values and consider China ‘backward’. In the eyes of Westerners, there will always be ‘differences between the East and the West’. Don’t think you can integrate into the Western world, nor think naively that you can.
On October 18, a large meeting was held to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative. Many heads of state and government from the Global South were present at the event, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s presence alongside his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping was highlighted at various moments of the summit.
There are a series of questions that must be answered by intellectuals interested in the change of dynamics that marks our historical moment.
One of these involves so-called globalization, its decline, or the emergence of another kind of globalization, particularly in the context of Eurasia and China.
In September 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the general guidelines for what was then called the Economic Belt of the Silk Road, currently the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Since then, 154 countries have formally joined the project, with about US$1 trillion already invested in almost every continent of the globe.
Ten years after the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, the world is facing a series of discussions, including that of a so-called “deglobalization” – accelerated by historic US protectionist policies and an attempt to block China from the global market for semiconductor supplies.
This process has brought fissures to the pre-existing pattern of globalization, but does it mean the beginning of “deglobalization”?
The type of globalization birthed by the United States after World War II has gained other contours and “financialized”, especially since the 1970s. This is dragging the world – and China in particular – toward new institutional milestones of all kinds, with new territorial arrangements based on the speed at which capital flows in and out of countries and the reorganization of the planet’s industrial geography.
An extended period of low inflation in the US became synonymous with “Made in China”. What US policymakers never imagined is that the man who included China in the capitalist world economy had previously been a hero of the Long March, not one of their appointees in South Korea or Japan. We are referring here to Deng Xiaoping.
In about 40 years, financialization has eroded the US’s ability to periodically reinvent itself. Its seemingly unbeatable military machine has been tested more times in a decade than in the entire Cold War. And this has contrasted with a society increasingly fractured by social inequality.
At the same time, with each new financial crisis, the distance between China and the United States has decreased.
In the last four decades, China has built “three immense machines”:
It is at this point that we should question the narrative of so-called “de-globalization”.
Is there a new kind of globalization is taking place? One with China as a promoter, based on incorporating Russia as a sovereign part of its economic networks and the physical integration of the world with infrastructure, based on large productive capacity, based on public banks (creators of fiduciary currency), with greater protagonism for regional powers such as South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, and perhaps Brazil.
On the other hand, if there is a “globalization with Chinese characteristics”, and if any globalization process can also be defined by the values shared by the gravitational pole, what can we expect from a Chinese globalization?
Social sciences and humanities do not have test laboratories like the hard sciences. Therefore, many answers lie in the field of history.
In this sense, given the weight exerted by China’s productive (non-financialized) economy in the world, this new “globalization” will redesign an international division of labor, to the extent that China begins to export its prosperity.
This export is already taking place to a certain extent, to the extent that a country is able to plan its economy on the basis of the trends created by China. That is one point.
Another point is multipolarity. The Chinese are not interested in the burden of being a hegemon. But they are interested in polarizing the debate on global governance.
China has launched three major “Global Initiatives”:
We can say that Chinese governance is rethinking the principles of the famous Bandung Conference of 1955, with the addition of the “internationalization of factors”, by placing responsibility for safeguarding a world marked by multiple tensions in the field of the Global South.
Here is to be found a dialectical relationship between the future, BRICS+ and the Global South.
The end of the Soviet Union brought several negative consequences to the world that are still felt today:
On the other hand, the erosion of the ability to reinvent capitalism due to financialization and the emergence of a socialist country (China) as an economic power whose path reflects nothing of the neoliberal recipes sold by the IMF and the World Bank have contributed to the acceleration of a systemic transition, in which a new globalization centered on China is only its greatest expression.
It is worth remembering that one of the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine was not only a greater challenge to the order based on the dollar as a reserve currency for various financial operations, but also an incorporation of Russia into Chinese economic territory. This is not an annexation or economic colonization, but the beginning of the realization of a Eurasian project based on exchanges at all levels, from energy to high technology, and mediated by hundreds of joint projects involving the investment of hundreds of billions of dollars.
This is made possible by China’s central position in the international credit market, the role of its domestic demand, and the immense potential held by the Russian Federation that goes far beyond its natural reserves.
China’s export of its prosperity also occurs with the possibility opened for the industrialization and re-industrialization of various countries. The cases of Argentina, Bolivia, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, and others are suggestive, where value could be added to primary products, with help from Chinese companies.
In short, the political future of the BRICS+ and the Global South depends greatly on the future of China and how its domestic challenges are being faced.


Instruction: Write an article about: Despite Biden’s claims, Gaza health ministry death toll is accurate, scientific studies show. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Gaza, Israel, Palestine, The Lancet

Output:
US President Biden criticized Gaza’s health ministry, but its statistics on Israel’s killings of Palestinians are accurate, according to peer-reviewed articles in top medical journal The Lancet.

The death toll of Israel’s war on Gaza reported by the Palestinian health ministry is accurate, according to two peer-reviewed studies by scientific experts published in top medical journal The Lancet.
As of December 18, Israel had killed 19,453 Palestinians in Gaza, the ministry reported. Two-thirds of the deaths were children (7,729) and women (5,153).
United Nations bodies, human rights organizations, and major media outlets have often used these statistics, because they have a history of being accurate.

“International organizations including the United Nations usually rely on these same figures as they are seen as the best available”, the Washington Post acknowledged.
“Many experts consider figures provided by the ministry reliable, given its access, sources and accuracy in past statements”, the prominent US newspaper wrote.
Israel has claimed, without any evidence, that Gaza’s health ministry is untrustworthy, because it is supposedly run by the political party Hamas. (In reality, the Gaza health ministry is partially funded by and linked to Hamas’ political rival, the Palestinian Authority, based in the Occupied West Bank.)
The US government has echoed Israel’s disinformation. President Joe Biden said in an October 25 press conference, “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed… I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using”.
Despite Biden’s criticism, HuffPost revealed that the US State Department uses the Palestinian health ministry figures in its own reports on Gaza.
In one of such memos, a US official acknowledged that, if anything, “The numbers are likely much higher, according to the UN and NGOs reporting on the situation”.
This was exactly the conclusion reached by scientific experts at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The peer-reviewed article “No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health”, published in leading medical journal The Lancet on December 6, noted that the Palestinian institution “has historically reported accurate mortality data”.
In past conflicts, discrepancies between Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH) data and independent United Nations figures were only between 1.5% and 3.8%.
Gaza MoH data were also quite similar to figures from Israel’s own Foreign Ministry, with a difference of just around 8%.
Scholars Benjamin Q Huynh, Elizabeth T Chin, and Paul B Spiegel wrote that they “found no evidence of inflated rates”.
Scientific experts from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine came to a similar conclusion in their own peer-reviewed article in The Lancet, published on November 26.
For this previous study, scholars Zeina Jamaluddine, Francesco Checchi, and Oona M R Campbell reviewed death statistics from October 7 to 26, analyzing the list of 7028 deaths compiled by the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Out of the 7028 names, only one had a duplicated ID number, one had an implausible age, and just 281 lacked an ID number.
The experts concluded that the data were reasonable, writing, “We consider it implausible that these patterns would arise from data fabrication”.
They also reviewed MoH figures from previous wars in Gaza, and found them to be reliable.
“Assessments of Palestinian MoH data validity in the 2014 conflict had shown them to be accurate, and we saw no obvious reason to doubt the validity of the data between Oct 7 and Oct 26, 2023”, the scholars stated.
If anything, they concluded that the Gaza MoH figures may be rather conservative.
“The death reporting system currently being used by the Palestinian MoH was assessed in 2021, 2 years before the current war, and was found to under-report mortality by 13%”, they wrote, adding that “it is plausible that the current Palestinian MoH source also under-reports mortality because of the direct effect of the war on data capture and reporting, for example by omitting people whose bodies could not be recovered or brought to morgues”.


Instruction: Write an article about: Inside Russia: Economists describe impact of Western sanctions and Ukraine war. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Alan Freeman, economics, neoliberalism, Radhika Desai, Russia, sanctions, Ukraine

Output:
From inside Russia, economists Radhika Desai and Alan Freeman report on the impact of Western sanctions and the Ukraine war. They discuss Moscow’s integration with Asia and move away from neoliberal economics.

Economists Radhika Desai and Alan Freeman of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group traveled to Russia to participate in several conferences and investigate the impact of Western sanctions and the Ukraine war.
They spoke with Geopolitical Economy Report about the economic situation in the ground, the country’s deepening integration with Asia, and Russian economists’ gradual move away from neoliberalism.
Russian “economists have always been looking to the East; what is interesting is what’s going on in the leadership now”, Freeman said.
He noted that Moscow is trying to implement a program of import substitution industrialization, to replace Western products.

Desai said there has been a lot of capital flight in Russia, and “some [Western] businesses have left, but not all”.
“What’s remarkable about Russia is how relatively low the economic pain has been, and that Russia’s economy has in fact been quite resilient”, she said.
“So you know in Spring last year, the IMF had predicted that Russia’s economic growth would be lowered, that there would be -12% degrowth essentially in Russia, and in fact, Russia has escaped with a relatively minor lower adjustment of %2 degrowth”, she added.
“It definitely doesn’t look like there’s a war economy”, Desai continued. “[There’s] maybe a certain amount of hardships. Certainly we saw some boarded up shops, you know, shops which had fading signs of the old brand names, Western brand names that have left. But you know, a lot of these brand names are still here. I have taken some pictures. Subway is here. Burger King is here. Citibank is here. Benetton is here. I mean there are so many Western Brands which are still operating their shops here”.
In Russia, Freeman explained, “the atmosphere amongst economists … is very different to that that you find in the West”.
“Here the economists themselves are radicalizing”, he said. “And every time I come here, they get more and more shirty about the things that they think should be done in the Russian economy”, and “the internal domestic structural challenges that Russia faces”.
Desai recalled her experience in the conferences in Russia: “Your regular neoliberals were there, but they were only a handful, whereas the overwhelming majority of the economists who were there were taking a distinctly anti-neoliberal position, recalling that actually state controls, state direction, and state-organized redistribution are the keys to Russia’s economic survival in the face of sanctions”.
“So the overwhelming majority of economists were distinctly to the left, far to the left, of what you hear of course in Western countries”, Desai added.