Jack Rasmus

Interested in what happened in the recent BRICS Kazan, Russia conference last week and what it means for the future of the US Global economic empire? Watch my interview on Kikos FreeThinkers Forum with Indian economist S. L. Kanthan as week. A 2 hr. discussion with S.L. and I, with Q&A.

To Watch Go To:

https://www.youtube.com/live/veY2FoKsyuY?si=Lq6zBzYs9poHXZHd

Watch the video of my interview today October 30 with Garland Nixon on how exploitation of labor has intensified under the Neoliberal policy regime since the late 1970s/early 1980s. The discussion concludes with a detailed explanation of how the current BRICS expansion challenges US global hegemony and the US dollar. And how the decline of the $ will blowback on the US economy and disrupt US elites from financing their $2 trillion a year now deficit and $36T national debt (projected to rise to $56T with annual $1.7T interest payments to wealthy bond holders, according to the Congressional Budget Office research arm of Congress).

To Watch go to: https://www.youtube.com/live/RCG-IXO79Yg

For a print version of ‘Labor Exploitation in the Neoliberal Era’ read my forthcoming article re. same in URPE Newsletters (Union of Radical Political Economics News letter)

Earlier this month de facto president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, visited the White House to present his new Victory Plan to US president Joe Biden. Days before the meeting, Zelensky announced to the world he had a new comprehensive plan for Ukraine’s victory in its war with Russia but provided no details. Biden was the first to learn of it, before Zelensky publicly revealed its contents this past week when he finally shared details of his plan with the world in his speech to the Ukrainian parliament on October 16, 2024.

So what are the details of the Zelensky Victory Plan? Is it a roadmap to eventually winning the war militarily? How different—or not—is it from his and Ukraine’s previous plan and strategy for conducting the war?
The first thing to know about it is the Victory Plan has five critical points Zelensky described in his speech—AND three other critical points he didn’t reveal. Three of the plan’s key elements must remain a ‘secret’, he said.

So what we got from Zelensky on October 16 was a 5/8ths Victory Plan. Or, to restate: a 62.5% roadmap to winning the war with Russia. More on the ‘secret three’ shortly.

Joe Biden certainly knows of the three ‘secret’ points. Undoubtedly Zelensky share all eight points with him in his recent meeting. And just as certain, Biden and Zelensky must have mutually agreed not to make the ‘secret three’ points public.

It’s also likely the leaders of other main European NATO countries who Zelensky visited after his meeting with Biden weeks ago—Starmer in the UK, Sholtz in Germany, Macron in France—are aware of the full picture but are remaining mute.

But we the public in the USA and Europe, and the rest of the world as well, only get to hear 5/8ths of the Victory Plan. The three secrets are obviously too dangerous or outrageous to share.

Zelensky’s 5-Point Victory Plan

Of the five points he did describe in his speech, at the top of his list as point number one, Zelensky said Ukraine was inviting NATO to offer it immediate membership in NATO. Note this meant that Ukraine was no longer waiting for NATO to invite it, Ukraine, to join; Ukraine was inviting NATO to ask it to join. The Zelensky Plan’s precondition for victory was thus immediate NATO membership!

Zelensky called his second point Defense. That meant NATO providing Ukraine still more weapons, especially more missiles, planes and drones. To quote him directly, Zelensky called for “joint shooting down of Russian planes and missiles”. That suggests direct involvement by NATO planes and NATO manned anti-missile systems. It perhaps even suggests a NATO enforced ‘no fly’ zone, a demand that Zelensky has been proposing for quite some time.

Even more ominous, Zelensky’s point two included “removal of restrictions on (Ukraine’s) use of weapons”. That statement was undoubtedly a reference to Ukraine’s long standing demand that NATO (UK and Germany) give it long range cruise missiles to let it strike with them deep into Russia, including presumably as far as Moscow which would be within their range.

Point three of the Victory Plan was called Deterrence. By Deterrence Zelensky meant stationing a permanent, albeit non-nuclear, NATO military force within Ukraine. As he said, to ensure victory Ukraine proposed to host a NATO “strategic deterrence package on its soil.” To put it bluntly this could only mean permanent NATO troop ‘boots on the ground’.

The fourth point of the Victory Plan called for the West to tighten sanctions on Russian oil prices and shipments. To date these measures have not had much effect on Russian oil production or sales. The ‘Russian oil price caps’ sanction issued earlier this year has had no effect on Russian oil prices. And Western media largely admits Russia has found various ways around shipping its oil. Russian natural gas continues to ship via two southern Europe pipelines into Europe, one through Turkey and the other actually through Ukraine, both transporting Russian natural gas into Hungary, Bulgaria, the Balkans and even Italy. And from those countries, some of the gas gets resold to elsewhere in Europe. Russian liquefied natural gas has also continued to flow via by sea into western Europe ports. Other official sanctions have proved no less ineffective. Point four wants all that to stop.

Point four also made reference to Ukraine strengthening its economy. Most economic indicators show Ukraine’s economy has continued to deteriorate steadily in 2023-24 as the war has intensified. Ukraine has publicly admitted, for example, it requires $8 billion/month just to keep its government functioning and pay the salaries, pensions and benefits of government employees, among other costs.

The US $61B aid package passed by the US Congress last April will soon be spent. US Speaker of the House, Johnson, has publicly said there’s no more money from Congress for Ukraine. He won’t bring another proposal to the House floor.

Meanwhile, Europe is struggling to pass some kind of measure to raise bonds to fund Ukraine and the war in 2025 by either using the $260 billion of frozen Russian assets in its banks or by using the $260 billion as collateral for raising private money to buy new Euro bonds it would issue. However, neither measure has gained much political traction in Europe which itself is steadily slipping into recession. Either requires the approval of other EU members like Hungary and Slovakia both of which continue to block such measures. Euro neocons are so frustrated they are proposing to throw Hungary and Slovakia out of the EU entirely.

If the preceding four points appear wishful thinking—given that recent US and NATO statements that have rejected all of them—point five is even more fantastic: in it Zelensky said that points one to four would assure Ukraine’s victory. That would then leave Ukraine’s military one of the largest, most experienced and effective military forces in Europe and NATO after the war. A victorious Ukraine would “strengthen NATO” and represent a “guarantee of security in Europe”. Furthermore, the USA would no longer have to keep its forces in Europe since Ukraine’s forces could “replace the US contingent”.

Zelensky summarized his five points by saying if the US, NATO and the West adopted these five points it would result in the “end of the war no later than next year”! (Zelensky’s full speech is in writing on the Ukraine government’s website).

One can hardly call Zelensky’s Victory Plan a roadmap for military victory. Zelensky’s position remains as it has been since the start of the war: all Russian forces must be driven from Ukraine, including from Crimea, and Ukraine’s 1991 borders restored. His position has been—and remains—Ukraine will commence negotiations with Russia only after it leaves Ukraine. In other words, no negotiations unless Russia first capitulates. Still remains Ukraine’s position even as continues to steadily retreat from territory in its former eastern provinces as its forces are encircled and are being now pushed out of Russia’s Kursk region that Ukraine invaded this past August.

All along the eastern Donbass front Ukraine’s military has been forced out of its former strongholds in key cities like Vuledar, Andeyevka, Robotyne, Toretsk, and is being encircled there as well in various locations like Kourakova, Chasov Yar, Kupiansk and elsewhere. In Kursk three current encirclements have threatened the capture of four Ukraine battalions and Ukraine has given back more than 500 square kilometers of former captured territory. It may have to exit Kursk before the US November election.

In short, the reality is that Zelensky’s Victory Plan is a political wish list, not a military roadmap to a victory that continues to slip away for Ukraine by the day.

The Victory Plan, moreover, is not just a political plan. It is a plan to get NATO into the war more directly in order for Ukraine to win. It represents an ultimatum to NATO: either accept the Plan’s five points or else Ukraine may lose, Zelensky seems to be saying. And if Ukraine loses, so does NATO lose. NATO may even unravel if that happens.

In addition, Zelensky indirectly is saying the economic cost to the West will be significant. It may lose all the funds thus far invested in Ukraine and all the West’s corporations who have also committed heavily to investing in Ukraine will lose their money as well.

The Zelensky 5-Point Victory Plan is therefore not just an ‘ultimatum’ to NATO but a form of political blackmail to it: either accept the Victory Plan, Zelensky seems to say, or Ukraine will lose the war and so will you NATO!

Russia’s Hardening Position

From the very beginning of the war Russia’s number one demand has always been ‘No NATO’ in Ukraine and Ukraine must remain politically neutral. Its second demand, cemented in concrete in the fall of 2022 as well is that Crimea and the four other provinces are now part of Russia. That will never be reversed. That too is non-negotiable now. After that, according to Putin, remaining issues are negotiable. He called it, ‘Istanbul II’, last June. It is the start pointing for negotiating. Instanbul is a reference to the first deal agreed to in April 2022 between Russia and Ukraine as result of discussions in Instanbul Turkey. That tentative deal Zelensky subsequently backed out of as result of NATO urging him to reject it outright in April 2022 and to resort to a military solution to the war backed by NATO weapons and money.

Russia has recently added to its Instanbul II position in its latest warning and red line it recently communicated directly to NATO and the US Pentagon: giving Ukraine the green light to use NATO long range missiles to attack deep into Russia and its major cities means Russia will attack NATO forces directly as well. Putin added to this warning intimating that Russia response might include using tactical nuclear weapons if necessary. Apparently this warning was taken seriously by most NATO military establishments, including the US Pentagon.

US Neocons vs the Pentagon

When Zelensky visited Washington DC to meet with Biden earlier this month he was accompanied by the newly elected UK prime minister, Keir Starmer. Both he and Starmer were reportedly assured by US Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, that Biden would approve the delivery of UK long range ‘storm shadow’ missiles to Ukraine and their use to strike deep into Russia. But Zelensky-Starmer and Blinken went away empty handed. Biden did not give his approval. The reason was the Pentagon and US military Joint Chiefs of Staff generals pushed back and US neocons broke rank. Neocon Jake Sullivan sided with the Pentagon and generals and together they convinced Biden to hold off granting Ukraine and UK approval to deploy and use UK’s storm shadow long distance missiles. That remains the tentative status quo, at least until the US November election after which Biden may change his mind—especially if Trump wins the election.

USA’s Split Positions

The USA notably has not endorsed Zelensky’s Victory Plan. In fact, it has reaffirmed its prior position it does not agree to green light Zelensky’s request for long distance missiles to attack Russia. The USA—and for that matter NATO in general—has not agreed to fast track Ukraine’s membership into NATO either.

As for the other elements of Zelensky’s 5 point plan, there’s clearly no more money from Congress for Ukraine. The USA position is and remains: Europe is sitting on $260 billion of Russian assets. It should find a way for it to use those assets to fund Ukraine. That possibility is easier said than done, however, since Hungary, Slovakia and soon perhaps Spain and Italy are not too happy about stealing Russia’s assets. Russia has threatened to seize those countries’ business assets in Russia in turn and may have already begun some action in that regard. And then there’s the question of Russian natural gas that continues to flow into southern Europe, Italy in particular.

There is not a single unified position among the US elite on continuing to fund or militarily support Ukraine, however. The US neocons are looking for a formula to revive it. And they are increasingly on the defensive in that regard.

Another faction in the elite want to push Ukraine to negotiate with Russia on the basis of proposing a ceasefire and NATO membership in exchange for conceding the territory already virtually won by Russia on the ground so far: Crimea and the four east Ukraine provinces that Russia has legally annexed as part of Russia. But the US doesn’t want to initiate negotiations; it wants Ukraine to do so and offer the ‘land for NATO’ proposal. That proposal, however, is a non-starter for Russia. It will never agree to a NATO presence in even part of Ukraine. It sees that as just a hiatus in the war that will eventually resume later.

Then there is a faction among the US military that wants to focus on preparing for military conflict with China, which it sees as the real challenge to USA hegemony. More than one general has slipped up and publicly admitted war with China was likely by 2030. The longer the Ukraine Project goes on the more the delay in confronting China. Were it over in one year was accepted, but it’s now going on three and the generals and admirals are getting nervous.

Last, and not least, there’s the Israel faction. They see an imminent and costly conflict in the middle east on the horizon. Israel has more political influence by far in the USA than Ukraine. This faction wants to dump Project Ukraine on the Europeans and focus on Israel-Iran.
For now the dominant US position with regard to continuing ‘Project Ukraine’ is twofold:

First, in the very short term keep the status quo in Ukraine as is until the US November 5 elections. The US and Biden regime do not want a collapse of Ukraine before the election. Nor do they want an unforeseen major escalation precipitated by either Ukraine or Russia should the former start launching long range UK missiles into Moscow.

The slightly longer term period from November 5 to January 20, 2025 is less clear. Will Biden still not want a collapse of Ukraine ‘on his watch’, as they say? Or will he allow Ukraine to escalate and leave the mess for his successor, especially if Trump, which now seems likely.

Biden has a visceral dislike of Putin and Russia. And who knows how deep his resentment of his own Democrat party goes after they unceremoniously dumped him as their candidate this summer. Then there’s his unknown mental state of mind as a factor. In short, Biden could ‘go all in’ after November 5, as they saying goes, and give Ukraine a green light to further escalate using the long range missiles… or worse.

Which brings the situation of Project Ukraine to the latest event.

Zelensky & Biden in Berlin

It is strange that both the mainstream media in the US and West, as well as those sources more favorably disposed to Russia’s position, have largely ignored discussing the issue of the ‘three secret’ points of Zelensky’s Victory Plan.

Perhaps some light has just been thrown on the ‘three secrets’ by Zelensky himself the day after his speech to his parliament. He attended a general NATO meeting in Brussels yesterday, the 17th of October, after which he gave a press interview. In that interview Zelensky made a remarkable statement. He said that when he was last in New York he spoke with Trump as well as Harris. He then said that Trump told him, after Zelensky apparently shared some of the elements of his Victory Plan, that Trump said Ukraine should either be admitted to NATO or be allowed to have a nuclear weapon!

Zelensky added in the interview that he told Trump he’d rather have NATO membership than the nuclear weapon. This is a remarkable exchange. Did Trump actually say that? Or is Zelensky trying to undermine Trump on behalf of Biden and the Dems? Trump has yet to reply. Regardless it shows something of Zelensky’s thinking, state of desperation, and potentially how far he’s prepared to go.

What is especially curious about this exchange is that the same day of his interview and statement about choosing the nuclear weapon or NATO, the politically well positioned German magazine BILD said Ukraine had all the knowledge and materials to build a nuclear weapon in just weeks! And most likely it would build one in the vicinity of one of its several Nuclear Power Plants.

To make matters even more intriguing, Ukraine’s foreign minister on the same day as Zelensky’s interview and the BILD article said Russia was planning soon to attack and destroy Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.

This all coincidentally sounds like Zelensky and Ukraine resorting indirectly to nuclear blackmail of NATO and the West, and not just Russia.

In his interview after yesterday’s NATO meeting in Brussels, is Zelensky (with assistance of European neocons) telling NATO: either let us into NATO now or we will build a nuclear weapon as a last resort to try to force Russia to capitulate! Is he bluffing? Or is he saying Ukraine has nothing to lose if Russia advances on Kiev and it is about to be defeated.

In conclusion, maybe…just maybe…something similar to what Zelensky revealed in his interview is hidden in the ‘three secret’ points of Zelensky’s Victory Plan that Biden and US neocons don’t want publicly? At least not until after the November 5 election perhaps.

Dr. Jack Rasmus
October 18, 2024

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, copyright 2024

“Yesterday’s Vice Presidential debate between Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Walz might have been called the ‘First Presidential Debate of 2028’. Based on the reasonable debate performances by both, Vance and Walz are clearly now the front runners as presidential candidates for their parties in the next 2028 national election.

Of course, the bar for a reasonable debate was quite low in yesterday’ event, given the poor debate performances by their presidential partners earlier this summer and, for that matter, reaching back as far as the 2016 national elections. TV audiences watching must have been surprised that an actual debate occurred.

Vance and Walz were both reasonably well prepared. They spoke to a number of issues, even if not at a high debating skill level. Noticeably absent in the Walz-Vance debate were the vacuous generalities of presidential candidate Kamala Harris in the preceding presidential debate; or the too oft-repeated zingers and one-liners of Trump that were perhaps more appropriate for outdoor rally venues than one on one debates.

In the Vance-Walz debate factual errors were kept to a relative minimum, unlike the volley of fact-checkable claims made by Trump and Harris in the prior presidential debate, thrown at the viewing audience like a food fight in a high school cafeteria.

So how did each VP candidate perform? Had either succeeded in their objectives in the debate? VP debates are not about convincing significant percentages of still undecided voters to decide to vote for their side. In that they are quite unlike the presidential debates which are, theoretically at least, designed to sway last minute voters.

Vance’s objective in the debate was first and foremost to rehab and repackage Trump. And to reiterate the Republican team’s main themes and messages, perhaps backed up with some facts and figures this time instead of opinions and vague phrases. In both regards Vance’s performance can be said to have succeeded.

Walz’s main objective was to convince the audience that Harris, as current vice-president, had her own program that was not the Biden administration’s. In that goal he may have succeeded with regard to US domestic policy but clearly did not with regard to US foreign policy. Harris foreign policy remains clearly the same as Biden’s, especially with regard to policies toward Russia, China and currently escalating war in the middle east.

Harris thus remains tied to Biden’s war policies and risks experiencing the ‘Hubert Humphrey Effect’ in the election. Lyndon Johnson’s VP during the 1960s and Vietnam War, Humphrey lost the 1968 presidential race by a narrow margin to Richard Nixon largely as a result, many political analysts argue, due to his continuing support for Johnson’s Vietnam war policy during the 1968 election.

Both Vance and Walz came across as actually prepared. Even with a few statistics in hand. Vance’s delivery was composed and his remarks to the point in most cases. He appeared personable—an important characteristic for a good many American voters who, unfortunately, decide based on appearance and personality. Walz was similarly prepared but seemed at times a little overly excitable.

Walz clearly stumbled when asked by moderators of his past trips to and views toward China. He confused travel dates and his reply was unconvincing. His concluding remark as to recent criticisms to his inconsistent explanations in his past views toward China was simply “I mis-spoke on this”.

Vance similarly stumbled when asked by moderators about his recent flip flop in his personal views before 2017 about Trump’s qualifications as president. His reply was he was misled by the mainstream US media, that he came to realize he was “wrong about Trump” and that he “changed his mind” after Trump’s first term accomplishments. Vance failed to raise the critique of Walz about his dates of military service which might have gained some points.

In the first half of the debate Vance prevailed on several points over Walz—on the economy, inflation, and immigration. In the second half, however, Walz appeared to have won points when topics of reproductive rights and housing crisis solutions were discussed.

In his first reply of the night, Vance took his time answering the moderators’ first question by providing an introduction of himself in which he emphasized his working class roots and provided anecdotal examples of some of the typical hardships working class folks—single mom households in particular—have to deal with to make ends meet in 21st century USA. He established his class credentials, an important move perhaps in a campaign focusing on working class households in the key northern swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Vance also alluded to his ‘southern’ Appalachia roots, no doubt plugging his southern pedigree to voters in other swing states like Georgia and North Carolina.

Walz attempted the same, claiming to have middle class roots, but did not develop that message as effectively and to the extent Vance did.

(Foreign Policy)

The first question posed by the moderators addressed foreign policy. And the way it was structured revealed much about the state of the mainstream media and the governing US elites’ biases and politics on foreign issues at present. The moderators posed the question to each candidate: “Would you support a pre-emptive strike against Iran?”

It was a query that might have been written for them by AIPAC itself. A less loaded inquiry might have been: “The conflict in the middle east is escalating toward a region wide war. What are your proposals for de-escalation and bringing peace to the region”? “And how specifically would your proposals differ from the current Biden administration’s to date”? The topic was possibly the most important raised given the extreme war escalation going on in the middle east as the debate took place.

As did their presidential partners, Trump and Harris, the two vice-president candidates competed with answers that challenged the other as to who was more supportive of Israel.
Walz accused Trump of being “fickle” and (ironically) of being “too old” at 80 to conduct a vigorous foreign policy in general and in defense of Israel in particular. In contrast, according to Walz, Harris represented “steady leadership”. But no mention here of any change in current Biden administration’s unqualified support for anything Israel might do.

Vance’s reply to the foreign policy question emphasized that no new war occurred while Trump was president in 2017-20 in contrast to multiple wars under Biden-Harris. He charged Democrats had given Iran $100B with which it has been arming its proxies. Vance added Republicans would not intervene in any way to interfere with whatever Israel decided to do.

Both Vance and Walz and Republicans and Democrats have essentially the same policy toward Israel. Both VP candidates ducked the issue of the current rapid escalation to a regional war in the middle east or the increasing likelihood of the US being sucked into the war in the region in support of Israel and against Iran, the latter of which now appears de facto supported by Russia and perhaps China as well.

Following their exchange on Israel and war in the middle east, not one question was asked by moderators—nor did either candidate say anything throughout the rest of the debate—about the war in Ukraine. Vance did not raise his past comments on the Ukraine war that declared Ukraine must agree to a compromise and negotiations with Russia to end the war; nor did Walz in any way raise a comment of that view. Neither VP candidate mentioned US preparation long term for war with China over Taiwan, or US Biden policy currently ramping up its economic war with that country.

Nor was there a whisper about the rapid rise and expansion of the BRICS and its soon to be announced global alternative financial structure that represents the most serious foreign policy development challenging US global economic interests. It’s as if the US elite and their media don’t have a clue about the crumbling US global economic hegemony now underway—a development that may prove as disastrous to US global dominance as any of the wars.

(Climate Change)

Both candidates seem to agree on the need to produce more fossil fuels while both advocated more alternative energy as well. Both said they were in favor of clean water and air in the USA.
Vance argued the Biden-Harris team allowed China to take the lead in alternative energy development. He and Trump would relocate that investment back to the US. Walz countered that Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was the biggest investment in alternative energy in the US in history and had already created 200,000 new jobs—a claim that at best might reflect a correlation but cannot be verified by any economic analysis as directly resulting from the IRA.

Both candidates competed in favor of more drilling of natural gas. However, Vance did not take full advantage of Harris’ flip flop on fracking policy as he might have.

Neither candidate replied with specifics to the moderators’ question what would they do to reverse the clearly accelerating trend in global warming. Neither had anything to say about the world having reached the tipping point of 1.5 degree centigrade rise in world temperature already, instead of 2040 as scientists previously forecasted.

(Immigration)

The immigration issue was next debated. Vance predictably argued, like Trump, that 25 million illegal immigrants have entered the US—millions of whom were criminals, the result of which is a devastating effect on housing shortages and prices, availability of jobs, over-whelming of hospital services. The illegals were largely responsible for illegal drug flows and crime in cities across America, according to Vance. But not a word from Vance about immigrants eating cats in Ohio. Walz countered that Trump blocked the bipartisan immigration bill Congress had negotiated. Indirectly Walz suggested the passing of the bill was all that was needed to resolve the social impact of illegal immigrants.

Now it got more interesting. The moderators noted that now more than 50% of US public supported deportation, so how might they, the candidates in office, actually deport millions of them? Vance ducked the question of the mechanics of deportation. His answer was Biden-Harris had reversed 94 Trump executive orders that had stopped the illegals inflow under Trump and Democrats halted building of Trump’s border wall. Trump policy, per Vance, would be to empower the US border patrol more. Walz’s remarks as to what a Harris policy might do to address the illegal immigrant inflow offered nothing new from Biden’s. Instead he emphasized the humanitarian treatment of immigrants was important. That of course was an indirect statement that Harris-Walz policy might not offer any new solution to illegal immigration and its social impact, apart from passing the stalled immigration bill.

(Inflation)

It was only well into the first hour of the debate that the moderators asked a question on the economy, a topic which just about every poll shows is has been, and continues to be, voters’ number one issue.

Vance dove into discussing economic issues by emphasizing the 20% plus rise in food prices and 60% rise in housing prices under Biden and how real take home pay (note he didn’t say wages) rose under Trump’s previous administration but barely, if at all, has risen under Biden-Harris. Trump’s tariff proposals, he added, were designed to bring back jobs that have been offshored under Biden-Harris.

On direct economic issues Walz avoided any debate on inflation specifics or countered Vance’s take home pay claims and focused more on topics of housing affordability, child care, and corporate taxes. Instead of pinning him down ad keeping the discussion focused on inflation, however, Vance let him slide. Not once did Vance raise the favorite election debate phrase, invented by Reagan with great effect, ‘are you better off today than you were four years ago’? But then, his team-mate Trump failed to do that as well. Both Vance and Trump too briefly mentioned, and consequently failed to drive home the message, the full negative effect of inflation on households, the #1 issue to voters.

They could have repeated the facts that inflation has plateaued at a level 25-35% above what it was in 2019, depending on sources. That monthly mortgage payments were up 114%. Gasoline at the pump 38%. And various food prices 20-37% over what they were four years ago. Walz did not go there either apart from admitting inflation was too high. Then offered little by way of bringing prices down apart from noting 10 prescription drugs prices would be modestly reduced two years from now as result of Biden-Harris recent negotiations with drug companies.

(Jobs)

When it came to jobs both candidates seemed to agree on some points more than disagreed. The agreement on something, even if tenuous, was a welcome addition to the debate absent since 2016. Both VP candidates agreed on the need to bring jobs back to the US from offshore. In how to do that they differed.

Vance’s main point was Trump’s tariffs would force US companies to return jobs to the US. Walz’s argument was the Biden ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ was doing it already. Walz even claimed that the IRA had already created 250,000 jobs in just the 18 months since its passage—a very dubious claim that Vance did not rise up and challenge and the moderators also let slide. Too often politicians allow correlations to pass as causations—a problem in the mainstream media as well.

Notably absent in the jobs discussion was any claim by Walz that the Biden administration had created 12 million jobs, which Harris had made and which was a gross misrepresentation of fact. Nine of the 12 million jobs Biden (and Harris) claims were created since 2020 were jobs workers simply returned to after the government mandated Covid shutdowns. Net new actual job creation is measurable only after the economy had fully reopened after 21, starting in 2022.

Vance could have rebutted claims of Biden-Harris job creation by noting most new jobs the past two years have been part time and gig work. Vance lost another opportunity to make a point in the debate by referencing the weak job creation this past summer as well as by noting the government’s corrected statistics showing nearly a million fewer jobs were created in 2023-24 than previously reported and claimed by the Democrats. It was interesting that neither candidate dwelled much on the job market situation which is, along with inflation, typically the number one economic issue for working class voters.

(Housing Crisis)

Both VP candidates did spend some time talking about housing although their comments focused on home owners and said nothing about renters. Both candidates acknowledged the serious problem in America with housing availability…and affordability.

Walz addressed the housing affordability issue with Harris’s proposal to provide tax credits for first time homebuyers and a $25k help on closing costs for the same. But the housing issue impacts not just first time homebuyers. No mention was made about assistance for the millions who were not first time buyers. Nor how the $25k might be gamed by real estate manipulators who might just add the $25k to the price of the house sale.

Vance tied the problem of affordability to failure of Biden to control home prices which rose 60%, also like Walz saying nothing about renters. If Vance had better economic advisers he might have also noted that the 60% rise in house prices was a low estimate of what households actually pay for shelter or from monthly budgets in general. What households actually pay for shelter is monthly mortgages which have risen 114% since 2019 not 60%. Unlike just house prices, mortgages include interest rates and other fees. But interest rates are not included in any government calculation of inflation which means both the CPI and PCE government inflation indexes are grossly underestimated. That goes for credit cards, auto, student and other loans as well, all of which have devastated household real incomes in the past two and a half years. So the housing affordability issue is in fact worse than officially reported, and worse than either candidate has noted.

The Federal Reserve central bank has been largely responsible for the sharp rise in interest rates across the board. But not a word from either VP candidate on the Fed and what might be their administrations’ monetary policies.

Vance’s answer to the lack of housing affordability was to argue the 25 million illegal immigrants were driving up housing costs—a not convincing argument that alleges somehow immigrant demand for home ownership is largely responsible for runaway home and mortgage prices. But illegal immigrants excess demand for home ownership is clearly not driving up shelter inflation.
Vance’s other solution to unaffordable home prices was to increase supply by opening up and selling federal lands—an even more unconvincing argument. It’s true that in general prices are determined by supply as well as demand. But what builders would construct housing supply on federal lands, most of which are not located near population centers where most people who want a home or rent reside? And if houses were constructed on federal lands in the hinterland, how would people make a living to pay for them there since there are few if any jobs on remote available federal lands. Walz clearly missed an opportunity to debunk the Trump-Vance supply and demand theory of unaffordable housing costs.

The moderators even asked Vance where he would have the US government provide the lands but he ducked the question. On the other hand, Walz-Harris proposal they would increase home supply (and thus lower prices) by creating 3 million new homes was hardly more convincing than Vance’s. Neither Harris or Walz has ever answered ‘how’, ‘where’ and at what ‘price’ 3 million new homes might be built. It’s just a vague claim posing as a program. Vance could have punctured that balloon easily but never challenged Walz to provide specifics about the 3 million.

(Taxes)

The debate on the tax question was more interesting—both for what was covered and what was omitted.

Trump’s 2017 tax cuts were addressed only briefly. Both candidates, as well as the moderators, referred to the cost of those cuts amounting to only $1.7 to $2 trillion. However, the actual cost was more than $4 trillion. Why? The politicians of both parties and mainstream media kept avoiding reference to the fact that the lower $1.7 trillion estimate was based on the assumption that the US economy would grow at an average of 3.5% in GDP terms every year starting in 2018 through 2027. Economic growth would reduce the $4.5T net tax revenue loss. Of course that never happened, starting with the 2020-21 US economic collapse. In addition, the $1.7 trillion low ball estimate excluded a full calculation of the tax cuts accrued by US multinational corporations’ offshore operations. That the Trump tax cuts were $4.5 trillion not $1.7 trillion is evidenced by the Congressional Budget Office research that estimates a continuation of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for another decade, starting in 2025, will reduce US tax revenues by another $5 trillion.

The ignoring of the full impact of the Trump tax cuts by the candidates, VP and presidential alike, as well as the US media, suggests that neither party of the US elite is really interested in reducing the Trump tax cuts—then or in the future. Corporate campaign contributors to both parties like it as it is. Despite Biden-Harris promises in the 2020 election, the Dems did not reduce the Trump 2017 cuts despite having majorities in both houses of Congress for a period.

(Deficits and National Debt)

Neither candidate, Vance or Walz, discussed the consequence of the massive tax cutting that has gone on for decades now for the chronic multi-trillion dollar annual US budget deficits. Studies show deficits are 60% due to insufficient tax revenues (due to cuts and/or slower than normal GDP growth). Another 20-30% is due to excess spending, of which $8 trillion has been due to war spending in recent decades. Another 10-20% due to recession bailouts in 2008-09 and 2020-21 and price gouging by health insurance companies driving up Medicare and other government health costs. Recently the Fed’s hike in rates has introduced yet another major cause of runaway budget deficits, now around $2 trillion annually. That’s interest payments to US Treasury bond holders due to rate increases since March 2022. That interest rate cost contribution to the annual $2 trillion now budget deficit and consequent $35 trillion US national debt is now more than $1 trillion a year as well.

So what did either VP candidate propose to address the emerging fiscal crisis of the US? Not a word was offered; nor even asked by the moderators.

(Working Class Tax Cuts)

Perhaps as notably missing as discussion of deficits and debt in the debate was the candidates failure to mention the tax cut proposals that might actually benefit working class households.
Trump has raised during the campaign several interesting tax proposals benefitting workers and middle class households. But he didn’t discuss them in his first debate with Harris. Nor did Vance in his VP debate. Which makes one doubt perhaps the seriousness of the proposals in the first place. These tax initiatives include: eliminating taxes on workers’ tipped wages; on overtime pay, and on retirees social security monthly checks. Taxes on the latter was introduced only recently by Reagan, by the way. Conspicuously missing in Vance’s discussion all night was any reference to these obvious pro-worker household cuts. Nor did Walz bother to either mention or critique them.

Both did debate briefly the tax credits for child care, an important big assistance to middle and working class households. But neither Vance or Walz bothered to critique the shortcomings in either of their respective proposals. Vance did reference the child care program could be paid out of Trump’s tariff revenue increase. Walz never explained how Harris’s child care program might be financed.

Walz mentioned Harris’s proposal for a $50k cost tax deduction for small business start ups, already receiving a $5k annual deduction. One wonders why no one has proposed a similar benefit for workers: perhaps a six month income or payroll tax suspension for workers trying to ‘start up’ after a long term period of unemployment?

(Reproductive Rights)

When this topic came up late in the debate Walz clearly made points at Vance (and Trump’s) expense. This was a clear win. Walz advocated restoring Roe v. Wade nationally as the solution to womens’ health needs. Vance echoed Trump’s view of leaving it to the states to decide. Walz successfully rebutted the negative consequences of that. Vance danced around the topic of a national abortion ban he allegedly had once supported, unconvincingly. Both he and Walz, in one of their agreements, supported IV birth assistance—which distanced Vance from some of the more extreme Republican advocacies.

Both candidates seemed to occupy a middle ground on gun control. Both said they were hunters, a perfunctory politician comment nowadays. Even Harris admits she owns guns. To say otherwise is like refusing to say the pledge of allegiance for politicians.

Another curious discussion also turned around the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The candidates debated the ACA as if it was the 2016 election. Polls show health care and ACA are well down the list of voters’ concerned. Perhaps somewhere around 8th or 10th most important. Vance argued incredibly that Trump saved the ACA. While Walz successfully rebutted that claim. Both said they supported the idea of retaining ‘pre-existing conditions’ feature of the ACA.

(Threats to Democracy)

The debate concluded around the question which was the greater threat to Democracy. Walz again parroted the Democrat theme that Trump’s behavior around the January 6 riot in the Capitol reflected his danger to democracy. This has been the Democrats main theme in the campaign to personalize and demonize Trump. It may have played a role in the 2020 election but it is questionable whether it will similarly fly today. Democrats are likely over playing their hand with this issue. Most polls show voters have more serious concerns.

Vance lost an opportunity to emphasize Democrats’ own roughshod treatment of Democracy: how they removed their own candidate by backroom maneuvers by party leaders; rigged their own primary elections; how Democrats have been spending millions to knock third parties off the ballots in numerous states; their agreements with big Tech social media company campaign contributors (META, Google, Instagram, etc.) to censor pro-Trump commentary on their networks; Democrats raising big corporate money at a rate 2 to 1 compared to the Republicans; their proposing to stack the Supreme Court and so on.

Vance did raise the recent proposals of some leading Democrats, John Kerry and others, to limit the right to free speech in the first amendment to the US Constitution. This issue is just arising, however, as Vance made reference to it. However, it is doubtful voters have any idea what it means. In general, Vance’s come back to Walz’s emphasizing of Trump and January 6 was not as effective as it might have been.

(Closing Statements)

In their closing statements Walz reiterated the Harris theme of trying to inject a ‘politics of joy’ into the campaign. Given what’s happening in the US domestically, and the erupting and intensifying wars that risk increasingly worse consequences, trying to be ‘joyful’ seems absurd.
Walz said “we don’t need to be afraid”.

But yes, we do. Very much so.

In contrast, Vance closed with repeating how most middle class voters were experiencing great stress economically and many even socially in their neighborhoods. He noted there was ‘broken leadership’ in Washington, a theme with which many voters agree, according to polls. And many no doubt relate to Vance’s comment: “We need change in Washington. We need a new direction”.

In summary, this writer would give Vance a slight advantage over Walz in the debate. His delivery and appearance was a plus. He brought the image of a stable personality to the Republican side and someone who was aware of the issues, domestic at least. He successfully rehabilitated Trump. Vance ‘won’ on pocket book issues and immigration. Walz ‘won’ on reproductive rights and housing crisis solutions. Neither impressed on climate change or the imminent US fiscal crisis. And both left voters with a justifiable growing concern about both parties’ behavior which is undermining democracy in the country.

Most important, like their presidential partners, both VP candidates failed miserably to address the growing crisis in US foreign policy, the world’s drift toward more war and escalating military violence, and the BRICS’ existential challenge to the continuation of the US global economic empire.

In short, neither Vance nor Walz clearly won the debate. On the other hand neither lost it. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for American voters, the working class, or for America in general as world events today appear a runaway train on track and accelerating toward a colossal wreck in the middle east and elsewhere.

Dr. Jack Rasmus
October 2, 2024

I recently received a comment to the post of my article ‘The 2nd First Presidential Debate’ that criticized me for leaning in favor of Trump, of even being a ‘closet Trumpist’. The comment went on to repeat ad nauseum the typical Democrat party election ‘talking points’ that pretty much just say ‘don’t vote for Trump because he’s crazy, a moral degenerate, etc.’ In other words, commentary that reflects a personalization and demonization of the issues and a failure to consider that much more may be at stake in this election besides personality traits.

The commentator reflects the intense, fear mongering Democrat party messaging underway that so many Liberals in the Democrat camp regurgitate nowadays. The Democrats and mainstream media have guys like him so worked up over the prospect of ‘the end of the world if Trump is elected’ that they can’t think straight about anything else. In one big gulp, they drink the Democrat party kool aide political marketing that’s spiked with an antidote against even considering, let alone discussing or debating other policies. That’s especially true of Biden-Harris policies of chronic war mongering, genocide, and allowing party neocons like Blinken, Sullivan and others to drag us into a direct conflict, and possibly a nuclear war, with Russia… or Iran… or later China.

By totally focusing on personality trashing these commentators fail to raise even a word about Democrat foreign policy—perhaps the most important issue in this election. I’m referring to policies of war and genocide that may eliminate the need for even another election in 2028 since few of us might still be around to vote.

Makes one wonder who’s really the ‘crazy’ in the room in this election.

Here’s the essential excerpt from the commentator in question who accused me of being a ‘closet Trumpist’ for not parroting the Democrat/Harris line that Trump’s a personal demon who will definitely end the USA and maybe the world if elected:

Manny Katz commenting on The Second 1st Presidential Debate.

“I don’t know what to make of this analysis in terms of favoring one candidate over another. Your article seems to be a “normalizing” or “sanewashing” attempt for Trump. Are you actually a closet “Trumpista?”, trying to “even out” what you interpret as a tranch of “unfairness” to the bully in chief? A right-winger in left-winger clothing?
…It is beyond my belief system that you actually want to make excuses for a deleterious, deranged, demented candidate who has never had the slightest moral, intellectual, ethical or governmental qualifications to be a POTUS or anything else.”

And here’s my reply to Mr. Katz:

Your comment reflects the main messaging of the Democrat party: to demonize and personalize the campaign. You make not one mention of the Biden-Harris foreign policy that is bringing us closer by the day to a US direct conflict with Russia or with Iran on behalf of Israel in the middle east. Are you politically deaf and blind? Does foreign policy not enter in your calculation? Harris policy is Biden policy is the policy of the US empire and deep state taking us to the brink, including nuclear war potentially.

And how about talking about domestic policy? I’m a former long term union organizer. What I see is Trump offering to end taxing social security income (that Reagan introduced). I don’t hear a thing re. same from Harris? I hear Trump talking no tax on tips (which Harris quickly added so she wouldn’t get wiped out in Nevada in November). Trump talks about no tax on overtime pay. Harris is silent on that one. Harris wants to re-institute $3k for child care that Biden ended after only six months in order to redirect the money for child care to tech semiconductor corps and infrastructure investors. Before Harris mentioned her $3K JD Vance had already proposed $5k. Then Harris even backtracks even on Biden’s 37% corporate tax and proposes 28% tax rate, plus $50k for start up companies’ tax deduction. How about giving workers a ‘start up’ deduction? How about any worker returning from unemployment having his wages tax free for the first six months on the new job? How about helping him/her ‘starting back up’?

I don’t apologize for Trump. His corporate tax cuts are massively pro-business. And he’s no better than Biden-Harris on Israel. Both would continue writing a blank check for Netanyahu, whose strategy to stay in office and avoid jail is to suck the US into a war with Iran. Trump would likely be no better. Ukraine appears another matter. Clearly Trump wants to end it and Biden-Harris to continue it. Perhaps for another 20 years, like Afghanistan? Russia has intercontinental ballistic missiles that can land on my house; Iran doesn’t. So, yes, I prefer Trump’s policy on Ukraine to the Biden-Harris policy of let’s keep crossing Russia red lines in Ukraine until we go to war with them (of course hiding behind Ukraine and NATO).

In short, you think because I criticize Harris’s Biden war and foreign policies that I am pro Trump. You’re incapable of seeing that a critique of Harris is not necessarily a pro Trump position. That logic is like saying if you’re anti-Zionist you’re ipso facto anti-semitic, which is another nonsense argument.

Fact is I wouldn’t vote for either Harris or Trump, as I’ve said on many occasions if you did your research better. I’ve never voted Republican in my life and not about to do so. But I’ll never vote again for Democrats the champions of forever war and genocide.

Since the end of campaign finance reform and Citizens United, big corporate and investor money have taken complete control of the Democrat party. They’ve evolved positions and policies that were once traditional Republican. They are the Republicans now. Even that chief war monger and neocon of the Republicans, Dick Cheney, has joined their camp. The Democrats are the party of war and big business now in the 21st century. But I guess that’s all too much for you to consider. Keeping it all personalized and demonized makes it easier for guys like you to vote.

In conclusion, I find it particularly tiresome to read the constant personalizing of Trump as the beginning of the end of civilization if elected. That’s just so much Democrat fear mongering instead of policy consideration. Yeah, Trump would probably make things worse domestically. But at least my kids and grandkids would be alive the next four years. Our families would not have to deal with a direct war, and likely nuclear confrontation, with Russia that was set in motion by the Biden-Deep State plan launched in 2021 to break up Russia via a proxy war in Ukraine. Or the Biden policy to continue to support genocide in Gaza. (Bet you didn’t like that one, right!). Or their obvious plans to provoke a confrontation with China over some islands near China. All three war policies which Harris of course supports but avoids talking about in the election.

If you can’t address the Democrats imperial war mongering and the foreign policy debacle of the Biden/Democrats—which Harris completely embraces— then don’t waste my time with your liberal, Democrat party ‘talking points’.

Jack Rasmus (neither Trumpist or WarCrat)
copyright 2024

Listen to my Sept. 13 Alternative Visions radio show latest updates on the Ukraine War escalation as US/UK neocons continue to push for Ukraine to use NATO long range missiles deep into Russia and why Putin says it means Russia at war with NATO. Biden suspends decision two weeks temporarily as Pentagon & Brit military opposed to neocons’ plans. Show also discusses my analysis of the recent Trump-Harris presidential debate. Plus initial comments on the Boeing strike and why workers reject the Teamster-UAW ‘pattern’ settlement of last year.

To Listen GO TO:

https://alternativevisions.podbean.com/e/alternative-visions-ukraine-war-escalation-2nd-presidential-debate-analysis-boeing-strike/

By Dr. Jack Rasmus
Copyright 2024

Nearly all public polls in the USA today, and since the beginning of 2024, show that the number #1 issue for American voters is the condition of the economy. But listening to the debate this evening one would have heard little discussion about it—and even less about solutions—from either candidate.

The ABC moderators started off the discussion with what one hoped would have set a positive tone for the debate in that regard. They actually said the number 1 issue was the economy and cost of living and challenged both candidates with the appropriate phrase: “Is the economy better off today than four years ago!”

In her initial response of the debate, Harris jumped onto the issue by citing several of her proposals: a $6k/year child care tax credit for newborns, a tax credit of $50k for new start up small businesses, and a $25k credit for first time homebuyers. She then charged that Trump’s tax cut proposals provided $5 trillion for billionaires and businesses.

But that was the highlight of the evening in so far as actual economic issues were concerned. It went downhill from there.

Harris ended her first responses by saying Trump’s proposals for an increase in tariffs was a de facto sales tax on consumers amounting to $4k/yr. Trump replied it wasn’t sales tax and if tariffs were so bad why did the Biden administration continue his (Trump’s) first term tariffs that brought in hundreds of billions of dollars to the US Treasury. Those tariffs didn’t result in inflation in 2018-20, so why would his new tariffs do so now, he retorted?

Trump then dropped the economic ball altogether. Instead of informing the audience of his own economic proposals—like ending taxes on tips, ending taxing of seniors’ social security income (which was the practice before Reagan), or pointing out that he and JD Vance had already proposed a $5k child care credit—for all kids not just newborns—Trump just let it slide. He could have said Harris’s child care credit was a ‘me too’, announced after JD Vance had first raised the $5k credit. Even more surprising, Trump never mentioned throughout the debate his proposal to exempt social security benefits from income taxation, which would certainly have been popular to voters in swing states like Arizona and Pennsylvania with high populations of retirees.

Trump also failed to follow up on his own point that inflation the last three years ranged from 21% to 80%, depending on the item, and that grocery prices remains stuck at 35% higher compared to 2020 and gasoline 38%, according to the Wall St. Journal. He did mention egg prices in passing but didn’t say they were up 114%.

In other words, the phrase ‘are you better off today than four years ago’ disappeared at that point for the rest of the evening. Harris obviously not wanting to ‘go there’ and Trump strangely accommodating her.

Trump seemed to be fixated on the immigration issue, to which he returned again and again. But he spoke mostly in generalities and anecdotes and never cited the fact that more than 4 million illegal immigrants entered the country in 2022-23. Moreover, after declaring most of the illegals were criminals coming from all around the world, he turned ridiculous by saying in Minnesota the illegals were ‘eating cats’. Uh Oh!

At that point the moderators even jumped him citing the city manager of Minneapolis publicly said that was not true. No one ate cats in Minneapolis. One wonders how the moderators were so well prepared with that response, almost as if they were waiting for it to arise. Besides, that was not their job to add content via commentary.

At another point Trump correctly declared the Biden record on job creation was mostly ‘bounce back’ jobs as he put it that returned as the economy reopened in 2020-21. They therefore were not new jobs created under Biden. But if Trump had cited the net jobs created in 2017-2019 compared to Biden’s 2022-24 he may have been able to make a more convincing point.

Trump repeatedly declared Harris ‘had no plan’ for the economy. In a sense that was correct. Harris’s plan in the debate came down to three proposals: $6k child care credit, $50k start up business credit, and a one time reference she made to $25k assistance to 1st time homebuyers. These three hardly constitute a ‘plan’ but Trump said nothing to critique the points. For example, he could have pointed out that Harris’ proposals were applicable to only a partial segment of households in all three cases and that even together they would have a minimal impact on the economy. But he didn’t. Nor did he contrast his own measures to Harris—i.e. tariffs to bring jobs back to the US, no tax on tips, $5k child care credit, and no taxing of seniors’ social security checks. Nor did he elaborate on his tax proposals for business. Like Harris, not much of a plan either.

Neither candidate even remotely referred to the country’s current $2 trillion deficit this year, or the $35 trillion national debt, or the current interest payments to bondholders now more than $900 billion a year! Perhaps neither ‘wanted to go there’ since the cumulative deficits and debt under Biden so far is $7.2 trillion and under Trump was $7.8 trillion. Both know that would open a can of worms and perhaps lead to the likely logical consequence of the need in 2025 to engage in massive austerity cuts to social spending which is almost certainly coming after the election.

It might also have led to a more detailed discussion of tax proposals which, given their generosity to investors and businesses, neither candidate likely didn’t want to discuss in any detail.

At another point Harris declared that Trump’s first term trade deficit was a consequence of his selling out the US to China. Trump could have—but didn’t at that point—have cited Biden’s current trade deficit running at more than $100 billion/month and more than $1 trillion this year, the highest in US history.
Harris then went further re. China and said its president Xi was responsible for Covid, which also went unanswered by Trump.

Perhaps that would have sounded too much like he agreed with her since Trump has alleged that previously as well. That would be as far as either candidate discussed China for the evening.
The centerpiece of Trump’s plan and solutions for the economy—the #1 issue—has been for months now more tax cuts, without spelling out who would actually benefit from the cuts, since it would benefit mostly rich investors and businesses. The Congressional Budget Office, by the way, estimated Trump’s tax proposals would cost the US budget $5 trillion more over the next decade by 2034—which was in addition to his $4.5 trillion cuts introduced in 2017. It’s not surprising so many big CEOs have been recently rallying to his campaign—as they did in response to the same tax cut promises in 2016. Déjà vu.

At this point of the debate it was becoming clear Trump was passing up a lot of opportunities to score on the Biden-Harris economic performance of the past four years or to present a convincing alternative vision of his own. It was a big lost opportunity by Trump. Trump never pressed the question: ‘Are you better off today than four years ago?” Then came the discussion about abortion.

It has to be said Harris scored points on this topic although she spoke mostly in terms of generalities that women have the right to choose what to do with their bodies. She was very much ‘Trump like’ in citing horrifying anecdotal examples of women denied abortion medical assistance. One almost thought it was a state of the union pitch, with the victims sitting in the Congressional rafters. Everything but the lemming like applause from the Congressional floor.

She also probably scored points by saying Trump supported a national abortion ban, which he denied. However, she supported her allegation by citing actions by some of the states now deciding on the issue that have come close to just that, an outright ban. Trump defended his position of giving the decision on abortion to the states, codified with the US Supreme Court’s recent decision turning over abortion policy to the states.

At this point the ABC moderators came down on Harris’s side, threw a hardball at Trump and asked if he would veto a Congressional bill banning abortion. He prevaricated unconvincingly and without saying yes or no, said it would never come to a Congressional bill because now the Court had turned the decision over to the states.

Harris scored another point on this issue by alleging Trump was even against IVF for families, which he outright denied. Then Trump pulled another ‘eating cats’ faux pas by saying doctors in Virginia were deciding on whether to kill newborns. The ABC moderator jumped in on Harris’ side at that point again and said that wasn’t so. So much for neutrality. Moderators walked a fine line at times throughout the evening, and at times injecting commentary contra Trump and often to Harris’ advantage.

In the key swing state of Pennsylvania energy jobs from fracking are a big issue in the election. Harris was asked why she apparently changed her position recently on the issue and now did not oppose fracking. Her response was to deny she had ever changed. There was a lot Trump could have said to pin her down at that point but didn’t. Nor did he say anything about her about face recently on issues like lowering the corporate income tax even below Biden’s 37% proposal to her own now 28% (Trump proposed lowering from current 20% to 15%). Both candidates obviously have been courting big business campaign contributions as they race to see who gives more tax cuts to big donors.

With rising deficits and debt, and likely social program austerity cuts coming in 2025, clarifying their positions on the tax issue was important for voters. Who will pay to lower the runaway annual budget deficits? Will taxes be raised on business and wealthy? Spending programs cut? For the average voter how that is answered means a lot for their take home pay and perhaps even for many if they even have a job next year—since the US economy of late is showing clear signs of slowing as manufacturing, construction, industrial activity and trade have all been contracting and the jobs market is softening rapidly in recent months. But nothing was addressed by either candidate about these emerging worrisome trends.

Throughout the debate Harris kept referring to the need not to look at the past but to the future. However, she more than agreed with moderators resurrecting a number of topics ‘out of the past’. Most were directed specifically at Trump, in what were clearly ‘hard ball’, as they say.

January 6 events came up, with the moderators posing the question to Trump whether he regretted what he did on January 6 and would he accept a peaceful transition of power again. Zing! The cameras turned to Harris on that one, as she smiled widely. Trump fumbled for a while, settling on blaming Pelosi for not accepting his offer on January 6 to provide 10,000 national guardsmen for the Capitol’s defense.

Trump then tried to explain how January 6 and the felony convictions were all about ‘lawfare’ waged by the Democrats after him as a candidate, a first in US political history and a low point in US democracy. He could have taken it further, however, and challenged Harris to explain why the Democrats were also spending millions to prevent third parties like the Greens or RFKjr getting on the ballot or receiving public campaign funds. But again he didn’t and lost the opportunity to show how the Democrats were trampling democracy in the election no less than they were charging him.

Harris pressed the charge of Trump’s threat to Democracy, raising Trump’s alleged recent public statements if the election was stolen again there would be a political ‘bloodbath’ in the country. Trump once again—as throughout the evening—was put on the defensive responding to Harris. He neither explicitly denied or explained the accusation.

Toward the end of the debate foreign policy finally came up and was revealing. Both competed to show who was more pro-Israel. Harris more or less repeated the Biden position: Israel was horribly attacked. Women were raped by Hamas. It has the right to defend itself. There should be a ceasefire and in the end a two state solution—which appears about as likely as Boeing rescuing US astronauts in the Space Station. And Iran is the big bogeyman. The US should continue to give Netanyahu all he asks for.

Trump’s position was October 7 would not have happened on his watch. Trump scored a point in the ‘I’m more holy than thou’ Israel support debate by saying Harris refused to meet with Netanyahu when he came to the US recently. She went to a sorority meeting instead. Trump added Iran was broke when he was president but now has $300 billion due to Democrat policies lifting sanctions and Iran is running amuck in the middle east funding Israel’s enemies. Not a mention by either candidate of the 40,000 civilians or 17,000 children dead. Trump missed another opportunity at this point. He could have pressed Harris on why her position of a ceasefire and two state solution sounds good but has failed miserably thus far with no success in sight. What would she do differently if president to make it succeed? Again, no follow up.

The Ukraine war was more interesting. As in the middle east, Harris again parroted the Biden position: Russia was the invader, Ukraine was the epitome of democracy, the US will continue to give them more money and weapons, and if we don’t Putin will invade Europe. She even mentioned Poland, obviously pandering to the large Polish vote in Pennsylvania.

Trump came out hard in reply saying more than a million have needlessly died in the war and it was not in the US’s interest. The war should not have happened and would not have on his watch. US policy of Biden and Harris has cost the US taxpayer $250 billion so far and only $100 billion by the Europeans. They should pay their share. In other words, the USA continues to subsidize NATO and Europe, one of Trump’s long term issues.

Trump then dropped what should have been a bombshell accusation followed up by the moderators who ignored it and went on to ask unrelated questions: Trump accused Biden and his son Hunter of taking money from Ukraine and even receiving $3.5 million from the wife of the mayor of Moscow! The moderators moved on as if nothing was said.

In another hardball tossed his way by the moderators Trump was asked specifically “Do you want Ukraine to win?” At first he stepped around the query but the moderators tossed it his way a second time. Trump’s answer was he would end the Ukraine war even before being sworn in as president next January. The moderators didn’t ask Harris in turn what she would do to end the war. Perhaps they knew it would be answered with the current Biden policy of let’s continue sending money and weapons until Putin concedes?

Trump did score on this exchange by challenging Harris to explain why Biden in 2021 refused to even talk to Putin and said that Harris visited Kiev just three days before the war in Ukraine broke out—i.e. evidence according to Trump she was a weak negotiator and not respected by either Zelensky or Putin. The moderators got Harris off the hook by asking her if she ever met Putin, which was obviously not part of the debate script but made it appear Trump’s accusation was not relevant.

Trump warned that Biden-Harris policy in general has been a mess for four years, from the very beginning with Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan retreat that ended with US servicemen killed; but also today in Yemen, Ukraine, Israel, Iran. Trump added it was all leading the US toward a possible World War 3 with Russia.

Now nearing the end of the debate, the moderators asked both candidates how they would deal with Putin? (But apparently not how they would deal with Zelensky who has resisted all efforts to negotiate). It was at this point that Harris sounded like an honorary US neocon saying Putin’s agenda is not just to take Ukraine but to continue beyond into Europe. Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Victoria Nuland would have been proud. The absurd ‘Dominoes Theory’ lives!

What is especially noteworthy in the entire foreign policy discussion was that neither candidate said a word about what is perhaps the greatest threat to US global hegemony and economy: the current rapid rise and expansion of the BRICS and their accelerating development of alternative global financial institutions that will almost certainly undermine US global dominance, and consequence its domestic economic stability next four years. But perhaps that was expecting too much from the moderators; and certainly would have been flubbed by the candidates neither of whom have any idea what’s going on in that regard and how tenuous a hold the USA has on its increasingly unstable global empire now.

At the close, the ABC moderators confronted Trump with their last hardball on his public statements that he doubted Harris was ‘black’. Now things got very personal. But it was a perfect opening for Harris who quickly attacked Trump as racist and accused him of always trying to divide the country. To prove her point she dredged up incidents that occurred decades ago accusing him of refusing to rent to blacks in New York, calling for the execution of the ‘Central Park 5’ murders in NY at that time, and denying Obama’s US birth.

This was truly a deep dumpster dive into the past to resurrect issues which contradicted her central debate message of ‘let’s look to the future not the past’. If one of the ground rules of the debate was not to attack one’s opponent personally, Trump surprisingly adhered to the rule throughout the debate. It was not the old Trump of 2016. The ABC moderators set up Harris with cover to do a personal trip on Trump. The Democrat strategy has always been to portray Trump as an unstable and unsavory character. The structure of questions and timing of the discussions enabled Harris to deliver that message. In terms of personalities, Harris thus came off the ‘winner’ in the debate as a result.

Summarizing the Second 1st Presidential Debate one might conclude:

• Both candidates hardly addressed the voters’ central issue of the economy
• Trump was repeatedly on the defensive and lost numerous opportunities to score points
• The ABC moderators threw softball questions at Harris and several hardballs at Trump
• Both candidates differed little on policy on the middle east
• Neither candidate said anything about the current economic war with China or Taiwan
• Trump and Harris did differ sharply on policy toward the Ukraine war
• Trump over-emphasized the immigration issue turning to it perhaps too often
• Harris policy on NATO, Ukraine & Israel remains Biden’s
• No one offered solutions how to lower prices, how to prevent the emerging US economic slowdown or how the US might respond to global challenges by the BRICS

In general one would have to conclude that Harris probably ‘won’ the debate, especially given the low bar set in initial expectations of her performance. She remained calm and didn’t get flustered. Trump on occasion appeared to come close to being thrown off balance, by the moderators questions in particular.

The American voters are of course the big losers. I doubt anyone can come away from the debate with a clear understanding what either candidate’s comprehensive plan is for the US economy—or the various pressing issues of millions of American households’ declining real income, affordability of basics like food and shelter, their ever-growing burden of consumer debt, intensifying global wars, chronically rising global warming, the growing likelihood of recession in 2025, or the spectre of renewed US political instability also on the horizon.

It’s doubtful the US mainstream media will say anything about all that but will focus on the personalities, how they appeared, and their media performance.

However, in the end the debate will likely matter little to the election outcome. Only seven or so states matter in the election outcome, given the US archaic electoral college system. As this writer has already said, four of the seven swing states are likely locked up by Trump (AZ, NV, GA, NC) and he only needs to win one of the remaining three (PA, MI, WI). Harris needs to win all three of the latter if she loses the former four which is likelier than not. So has the ‘Second 1st Presidential Debate’ moved the needle, as they say? Probably not. But hell! It ain’t over until the fat lady sings and she’s still waiting in the wings!

Jack Rasmus
September 10, 2024

On Labor Day this writer has summed up the condition of the American working class over the past year. This national election year it is perhaps useful to review not only the past year but what has happened since the last election in 2020. How has the American worker fared the past four years—in terms of wages, benefits, inflation and jobs? How have their unions, now a mere 10% of the labor force, also fared during the period of recovery since the deep Covid era recession of 2020, the uneven recovery of 2020-21 that followed, and the past thirty months of what has been a modest economic growth.

A salient feature of the past thirty months after the US economy finally fully reopened after Covid in 2022 is that the growth in US GDP has not been all that impressive given the massive fiscal and monetary stimulus of 2020-22. That stimulus in fiscal terms included about $4 trillion in government spending programs and tax cuts from the April 2020 ‘Cares Act’ through the early 2021 ‘American Relief Act’. In addition to that $4 Trillion fiscal stimulus, the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, provided an additional $4 Trillion of monetary stimulus to banks, investors, and businesses small and large from March 2020 until March 2022.

Theoretically, this monetary stimulus in the form of Fed direct purchase of bonds from investors and virtually zero interest rates during that two year period should have provided a massive boost to real investment, production and employment. Another almost $1 trillion was provided by the Fed (and FDIC) to prevent a crash in the regional banking system from March 2023 to the present. That’s a total of around $9 to $10 trillion in fiscal-monetary stimulus.

On top of that amount the Biden administration pushed through Congress in 2022 another approximately $1.7 trillion in mostly subsidies and tax cuts to corporations in the form of the Infrastructure Act, the Chip & Modernization Act, and the (misnamed) Inflation Reduction Act.

In total that’s all more than $10 trillion in economic stimulus during and immediately after the Covid recession in 2020. The economy began recovering slowly in late 2020 as it reopened in stages, sometimes with false starts and stops. It wasn’t until 2022 that the US economy had fully reopened. Only then can the $10 trillion plus fiscal-monetary stimulus be considered for its effects on growing (not reopening) the US economy. But the 2022-24 economic recovery record, even when measured in GDP terms, has not been all that impressive given the magnitude of the $10 trillion stimulus of 2020-22.

Throughout all of 2022, that is the first full year of recovery (i.e. not counting reopening from the shutdown period that ended in 4th quarter 2021), US GDP adjusted for inflation rose year on year in 2022 by an annual average of only 1.9%. In 2023 it rose by another 2.5%. And so far in the first half of 2024 by an annual average of 2.2%. (These stats source: Bureau of National Affairs ‘National Income and Product Accounts’, Table 1.1.1, https://apps.bea.gov revised 8-29-24)

That’s hardly an impressive performance of US economic growth given the more than $10 trillion in fiscal and monetary stimulus injected into the economy by Congress and the Federal Reserve bank since 2020!

So how did American workers fare during this roughly four year period in the wake of what has been the most massive fiscal and monetary stimulus effort in US economic history? And how have American unions done during the recovery from recession period, during which historically union membership, union jobs and union wages have tended to recover as well?

Wages

The US government defines wages in a number of ways. So it’s important to be clear on the definition. There’s Hourly Wages that are actually wages and salaries of all the roughly 167 million employed in the US labor force. Then there’s Weekly Earnings, which are hourly wages or salaries times the hours worked in a week. A subset of both hourly wages and weekly earnings is estimated for the roughly 110 million or so private sector Production and Non-Supervisory Workers (add about another 20m employed as teachers, state & local and federal government).

It is further important that their hourly wages or weekly earnings are adjusted for inflation, i.e. are real hourly and weekly, keeping in mind that the inflation adjustment using the Consumer Price Index (or Fed’s Personal Consumption Price Index) does not account for price rises associated with interest rates at all (which is just the price of money). Nor does it adjust for taxes and government fees. Or increases in their contributions to their benefit and pension plans. In addition, the two main US inflation indexes contain a host of assumptions and methodologies that can be shown to result in an under-statement of actual inflation. But that’s another story for another article. We’ll assume ‘real’ wages or earnings is adjusted using the government’s CPI or PCE inflation indexes. But the point is these points mean the wage gains noted below are actually less than reported in government stats.

Nevertheless, the wage data show American workers have not fared very well since 2020 and even over the past year. Which means that $10 trillion plus stimulus went into the bank accounts of others, not American workers as a whole.

So what have been their real wage gains since 2020? As well as during the past year, July 2023 thru July 2024?

The best indicator is Real Median Weekly Earnings. That is adjusted for inflation using government inflation indexes and uses the midpoint of those employed, not the average. Averages skew the number to the to—i.e. those with high earnings get higher wage increases compared to those at the middle or below.

Real Median Weekly Earnings in the 4th quarter of 2020 were $376 per week. As of end of 2nd quarter 2024 last month, they were $368. (Table 1, Median Weekly Earnings of Full Time Workers, Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage & Salary Workers, Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 2024). Remember, that’s for Full Time Workers only, which is about 120 million private sector workers in the US civilian labor force of 168 million. So it doesn’t count the 38 million who are part time or independent unincorporated contractors. Also, that $368 is, as noted, under-adjusted for inflation per the government’s indexes. It’s also not take home pay which means it’s before workers pay for a higher share of benefits costs, higher taxes, and government fees (auto registrations, etc.).

What about the past year, not just the past four years?
Before adjusting for inflation (called nominal wages), Average Weekly Earnings for Full Time Workers rose July 2023 thru July 2024 from $1,160/week to $1,199/week for a gain of only $39 which is about 3.3%. (Source: US Weekly Earnings for Wage & Salary Workers 2nd Quarter 2024, Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 2024).

But that’s not adjusted yet for inflation. Plus it’s also an average for all 168 million in the labor force so those with higher pay got more than the Median. Adjust for inflation and Median and it wipes out any gain in weekly earnings over the past year as Table 1 noted in the paragraph above shows: inflation adjusted Median Weekly Earnings for Full Time Workers was $365/week in July 2023 and in July 2024 was still $365/week. Make a further adjustment to include the 38 million part time and contract workers and you get numbers for Weekly Earnings still less.

What about Weekly Earnings for the subset of the 168 million US labor force—i.e. the approximately 119 million US private sector Production and Non-Supervisory Workers. No higher paid managers and higher salaried tech, finance and other professionals in this group. Their real average weekly earnings rose from $972 in July 2023 to only $980 in July 2024. Again, however that’s an ‘average’ and for full time employed not part time or contract. At the Median and below, including part time, it’s less than $8/week gain over the past 12 months.

In summary with regard to wages, the American worker has not benefited at all from the $10 million plus fiscal-monetary stimulus. Real Weekly Earnings are flat to contracting. And take home pay’s even less.

One can’t say the same for shareholders of corporations. Since 2020, the Fortune 500 corporations alone distributed more than $5 trillion in stock buybacks and dividends to their shareholders, according to annual reports in the Wall St. Journal. This year 2024 should be a record of more than $1.5 trillion.

JOBS

What about the jobs picture? The Biden administration likes to brag it created 15 million jobs. That fiction is perpetrated by most of the mainstream media as well as mainstream economists who should know better (and likely do).

During 2020 about 35 million Americans were unemployed at some point during that year. The economy reopened haltingly in late 2020 and again in 2021. As it did the 12 million who were still jobless at the end of 2021 steadily returned to their jobs in 2022 and beyond. These 12 million jobs were not ‘created’. They existed in February 2020 and most were still there by end 2021. Workers simply returned to jobs that were there, not to net new jobs that were ‘created’.

According to the St. Louis Fed’s FRED database, there were 106.5 million Production & Non-Supervisory Workers in the labor force in February 2020. That 106.5 was not reached again until July 2022.

If one looks at the July 2022 Employment Situation Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics there were 158.2 million workers employed in July 2022, compared to 161.2 employed in the US economy in July 2024. So roughly only 3 million have been actually ‘created’.

It is important to also note that the vast majority of the net new jobs created have been part time, temp, gig and contractor jobs. In the past 12 months full time jobs in the labor force has fallen by 458,000 while part time jobs have risen by 514,000. (Source: Table A-9 Employment Situation Reports, Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 2023 and July 2024)

Ever since the end of the Covid recession the US economy has been churning out full time jobs and replacing them with part time, temp, gig and independent contractor jobs.

The jobs reports over the past year are revealing as well. They continually reported monthly job gains of around 240,000. But the Labor Department just did its annual revisions and found that for the period March 2023 thru March 2024 it over-estimated no fewer than 818,000 jobs! The Wall St. Journal further reported that up to a million workers have left the labor force due to disability from Covid and long Covid related illnesses. Neither of those statistics are factored into the government’s unemployment rate figures.

Which brings us to another convenient mis-reporting of jobs data. The government has two jobs surveys. One is for large establishments (and not really a survey but a partial census of sorts). Another is a true survey. The first is called the Current Establishment Survey (CES). The second The Current Population Survey (CPS).

The media typically picks up the total monthly employment gain figures from the CES; the second CPS is the source of the monthly unemployment rate statistic. The first is an estimate of total employment gains; the second the unemployment rate.

The problem is there are more than just one unemployment rate in the monthly CPS. There’s the rate for full time workers only. Last month that rate called the U-3 was 4.3%. But the unemployment rate that includes involuntary part time workers and workers discouraged from working and haven’t looked in four weeks or a year, called the U-6 rate was 7.8%. Moreover, neither reflect the recently adjusted 818,000 jobs over-reported. Or the millions who were so discouraged they left the labor force altogether. They’re still presumably without a job, at least most.

But for purposes of calculating either unemployment rate by the government they don’t exist and their numbers are excluded from the calculation of unemployment. Those numbers are about 5 million since Covid. If they were included, the unemployment rate would be easily more than 10% today.

Last month the government estimated the CES employment number was 114,000. That compares with an average of 240,000 each month over the past year. It shocked even the myopic mainstream economists and the media. It was their favorite cherry picked jobs number and it came in well below healthy levels. There are at least 100,000 new entrants to the labor force every month looking for work, due to population growth, immigration, and elderly returnees to work. The fastest growing age segment of the labor force is those over 65 years old who can’t make it on social security or meager pensions any more.

It will therefore be interesting to see if on September 5 the monthly jobs report for August continues to reflect a weakness in the favored CES employment report. But if one were considering the other CPS jobs report which better catches small business employment trends, it would be clear for some months now that the labor market is quite weak. It’s just that that weakness is now spilling over from small businesses in the CPS to the larger caught by the CES.

Working Class Debt in America

Another indicator of the state of the working class in America is the level of debt load it is now carrying. The last quarter century of poor wage increases has been offset to a degree by the availability of cheap credit with which to make consumer purchases in lieu of wage gains and decently paying jobs. Actually, that trend goes back even further to the early 1980s at least.

Household US debt is at a record level. Mortgage debt is about $13 trillion. Total household debt is more than $18 trillion, of which credit card debt is now about $1 trillion, auto debt $1.5 trillion, student debt $1.7 trillion (or more if private loans are counted), medical debt about $.2 trillion, and the rest installment type debt of various kind.

American households carry probably the highest load of any advanced economy, estimated at 54% of median family household disposable income. And that’s rising. (Source: https;//tradingeconomics.com)

Debt and interest payments have implications for workers’ actual disposable income and purchasing power. For one thing, interest is not considered in the CPI or PCE inflation indexes and thus their adjustment to real wages. As just one example: median family mortgage costs since 2020 have risen 114%. However, again, that’s not included in the price indexes. Home prices have risen 47% and rents have followed. But workers pay a mortgage to the bank, not an amortized monthly payment to the house builder.

One should perhaps think of workers’ household debt as business claims on future wages not yet paid. Debt payments continue into the future for purchases made in the present, and thus subtract from future wages paid.

The State of Unions in America

In periods of recovery from recessions, as jobs are restored or created, union membership typically rises some. But not in the 21st century and not since the end of the Covid recession.
Since 2020 union membership has declined. There were 10.8% of the labor force in unions in 2020. There are 10.0% at end of 2023 which is about half of what it was in the early 1980s. Unions have not participated in the recovery since Covid, in other words, at least in terms of membership. Still only 6% or 7.4 million workers of the private sector labor force is unionized, even when polls and surveys in the past four years show a rise from 48% to 70% today in the non-organized who want a union.

In the past year in absolute numbers union membership has risen by just under 200,000 in private industry which has allowed union membership to remain at 6% of total employment in that sector. In the public sector union membership over the past year has declined by about 50,000.

Some private sector unions have reversed in recent years the decades long dark years of concession bargaining. Recently the Teamsters union under new leadership made significant gains in restoring union contract language, especially in terms of limits on temp work and two tier wage and benefit structures. The Auto workers made some gains as well. But most of the private sector unionization has languished. And over the past year it has not changed much.

About half of all Union members today are in public sector unions. There is has been difficult for Capital and corporations to offshore jobs, displace workers with technology, destroy traditional defined benefit pension plans, or otherwise weaken or get rid of workers’ unions. The same might be said for Transport workers whose employment is also not easily offshored, but is subject to displacement by technology nonetheless. But overall union membership has clearly continued to stagnate over the past year as it has since 2020.

The Artificial Intelligence Threat to Workers & Unions

Union membership as a percent of the total labor force will likely start to decline once again, at least in the private sector, as the Artificial Intelligence technology revolution takes hold. Recently Goldman Sachs bank research has estimated 300 million jobs world wide will be lost due to AI. These are mostly simple decision making jobs, in service as well as manufacturing. AI will displace these jobs and probably soon. So available jobs as well as union membership will be severely impacted.

The early trend is already observable for union membership and jobs in the recent Writers and TV-Movie sector union contract negotiations. The unions did not fare well. Workers job in general will be severely impacted by this latest tech trend. Several hundred billion dollars a year is being invested in AI, which is mostly about raising productivity by getting rid of workers. That investment is estimated to rise to nearly $1 trillion before the end of the decade.

Summary

The foregoing accumulation of data and statistics on wages, jobs, debt and unionization in America this Labor Day 2024 contradicts much of the hype, happy talk, and selective cherry picking of data by mainstream media and economists. That hype is picked up and peddled by politicians and pollsters alike.
But the fact is those selectively chosen statistics are often contradicted by other government stats that are left unmentioned. US statistics are like the bible in a sense. One can find whatever data in it one wants.

But selective referencing—while ignoring other data—is a form of lying. And there’s a lot of it going around this Labor Day 2024 by politicians of both parties, with their media complicit, and their crew of mainstream economists in tow.

Dr. Jack Rasmus, Sept. 1, 2024

The German economy had been long hailed as the economic ‘engine’ of Europe. If so, it clearly needs a major ‘valve job’ and is running on only 5, or maybe 4, cylinders.

It is in recession that will no doubt deteriorate further. Politically, it is also becoming more unstable as the right wing Afd party, and the newly formed left party led by Susan Wagenacht, are about to register major gains within days in German regional elections now underway.

The ruling SPD Sholtz coalition with Greens–both strong proponents of support of Ukraine with weapons and funding until recently–last week announced it would provide no further funds or weapons for Ukraine. The unpopularity for the SPD support for that war is widespread now, as is public opinion about Sholtz’s handling of what can only be called the de-industrialization of Germany.

Recent German public revelations that German police investigations revealed Ukraine special forces, with NATO assistance, were responsible for blowing up Germany’s Nordstream pipeline in September 2022, and the fact Sholtz’s government has remained silent about the matter–except to complain to Poland as one of the saboteurs of the pipeline’s destruction, a Ukrainian businessmen, successfully fled to Poland which allowed him to make his way back to Ukraine.

German public opinion is also complaining the Sholtz government has also meekly addressed policies of the USA since 2022 responsible for Germany’s continuing economic decline as well. Not just the US direction of the sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline but subsequent economic policies of the USA that have been undermining Germany’s economy as well: in particular the USA’s oil companies’ charging natural gas imports to Germany costing 3X and 4X that formerly charged by Russia; the Biden administration announced tax and trade policies that have been now luring German business investments to the USA that otherwise might have been invested in Germany itself; and US convincing EU supra-elites in the EU Commission to join the US in sanctioning and raising tariffs on China imports to the EU.

The declining condition of Germany’s economy as the ‘economic engine’ of Europe reveals that perhaps the ‘Plan B’ purpose of Biden/US Russia sanctions on Russia has been to make Germany/EU more economically dependent on the USA. Even if those same sanctions haven’t proven successful with regard to ‘Plan A’ which was has been precipitating the economic instability of Russia!

The USA sanctions policy has thus succeeded re. making Europe more dependent on the USA–even if that policy has failed with regard to destabilizing Russia’s economy and the Putin regime.

A recent post by UK economist and political commentator, Michael Roberts, has gathered extensive data with charts revealing the depth and extent of the growing crisis in Germany’s economy and electoral alignments as of today. It is worth referencing and can be found at:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQVzPDQzQgKSStzdXXrxBRKKWpr

My only ‘critique’, if it can even be called that, of Roberts’ data and data that show conclusively the serious condition of Germany as the engine of Europe is he perhaps might have discussed more how US economic policies have seriously contributed to the decline in Germany and the growing economic (and political) dependence of it, and Europe itself, on the USA as a result of those US policies.

My contributing comment to Roberts’ otherwise excellent piece is as noted below:

Excellent summary, Mr. Roberts, but I would have liked to have read more analysis how US policies re. Europe, especially sanctions, takeover of energy, tax incentives to invest in USA instead of Germany, etc. are contributing to German recession. Also, the West (G7/8) is in a goods recession everywhere. US manufacturing PMI has been contracting for 8 months, now lowest level, while construction activity is down 1/3 and contracting further this summer. US GDP numbers are misleading. How can it be 3% in 2nd quarter when corresponding Gross Domestic Income, GDI, is only 1.3%? Unemployment is not 4.3% when part time & discouraged workers leaving labor force is counted; it’s 7.8%. Inflation is not 2.6% (PCE) but at least 5% when the questionable assumptions for calculating prices are removed from both PCE and CPI. Even official US stats show a seriously slowing economy: manufacturing PMI, new housing starts, home sales, commercial construction, industrial activity, CPS (small bus. sector) job statistics (not CES), even real retail sales flat, and so on. US and global recession will deepen in 2025, given economic trends that will be exacerbated by USA & EU intensifying political crises and decline of the $US as BRICS challenge accelerates.

The Ukraine War is at a crossroads. It is entering a new phase. Military and political strategies on both sides are in flux. Both Ukraine and Russia have opened new fronts and offensives—Ukraine in the northern Kursk border region and Russia in the Kharkov and central Donbass area of Donetsk. Further new fronts are likely.

It is estimated that Russia’s total forces in Ukraine ranges today, late summer 2024, are between 600,000 (per Ukraine) and 700,000 (per Russia Ministry of Defense). Ukraine’s total available forces are around 350,000. Behind these numbers, however, both sides are mobilizing further additional forces not yet committed to the line of combat. Ukraine is hurriedly recruiting and training another 150,000 while Russia reportedly has another 400,000 in its total armed forces located elsewhere in Russia. Russia additionally plans to have an army of 1.4 million by year end which suggests additional combat reserves of perhaps 300,000 in addition to its 700,000 combat brigades now in Ukraine.

So Russia today has a roughly 2 to 1 numerical superiority in both combat troops in Ukraine as well as potential reserves. What a Russian force of 700,000 in Ukraine today—and even 1 million by year end—means is that Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) is simply not a sufficient force to conquer all of Ukraine. Nor was it ever intended to be when Russia in February 2022 entered Ukraine with an SMO combat force of less than 100,000.

With combat forces even at 1m by year end, short of an unlikely total collapse of Ukraine’s army, the SMO is not sufficient to take Kiev or Odessa; and it’s certainly not sufficient to invade NATO as some war hawks in the west like to argue in order to justify more direct NATO involvement in the war.

By way of historical comparison, it took the Soviet Union a 13 million man army to push the Nazis out of its territory; at least a third or 4 million of which were engaged in its southern Ukrainian front alone.

While Russia has a clear, albeit not overwhelming edge, in combat forces in Ukraine today, military success is not just a function of absolute numbers but of how well forces can be concentrated at a given front to enable a numerical advantage for a time over one’s adversary. Other factors play a tactical role as well—like the element of surprise, the quantity and quality of reserves that can be marshalled at critical points and times in the conflict, the mobility of one’s forces to be quickly deployed, and the ability to deceive one’s opponent as to where, when and how much force will be concentrated.

While important, and even at times decisive, these latter factors (reserves, surprise, mobility, etc.) are nonetheless secondary; concentration of force is always the primary military tactic. And so far we have seen both Ukraine and Russia concentrate their respective forces, albeit in different fronts separated by hundreds of kilometers. The question is which front is strategically the more important.

The Key Strategic Event of 2024

The key event of the war this summer 2024 is Russia’s concentration of numerically and qualitatively superior forces in the central Donbass area. Russia has enjoyed a numerical advantage in combat forces in the Donbass as well as in air superiority and missile-artillery forces for at least the past year since the collapse of Ukraine’s summer 2023 offensive. This Russian advantage and superiority in Donbass has been further increased this summer 2024 as result of Ukraine’s withdrawal from Donbass this summer of some of its own best brigades. Ukraine sent these best brigades from the Donbass to the north Kursk border region to participate on August 6 in Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk territory. That shift of Ukraine forces left its Donbass front weakly defended. In contrast, Russia has not shifted any of its forces from Donbass to the Kursk front but has increased its forces in Donbass. This event is perhaps the single most important strategic shift in the war this summer 2024.

Which front and offensive—Ukraine’s Kursk or Russia’s Donbass—is more important for the eventual outcome of the war will likely be decided in the coming months, and definitely before year end 2024.

In the battles now underway in these two fronts—Kursk and Donbass— we may in effect be witnessing the beginning of the endgame of the war in Ukraine.

As result of Ukraine’s withdrawals of some of its best brigades from the Donbass, Russian forces are now having increasing success on that front taking village after village and driving west toward the key Ukraine strongholds of Pokrovsk in central Donbass, as well as toward Slavyansk in northern Donbass. Should Russia take Pokrovsk and Slavyansk, the war in eastern Ukraine will be effectively over—at least in those former provinces Lughansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhie and Kherson in eastern Ukraine. The line of combat will almost certainly then move quickly far to the west to the Dnipr river.

In contrast, it’s difficult to see what strategically Ukraine hopes to achieve by its penetration into Russia’s Kursk province. Will it turn the tide of the war in favor of Ukraine? That is highly unlikely given Russia’s continuing advantage in combat forces, weapons and air superiority. Which raises the question: what were Ukraine’s motives and objectives for its Kursk offensive and can it attain them?

Ukraine’s Kursk Summer Offensive

Launched on August 6, 2024 Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has had some initial success. Ukraine initially concentrated numerically superior forces at the Kursk border (as it had earlier in the summer at the Kharkov border southeast of Kursk).

In the run up to its August Kursk offensive, Ukraine publicly announced its troop concentrations opposite Kursk and north of Kharkov city were strictly defensive moves to prepare for expected Russia invasions from the north which were being rumored to be imminent throughout the spring 2024. In hindsight, however, Ukraine’s announcement that its forces at the Kharkov and Kursk borders were strictly defensive appears to have been a military deception. Ukraine’s military recently revealed that Ukraine had been preparing back in June for an offensive into Russia at Kursk.

The question then arises: what were Ukraine’s motives and objectives moving troops from the Donbass and other areas of Ukraine (also from the Belarus-Ukraine border) and concentrating them on its northern Kharkov and Kursk border? If it was not for defense against a new Russian offensive in the north but to launch an offensive of its own, what were (and are) Ukraine’s objectives?

In preparation for it Kursk offensive this August, Ukraine transferred combat brigades from all over Ukraine and concentrated them at the Kursk border in July—including many of its best brigades in Donbass as well as some of its 95,000 in defensive positions at the Kharkov border. Ukraine reportedly even moved troops from its Belarus border to Kursk, enabled apparently by an agreement with Belarus to reduce their respective forces from the Belarus-Ukraine border (an agreement that reportedly has been recently rescinded). Finally, Ukraine also rushed some of its new drafted recruits with minimal training to its Kursk region in preparation for the Kursk offensive as well.

In short, Ukraine moved up to a third of its total brigades to the Kursk region. That is probably around 150,000, perhaps half of which are actual combat brigades. A reduced force was left at Vovchansk and a seriously depleted force in the Donbass. In addition, some Ukraine brigades reportedly have returned to the Belarus border since the August offensive.

With an amassed combat force of around 70,000 Ukraine easily overwhelmed Russia’s thinly guarded Kursk border which was manned with border guards and other untested units—even though Ukraine invaded Kursk initially with 12,000 or so. Since August 6 it has brought up and concentrated at least another 60,000 or so.

This perhaps suggests Ukraine is not finished with crossing the border into Russia elsewhere along the northern border. Some analysts suggest Ukraine plans to open another offensive further northwest of Kursk in what’s called the Bryansk border region. Or alternatively just southwest of Kursk in the Belgorod border.

There is even some rumor of another offensive in the far southwest of Zaporozhie province by Ukraine, targeting the taking of the Zaporozhie nuclear power plant currently under Russian control. Where Ukraine might marshall such additional combat forces is debatable, however.

In response, Russia initially brought in special forces and marines to check Ukraine’s advance which has slowed significantly. And reportedly mechanized forces are en route to the Kursk front from other locations in Russia. The Kursk pocket has now become perhaps the most intense killing field of the war to date.
What the Kursk and other possible Ukraine offensives and fronts suggests is that Ukraine is desperate to get Russia to shift its superior and increasingly effective forces from the Donbass in order to slow Russia’s accelerating advances there. But so far it appears Russia has not done so.

Russia’s Kharkov-Vovchansk Offensive

There’s another parallel story here: Before Ukraine’s August offensive into Kursk, Russian forces in early May had entered Ukraine’s Kharkov province near the Ukrainian border city of Vovchansk located just 25miles north of Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkov. That Russian offensive was launched with a small force of only 15-20,000 even though Russia knew Ukraine had concentrated 95,000 troops in a defensive line just south of the border. The result was predictable: the Russian offensive into Kharkov became quickly bogged down and a stalemate resulted there around the city of Vovchansk, at least until very recently.
A second parallel question therefore arises: why did Russia cross the border near Kharkov-Vovchansk with such an insufficient concentration of forces, facing off against what it knew were reportedly 95,000 Ukrainian troops dug in defensive positions? Clearly the objective could not have been to take Kharkov city. So then what was it?

Russia’s Donbass Offensive

The most important strategic military development this summer 2024 in the war is not Ukraine’s invasion at Kursk. It is that to enable its Kursk offensive Ukraine has left its Donbass front seriously weakened. So weak in fact that Russia’s offensive in the Donbass is intensifying almost daily with growing success.

There are three directions in which Russia is driving west in the Donbass. The most important is the central Donbass where Russia is virtually at the gates of the strategic hub Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. Pokrovsk is a railway and road intersection that feeds Ukraine forces most of its weapons and supplies to central and southern Donbass. If it falls to Russia, supplies to most of its forces in central Donbass are at great risk. Equally important, west of Pokrovsk there are few lines and fortifications for Ukraine defense operations. The road is open to the Dnipr river to the far west, the next natural line of defense by Ukraine. But the Dnipr represents the loss of all of Donetsk province and its complete liberation by Russia.

Just further north of Pokrovsk lies a similarly strategic city of Slavyansk and its neighboring largest city of Kramatorsk. Slavyansk is the analog in terms of Ukraine logistical support for the northern Donbass. If it too falls so too does all of the remainder of northern Donetsk and Lughansk province. Russian advances have also begun in this region, through Siversk and Izyum.

In short, if Pokrovsk and Slavyansk fall to Russia it’s game over in the Donbass front to Ukraine. Russia advances suggest this is likely before the US November elections or soon after. The point is Ukraine’s withdrawal of some of its best forces from Donbass, to its Kursk front, as no doubt accelerated Russia’s gains now underway in the Donbass. And if Donbass falls, Ukraine has no choice but to exit its positions further south at the Zaporozhie border as well, or else be encircled there.

The events in recent months in Donbass thus raises yet a third strategic question: Has Ukraine effectively decided to sacrifice the Donbass in order to launch its Kursk offensive?

Military analysts on both sides seem uncertain as to why Ukraine and Russia have made the decisions they have at this critical juncture of the war in summer 2024—Russia last May in Kharkov, Ukraine this summer in Donbass and today Kursk, and Russia’s decision to hold firm to its offensive in Donbass.

So what are some of the possible explanations being bandied about by analysts trying to explain these objectives of these two offensives—Ukraine in Kursk and Russia in Kharkov-Donbass?

Some Unanswered Strategic Questions:

Let’s summarize these strategic questions and offer some possible answers.

Question 1. Why Did Ukraine Invade Kursk, what are its possible objectives, and can it attain those objectives:

Military analysts are all over the map with speculation as to why Ukraine invaded Kursk. Some say the objective was seize the Russian nuclear power plant located just south of the city of Kursk and less than 100 miles from the border. By seizing the plant Ukraine would then use it as a blackmail piece in negotiations with Russia.

Another objective raised is that Ukraine intends to use the territory captured as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Russia, which it appears several third party countries have been trying to arrange—albeit thus far without success.

In terms of military tactics, still another speculation goes, the Ukrainian invasion was intended to force Russia to transfer brigades from its Donbass front to Kursk, and thereby slow down Russia’s advances in the Donbass that appear to be accelerating.

Yet another speculation is Ukraine intended to create a buffer zone along the border before Russia launched its own offensive into Ukraine in the region. That suggests the Ukrainian invasion was to pre-empt Russia opening an offensive front of its own along the northern border.

Another view is that the true objective of Ukraine’s offensive has been to make Putin appear weak to Russian elites and public who are now demanding a more aggressive Russian response to the invasion. The Kursk offensive, according to this view, is to provoke Russia to a more extreme aggressive response that would enable Zelensky to receive more lethal military aid from NATO—like UK Storm Shadow and US ATACMS missiles and missile carrying F-16s—and NATO permission to use them to attack deep inside Russia.

It is possible that a little of all the above are motivations for Ukraine’s offensive: So far as seizing the Kursk nuclear plant is concerned, if that were the objective it has been neutralized and Ukraine has virtually no chance of reaching the Kursk plant any longer now that massive Russian defenses now block its path.

The explanation that the Kursk offensive’s objective is to force Russia to move military units from Donbass to Kursk has also apparently failed to date. Russia has sufficient reserves elsewhere in Russia proper and is moving those to the Kursk front.

The speculation that Zelensky authorized the Kursk offensive as a ‘land for land’ bargaining chip in future negotiations is also negated by recent events since August 6: Putin has publicly stated there will be no negotiations with Ukraine so long as its forces remain on Russian territory, whether in Kursk or Donbass.

The idea of Ukraine obtaining a buffer has never been convincing. Why would Ukraine deplete its military resources elsewhere and risk losing more territory (Donbass) in order to protect territory (North Border) it hadn’t even lost yet?

It seems therefore that the most likely objective of the Ukraine Kursk offensive was, and remains, political: to provoke Russia into an extreme response in order for Ukraine to restore fading western support for Ukraine to continue the war. Zelensky needs Russia to escalate to remain in power in Ukraine. Throughout NATO, support is waning for providing military arms and ammunition. The west further believes that funding Ukraine’s war and economy is settled, provided by the seized $300 billion of Russian assets. However, Western Media almost daily has become increasingly critical of the war, recognizing it cannot be won. Zelensky thus needs to show Ukraine still has the ability to fight and NATO needs to provide even more weaponry because Russia is escalating the war!

Zelensky realizes he needs more direct NATO troop involvement—not just weaponry. Currently NATO is participating in ground operations with technicians operating advanced NATO weapons, mercenaries, as well as senior NATO officers and war planners on the ground. It will need even more. It can’t impress NATO to provide more by losses in the Donbass. But it might convince NATO war hawks to do so by offensives into Russia like Kursk.

2. Has Ukraine effectively decided to sacrifice Donbass?

Evidence on the ground strongly suggests Ukraine may have decided to sacrifice territory in the Donbass and perhaps the entire region altogether. Its Donbass defense was beginning to crack well before the Kursk offensive, ever since loss of the strategic Donbass city of Avdeyevka earlier this year. Now losses there are accelerating after Ukraine pulled some of its best brigades from Donbass and moved them to Kursk.

For Ukraine, the northern Kursk front is strategically more important than Donbass. Its bargaining position in eventual future negotiations with Russia and western support in general was weakening so long as it was losing Donbass. Seizing Russian territory in the north might shore up that loss of support and strengthen its position. In short, protecting Kharkov city and Ukraine territory outside Russia’s four provinces in the east is strategically more important to Ukraine than holding on to the Donbass. Ukraine can’t hold onto the Donbass in the end and NATO and Ukraine both know it. Opinion in the west increasingly suggests Ukraine should agree to give up Donbass and the four provinces. But Ukraine cannot simply retreat in the Donbass and give it up without appearing weak or is about to lose the war. That would accelerate NATO withdrawal of support. Zelensky therefore needed another success elsewhere if Ukraine was inevitably about to lose Donbass. Thus the Kursk offensive.

3. Why did Russia invade Kharkov region with an insufficient force?

Russia crossed over the border early last May in the Kharkov region but not to capture the large Ukraine city of Kharkov. That would take perhaps a Russian offensive force of at least half a million. Russia obviously knew, moreover, that a large Ukrainian force of up to 95,000 per reports was concentrated between the border and Kharkov city itself barely 50 miles away to the south.

So why then did Russian open that front with only 15-20,000 troops? The only possible explanation is Russia entered Kharkov with an insufficient force to get Ukraine to withdraw forces from the Donbass to protect Kharkov, which it did. Otherwise the explanation for throwing a force of 15,000 at 90,000 was military folly. And there’s no evidence throughout the war Russia has been militarily foolish in its offensive force deployments.

4. Did Russia get caught by surprise by the Kursk invasion?

It has to be admitted Russia was clearly caught off guard by Ukraine’s Kursk offensive. It might have been misled by Ukraine’s deception that its amassing of forces on the Ukraine side of the Kursk border in the summer was strictly defensive, designed to confront Russia should it have itself invaded at that location. It is also possible Russia may have viewed US/NATO limitations to date on Ukraine’s use of ATACMS and cruise missiles to attack deep inside Russia as evidence Ukraine was not allowed by NATO/US to escalate attacks directly into Russia. Before August 6 Ukraine’s attacking inside Russia was limited to Ukrainian drones.

Russia may have interpreted these NATO limits meant Ukraine would not be given the ‘green light’ to cross the Russian border with large ground forces. This—combined with Russia misreading Ukraine’s concentration of forces on its side of the border as only defensive—may have led Russia to erroneously assume Ukraine would not mount an offensive into Kursk.

5. Are we witnessing the growing importance of reserves in the war?

As the war now has passed its two and a half year mark, it is clearly beginning to wear on both sides in terms of men and materiel. The availability of sufficient reserves is therefore beginning to play a relatively more important role as the war has continued. Not just reserves in the sense of the number of available combat troops but their combat experience, training, and availability of weapons and ammunition are becoming an increasingly critical factor in the conduct of the war. This is often the case in war as the conflict becomes protracted, except when one side has an overwhelming force advantage of the other. That may have been the case in US wars in Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, Panama, and elsewhere. But it wasn’t in Viet Nam and it isn’t in Ukraine. Here Russia’s longer term advantage in reserves has begun to show.

It is true Russia in refusing to move reserves from Donbass has had to commit reserves from elsewhere in Russia but it has such reserves. Ukraine does not. The Kursk offensive shows Ukraine has probably committed most of its remaining reserves to that front. And it had to move brigades from Belarus, Kharkov and Donbass for the Kursk offensive—and to cut short training of new drafted recruits. Ukraine is approaching the end of its human reserves and cannot get an increase in weapons and ammunition from NATO that it requires if the war intensifies, as it is now, in both Kursk and Donbass. NATO has arrange continued funding for Ukraine throughout 2025 by seizing Russia’s $300B assets in G7 banks that were frozen at the outset of the war.

NATO’s provision of weapons is slowing, moreover, as NATO inventories are drying up; it can no longer accelerate the delivery of weapons to Ukraine as it did in 2022-23. Nor politically does NATO have the will to provide soldiers on the ground directly into Ukraine, although it is building the largest military and air base in NATO now in eastern Romania within tens of miles from Odessa where it already has stationed thousands of French and US airborne troops. If NATO does intervene ever on the ground it will mostly like be to prevent Russia seizure of the critical Ukraine seaport of Odessa, without which even a rump state of Ukraine in the west cannot be sustained.

6. What are Russia’s strategic options with regard to the Kursk invasion? Its Donbass Offensive?

Russian strategy will not change much in the Donbass. It will continue to advance, likely even more rapidly. Ukraine’s forces in Donbass may even collapse there before year end, with Ukraine retreating west to the Dnipr river and thus abandoning any hold on territory that comprises Russia’s four provinces. As for the Kursk front, Russia will most likely seal off the currently occupying Ukrainian force, bring up new Russian armored division, artillery and air forces and continue to batter those Ukrainian forces in the pocket until they weaken and retreat of their own accord. That will likely happen soon after the US November elections. Ukraine will try to hold on to Kursk to try to ensure further US support before Biden leaves office next January. The odds are significant, however, it will not be able to succeed in that.

Political Consequences of the Kursk-Donbass Offensives

Public opinion in Russia has strengthened Putin’s hand in the war as a consequence of the two offensives. His problem now is not ensuring Russian public opinion continues to support his government and the SMO but that growing segments of Russian opinion and Russian media are now demanding he take even more aggressive military action in response to the Kursk invasion.

Putin’s challenge now is to not fall for Ukraine’s Kursk provocation, abandon the SMO and escalate the conflict to an even more intensive and wider war that would require a much larger military force than the SMO and falling into the NATO war hawks trap to use a Russian escalation as an excuse to get NATO even more directly involved on the ground in the war than it already is.

Zelensky clearly wants to maneuver events into that direction—i.e. a more direct Russia-NATO conflict. That’s perhaps the major rationale behind the Kursk offensive. But Putin ultimately wants some kind of negotiated settlement, albeit on Russia’s two terms announced earlier this summer. He will therefore likely wait until the outcome of US elections to determine whether abandoning the SMO for a larger conflict is necessary. Zelensky and Ukraine leadership is desperate and reckless; Putin is calculating and typically factors in the bigger political picture.

For the moment, however, Putin’s conditions for beginning negotiations announced a couple months ago—i.e. Ukraine leave the four provinces and agree to neutrality—is off the table.

Scuttling the possibility of negotiations (that China was trying to arrange last July) may have also been part of the objective of Ukraine’s Kursk offensive. Ukraine and Zelensky have a long track record of feigning interest in negotiations as a cover for an escalation planned. Ukraine diplomatic maneuvers in Beijing in July and in Qatar in August are evidence Ukraine has no intention of seriously negotiating anything. Quite the contrary. Although nothing is imminent, US and Russia may continue exploring the possibility of negotiations through back channels, as they have in recent months, but it’s clear there will be no negotiations of any kind until after the US elections at earliest and more likely not until the Biden administration ends next January 20, 2025.

Throughout the summer opinion has been growing among NATO elites and western media that Ukraine cannot hold onto the Donbass or even the four provinces annexed in 2022 by Russia. Russia’s continuing successes in the Donbass offensive further confirm that view, and solidify it should Russia take Pokrovsk next month. Conversely, NATO elite opinion may shift further toward allowing Ukraine to attack inside Russia using ATACMS, cruise missiles, and even F-16s to enable Ukraine to hold onto the Kursk territory as Ukraine losses the Donbass. The test of this NATO elites’ shift will be evident should US allow in coming weeks further shipments of UK storm shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine. Losing the Donbass logically means rolling the military dice even further in Kursk and the northern border.

US neocons and war hawks will attempt to create further escalation in the Ukraine war between now and January 2025 in order to make it extremely difficult for any new US president elected in November to reduce US/NATO commitments to Ukraine, let alone withdraw.

Should Harris win in November, the Biden administration policies toward the war will almost certainly continue. Harris will be malleable to the foreign policy/neocon establishment who have been running US foreign policy and wars since at least 2001 and perhaps even earlier since the late 1990s. Should Trump win—and the Deep State allow him to actually take office in January without a major US constitutional crisis (which is more likely than not)—it is unlikely that Trump will be able to end the Ukraine war in the short run after taking office January 20. Even with Trump in office, the war will therefore continue well into 2025. The only factor that may expedite an earlier end to the war is if Russia debilitates Ukraine military resources to such an extent that those forces effectively collapse in both the Donbass and Kursk fronts.

Russia has never intended to ‘conquer’ all of Ukraine, including Kiev. Putin’s SMO has always been to drive Ukrainian forces out of the Russian speaking provinces and then ensure some kind of neutrality by what’s left of a Ukrainian state.

But before that can happen Russia will need to conclusively drive Ukraine back across the border from Kursk and take the strategic Donbass cities of Pokrovsk and Slavyansk. Only then is Endgame apparent. Only then will Ukraine forces retreat back to whatever remains of Ukraine. Only then will US/NATO decide to cut losses and abandon the ‘Ukraine Project’ altogether.

Dr. Jack Rasmus is author of The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy From Reagan to Trump, Clarity Press, 2020 and the forthcoming Twilight of American Imperialism, 2024, also Clarity Press. He blogs at http://jackrasmus.com, hosts the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions, and posts daily on ‘X’ at @drjackrasmus.