Consortium News has the article Liars Lying About Nearly Everything.

As the latest British account of the location of the alleged poison places it on the door handle of the Skripals’ residence, the timetable element is also unconvincing. That means that the two would have spent three hours, including a stop at a pub and lunch, before succumbing on a park bench. Military grade nerve agents kill instantly and this one is said to be 8 times more powerful than VX.

There is even more damaging information in the article than this excerpt I have chosen here.

I hadn’t even read this article when I published my previous post Skripals poisoned from front door of Salisbury home, police say. I hadn’t even thought about the above issue when I made that post.

YouTube has the video ‘Assad had no reason to launch chem attack, unlike those who want US involvement’ – Ron Paul.

Washington and the US media seem to have no doubts about the Syrian government’s complicity in the Douma incident despite the fact that those who want America to stay in Syria have far more solid motives, Ron Paul told RT.

There isn’t much that Ron Paul and I can agree on, but this is one area where we do agree. Notice that even Ed Schultz buys into the idea that an actual gas attack occurred. I am beginning to wonder if he isn’t too naive.

Zero Hedge has the article “There Wasn’t A Single Corpse”: Russia Claims ‘White Helmets’ Staged Syria Chemical Attack.

Russia claims that the reported chemical attack in Syria last Sunday was staged by the “white helmets,” a US-funded NGO lauded by mainstream media for their humanitarian work, while long-suspected of performing less-than humanitarian deeds behind the curtain.

The article includes this video.

Notice how the interviewer assumes on faith that the videos he has been shown are true, even when CBS News admits they cannot verify them.

This is the first mention of “White Helmets” that I have seen. If the corporate media had mentioned “White Helmets” in the beginning then I would have been positively sure it was a false flag operation. That is probably why the corporate media tried to keep “white helmets” out of their reports. Maybe the corporate media isn’t just naively accepting the deep state’s take on this issue. Maybe they are very consciously and purposely lying.

YouTube has the video Canadian journalist totally crushes MSM reporter on what’s actually happening in Syria.

I don’t know for sure whom to believe, but I certainly am not going to unconditionally believe the anti-Asad, regime change people.

The Guardian has the article Skripals poisoned from front door of Salisbury home, police say .

Detectives investigating the attempted murders of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal have said they believe the pair were poisoned with a nerve agent at the front door of his Salisbury home.

Specialists investigating the poisoning of the the Skripals have found the highest concentration of the nerve agent on the front door at the address, police said.

If you were a reporter/editor with the most meager qualifications for your job, this story would raise a lot of questions that you would pose in this incredulous article.

How would the would be assassin know that the Skirpal’s would be using their front door? As an owner of a home with an attached garage, I seldom use the front door because I usually enter and exit my house through the garage.

How could the would be assassin know that there wouldn’t be many others dropping dead from the poison? Do they not have door-to-door sales people, religious proselytizers, mail and package deliverers, newspaper deliverers, nor household staff in England? Any of these people would have been similarly poisoned and dropping like flies.

Do the British authorities think their story is so credible, that nobody is going to scoff at this naive explanation?

I just read and posted about the article Liars Lying About Nearly Everything.

As the latest British account of the location of the alleged poison places it on the door handle of the Skripals’ residence, the timetable element is also unconvincing. That means that the two would have spent three hours, including a stop at a pub and lunch, before succumbing on a park bench. Military grade nerve agents kill instantly and this one is said to be 8 times more powerful than VX.

I hadn’t even thought about this issue when I first posted this post.

YouTube has the video Oliver Green in conversation with Steve Keen, Contrarian Economist and Author.

This is an excellent talk on the consequences of public debt and private debt. Steve has to fight the interviewer a tad because the interviewer doesn’t ever get it completely, although he thinks he does.

This is the best talk I have heard from Steve Keen. All the other ones I have seen have been talks about his Minsky Computer Model that get so deep in the weeds that I get lost. I think I have maybe as high as a 90% understanding of this talk. It explains the issue about private debt, and at the very end even talks about a solution that will never get implemented and one that will be forced upon us.

Naked Capitalism has the article Monopoly Capitalism: At The Breaking Point?

Laura Flanders: Monopoly capitalism and models of resistance. This week, author Michael Hudson on Donald Trump’s fake economics, and Stacy Mitchell from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, with Joe Maxwell of Family Farm Action, on the threat of Amazon to just about everything. It’s all coming up on the Laura Flanders Show, the place where the people who say it can’t be done take a back seat to the people who are doing it. Welcome.

This is somewhat of an antidote to the tripe in the article “Trade War or Not, China Risks a ‘Minsky Moment’”

Naked Capitalism has the article Trade War or Not, China Risks a ‘Minsky Moment’,

But in spite of signs of renewed economic activity in March, the country’s debt build-up has provoked increasing concern amongst Beijing’s policy makers, as it points to an underlying long-term financial fragility, particularly if trade war pressures intensify. Just last October during the Communist Party Plenary, Zhou Xiaochuan, then head of the country’s central bank, warned of a “Minsky moment“:

“When there are too many pro-cyclical factors in an economy, cyclical fluctuations will be amplified. If we are too optimistic when things go smoothly, tensions build up, which could lead to a sharp correction, what we call a ‘Minsky Moment’. That’s what we should particularly defend against.”

I just don’t get this debt worry for China. The economy as a whole holds massive reserves including in US dollars. Its massive trade surplus and massive holdings of reserves means that its growth is subsidized by the Chinese government. If the importing nations no longer want the Chinese subsidy, China can turn the subsidy around and use it in the domestic economy.

I have never understood how people can believe in MMT in one part of their brain, and then worry about Chinese debt in another part of their brain. I would very much appreciate someone making an explanation of how these two opposing ideas can be reconciled.

Naked Capitalism has the article Milton Friedman’s ” The Role of Monetary Policy” – 50 Years Later.

You can read all the professional remarks without ever seeing a mention of the obvious that I see.

What happened to Keynes’ insight that putting liquidity out there is like pushing on a string as long was there is no demand for investment? If the spenders, the middle-class, are not getting the money, there will be slack consumer demand. With the increasing size of the Chinese economy and its tendency to suck up all manufacturing as an excuse to keep salaries low, I don’t know how much of Friedman’s analysis can apply anymore. None of the forces driving the world economy now were large enough to have an impact when Friedman looked at the data.

It just amazes me that we can have these economic discussions without ever mentioning the elephant in the room.