Naked Capitalism has the post NATO-Russia Proxy War: Revealing Signs of a Fading America: Michael Hudson. You can read the transcript here or listen to the interview at the Global Research post NATO-Russia Proxy War: Revealing Signs of a Fading America: Scott Ritter, Michael Hudson. At Global Research, the Michael Hudson part is in the second half hour.

Here is the opening salvo from Michael Hudson.

MH: I think it’s just the opposite of what you said. The war isn’t against Russia. The war isn’t against Ukraine. The war is against Europe and Germany. The purpose of the sanctions is to prevent Europe and other allies from increasing their trade and investment with Russia and China, because the United States saw that the centre of world growth is not in America now that it’s deindustrializing. Following neoliberal policies since the 1980s has ended up hollowing out the US economy. And how on earth can the United States maintain prosperity if it’s lost the ability to do wealth creation?

I have never heard Michael Hudson lay it out quite so bluntly as he did in this interview. If more people could hear this, they might change their mind about what is actually happening with Russia/USA/Ukraine.

The Levy Institute has the working paper What’s Causing Accelerating Inflation: Pandemic or Policy Response?.

We conclude that there is little evidence that excess demand is the problem, although we agree that in the absence of the relief checks, recovery would have been sufficiently slow to minimize inflation pressure. We closely examine the main contributors to rising overall prices and conclude that tighter monetary policy would not be an effective way to reduce price pressures. We also cast doubt on the expectations theory of inflation control. We present evidence that suggests there is currently little danger that higher inflation will become entrenched. If anything, rate hikes now will make it harder for the economy to adjust to current realities. The potential for lots of pain with little gain is great. The best course of action is to tackle problems on the supply side.

BIG by Matt Stoller has the article Judges Behaving Badly: Amazon Antitrust Suit Dismissed.

I thought it was going to be a titanic clash, and it brought critical legal questions into the courts to be hashed out by a jury. Unfortunately, the judge Racine got assigned to this case, Hiram Puig-Lugo, did not agree. Earlier this week, at what looked like a routine scheduling hearing, Puig-Lugo, whose expertise is in family law, shocked everyone involved by dismissing Racine’s Amazon complaint outright. That means the case is over, unless Racine appeals. And how Puig-Lugo dismissed the case was as odd as his choice to do so. For important complaints like this, judges almost always put down in writing their rationale for making decisions at key stages. But Puig-Lugo did not. He simply read from the bench that he didn’t think the claimed conduct violated the law.

This is exactly the kind of behavior that I think most people don’t realize. Has this topic been raised in the confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson? This is probably the most significant issue that will come before the Supreme Court, and nobody is even talking about it.

Naked Capitalism has the article Unbeknown to Most, A Financial Revolution Is Coming That Threatens to Radically Transform Everything (And Probably Not for the Better).

Around 90 central banks are either in the process of experimenting with or are already piloting central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). In a world of just over 190 countries that is a large number, but given they include the European Central Bank (ECB) which alone represents 19 Euro Area economies, the actual number of economies involved is well over 100. They include all G20 economies and together represent more than 90% of global GDP.

This article explains Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Finally, I can see the difference between today’s system and a true CBDC. I often thought that our credit card systems are an unusual privatization of cashless payment. The central bank should be performing the cashless transfer of money without imposing any fee. (Maybe this is more like a debit card than a credit card.)

Instead of leaving the topic as “And Probably Not for the Better”, the next article in the series could be about the safeguards that must be put in place in any legislation that authorized the Fed to provide this service. The Fed should be prevented from meddling in your financial choices (digital currency neutrality). Your financial transactions should be protected by privacy requirements. Any breach of that privacy by other government agencies should require a court order.

YouTube has the video SHOCKING! Assad Spills Truth About Ukraine Conflict and NATO.

Here is another source the USA loves to smear. I like to consider whether or not he is telling it like it is, rather than who he is. My principle is truth over identity politics.

Democracy at Work has the video Ask Prof Wolff: Critical Theory & Critical Race Theory.

A Patron of Economic Update asks: “I’m writing because I’m curious about Critical Theory and its relationship to a current hot topic, Critical Race Theory. What are Critical Theory’s roots? What were its originators in the Frankfurt School trying to achieve? What strengths and weaknesses did Critical Race Theory receive by being founded on Critical Theory?”

It would help if we could calm down and understand this dispassionate look at the meanings of these terms. Then we wouldn’t have to yell at Supreme Court nominees.

Naked Capitalism has the article (with transcript) Michael Hudson Discusses Russia Sanctions Blowback on the Renegade.

Michael Hudson gives another talk on the broader implications of US sanctions against Russia for the American economy, the dollar, and China.

I am no longer placing any bets who who has a better prediction of the future. We are just going to have to watch it play out.

The Analysis News has the article The IMF Connection with the Ukraine Crisis.

The economic doctrine promoted by the IMF after the fall of the Berlin Wall brought massive damage in the countries now at war. Prabhat Patnaik looks at how the role of the IMF was instrumental to the advance of Western metropolitan powers in the post-Soviet region. Lynn Fries interviews Patnaik on GPEnewsdocs.

This explains the ulterior motives behind the Ukraine crisis. It all has to do with global oligarchs making money and subjugating the rest of the world to their will.

Multipolarista has the article CIA has trained Ukrainians to kill Russian-speakers since 2014 US-backed coup.

CIA paramilitaries have been active in Ukraine training elite special operations forces to kill Russian-speaking Ukrainian separatists since soon after the 2014 US-sponsored coup. The US spy agency boasted that its influence “cannot be overestimated.”

Reports like this miss the western oligarchs’ financial interests in all of this. The IMF and the EU wanted the Ukraine to be so indebted that they had to sell off the countries assets to the oligarchs. Democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych was looking to Russia for a better deal. The USA and Europe could not accept this, so he was overthrown for an administration that would agree to the rotten deal the IMF was offering. To get a full appreciation of this second article, you need to understand the information in the first article above.

BIG by Matt Stoller has the article Why Are Judges Encouraging Inflation?

A conspiracy to raise prices can be understood as price-fixing, and price-fixing is a felony according to Section One of the Sherman Antitrust Act, passed in 1890. The statute says “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce.. is declared to be illegal.” From the 1890s onward, explicit price-fixing with no other context except profiteering, was understood as illegal. What Unilever is doing, signaling of pricing moves in a concentrated industry, known as ‘tacit collusion,’ is potentially such a conspiracy. In the 1970s the Federal Trade Commission and judges considered that exchanging information while moving prices in concert was an illegal method of fixing prices.

But for years, courts have been loosening antitrust law, including those against price-fixing. In 2017, for instance, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case called Valspar Corp. v. E.I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co, not only found that tacit collusion was legal, but that in the case of a concentrated industry, it’s rational. And so they wouldn’t even let it get to a jury.

I knew that the courts were facilitating monopolies, but this article gives details that I had not known.

What’s also interesting here is the breakdown of ideology. Typically antitrust observers see conservatives as more hostile to antitrust enforcement, and progressives as more favorable to it. But in this case, that line didn’t hold. The Third Circuit is ideologically mixed. In the Valspar case, two out of three judges were appointed by George W. Bush, and one was appointed by Bill Clinton. With a 2-1 vote, the judges adopted a strong pro-big business posture, and the lone dissenter was one of the conservatives. The Ninth Circuit is considered a more progressive place, and the judges in this case were all appointed by Democrats – William A. Fletcher (Clinton), Johnnie B. Rawlinson (Clinton), and Cathy Ann Bencivengo (Obama). Fletcher in particular is known as a stalwart left-winger, with strong progressive views on the death penalty, immigration, free speech, the environment, gun control, gender equity, etc. And yet, on the question of big business, these progressive legal minds were in lockstep with the Fortune 500.

Glenn Greenwals has created this YouTube video Greenwald: The White House’s game-playing denials of bio labs in Ukraine.

Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald examines United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland’s vague answer about whether or not Ukraine has biological weapons facilities.

Watch this now before this is prohibited from being viewed in the USA.