The Black Agenda Report has the article The Real Goal of “Russiagate” is to Prepare for Endless Austerity and War.

The Russians will never face trial in the U.S., and it is highly unlikely that the unindicted Americans will be criminally charged — but that is not the purpose of Mueller’s indictment. The political crime has been defined, for the broad purpose of repressing dissent in the United States. The witch hunt has found a legalistic vocabulary.

There are a lot of good reasons mentioned in this article to be angry with the promotion of the idea of Russiagate.

I’ll mention one of my life long principles that is another reason for my anger.

Throughout my life and particularly during my professional career, I have always felt that in any competitive situations I tried to beat the competition by doing a better job than they did. I would be, and was, ashamed of any effort to win by putting road blocks in the way of the competition. I did manage to talk companies where I worked from taking punitive actions against a competitor if it looked like the competitor were going to do a better job than we were going to do.

The world and my industry is better served if all the competitors try to do the best job that they can rather than trying to trip up the competition. I always felt that if had to resort to tripping up the competition to win the race, then I didn’t belong in the race. If the competition was winning through fair and honest practices, then they deserved to win.

I guess I could afford to have my attitude because I always felt that I was capable of doing a job well enough to succeed at it. I also worked for companies that I thought were good enough to succeed. When my interests and the company’s interests started to diverge in ways that I could not change, then I just looked for (and luckily always found) another job.

If we, as residents of the USA, believe that our country can do a better job, then why wouldn’t we just do that job as well as we can. If some other society can do the job better, then they deserve to win. Perhaps we can actually learn from people who do a better job at what we want to do. We don;t actually need to “win”. All I want to do is to be able to lead a respectable and comfortable life. If those needs are met, I don’t have to get myself in a fever pitch with concern that someone else might be doing better.

This carries over to my philosophy about investing. I don’t care whether or not I beat the market. If I do well enough to support my family and myself, then I can be happy no matter what the rest of the market does.

The Real News Network has the interview How Did Communist China Become a Capitalist Superpower?

In his new book, “Competing Economic Paradigms in China,” Steve Cohn examines how China’s economic policy went from Maoist to “iron rice bowl” to neoliberal

I am always fascinated by how China pulled off this transition. I have observed their tendency to be “what worksists” rather than “capitalists” or “communists”. I am not sure I would classify their policies as neo-liberal in the same pejorative sense that is applied to the Clintons and most of the Democratic party. I think being a “what worksist” is a much better strategy than trying to make the real world fit into a single ideology.

In my previous post China’s Secret Source For Funding Infrastructure, the article referenced describes how China uses their fiat currency system in a much better way than the USA does. So, in that instance the neo-liberalism in the USA is much more ideologically closed-minded than whatever you want to call neo-liberalism in China.

One aspect of Western ways that they have adopted that I think is a mistake is to allow the emergence of a billionaire class. I do not know the details as much as I do about the billionaires in Russia, but I assume the Chinese billionaires arose from the same forces as in Russia. This is the sale of state owned enterprises at fire-sale prices in the effort to privatize. I do take note that there are some restrictions on these billionaires that you do not find in the United States. In China and Russia, some billionaires actually do end up in jail. In China some of them even end up being executed. I am not for executions, but I think that jail is warranted in many cases. I would much prefer the prevention of economic crimes rather than just punishment after the crimes have been committed.

YouTube has the video Empire Files: How Lobbyists Weaponized Transparency.

There are 26 registered lobbyists for every elected representative on the hill, with experts suggesting the true amount is closer to 100,000. Yet transparency laws that people believe help combat this system of pay-to-play politics have been weaponized against them to further cement corporate control. Congressional researcher James D’Angelo argues how the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970, which opened up politicians voting records–has only helped special interests and corporations.

Read this and weep. I don’t see any solution to the problems that get exposed here. The interview does not result in any suggestion for a solution.