RT has the article UK outlines efforts to cut Russia from SWIFT.

The UK government is working to cut Russia from the SWIFT international banking system, after the US said it would not be taking that step.

I take this article as an excuse to ponder over some realities.

Modern Monetary Theorists say that the USA will never run out of money to buy anything that is for sale in USA dollars. Mentally, I always complete that statement with the question what about things the USA needs that are not for sale in USA dollars? What could that possibly be? Since China is already holding trillions of dollars in USA treasury securities, what if China started demanding payment in gold?

If the USA cuts Russia off from the SWIFT system, China could either decide to also opt out, or at least cut down what they are willing to sell us that depends on the SWIFT system. How long can we keep up the sanctions against Russia and China?

I wonder if the people in the USA government ever think two moves ahead when they plan actions as big as sanctioning Russia. How many steps ahead do you think Vladimir Putin is thinking?

Richard Medhurst has the podcast NATO Too Weak to Face Russia: Scott Ritter on Russian Offensive.

Richard Medhurst: #RichardMedhurst is an independent journalist and commentator. Regular live streams and interviews with popular guests from the Left such as Glenn Greenwald, Mike Figueredo (Humanist Report) and Max Blumenthal (Grayzone). Fluent in English, Arabic, French, German, and having grown up across several continents, Medhurst’s show aims to provide a critical analysis of electoral politics and international affairs from an anti-imperialist viewpoint.

Be prepared for a shocking dose of reality.

Rumble has this podcast Glenn Greenwald: The War in Ukraine.

Glenn gets on the screen at about 4 minutes and 45 seconds into this video.

Glenn Greenwald has given a great review of how we got to where we are with Russia and The Ukraine. Unfortunately the country is in no mood to stop and think.

Briahna Joy Gray has the podcast WAR IN UKRAINE. What – If Anything – Should the US Do? BJG Interviews Bernie’s Foreign Policy Wonk.

This week, Briahna Joy Gray spoke to Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy advisor, Matt Duss, about the escalating conflict in Ukraine.

Toward the end of this interview Matt Duss admits that his family background is from Ukrainian speaking Ukraines. It would have been very helpful if he had said that earlier. He thinks that our focus on Nazi elements in Ukraine is over done. As someone from a Jewish family, I disagree. Perhaps our family backgrounds have something to do with this disparity. In fact the situation of Jews in the Ukraine, never entered the discussion.

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy “is a Ukrainian politician, actor, and comedian who is the sixth and current president of Ukraine, serving since May 2019”.

Zelenskyy grew up in Kryvyi Rih, a Russian-speaking region in south-east Ukraine.
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Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy was born to Jewish parents.

I wonder what Zelenskyy feels about the Nazi elements of Ukrainian politics. I wonder if the Russian “invasion” actually makes him feel more secure about speaking out against the Nazi influence in the Ukraine.

Jon Stewart had the podcast Modern Monetary Theory, Explained! | The Problem With Jon Stewart Podcast | Apple TV+.

Almost great interviews. There are two huge mistakes in this, however. In the beginning they were all confused by not differentiating private sector debt from public sector debt. Cancelling the debt is meant for cancelling private sector debt. It is not intended to cover cancelling public sector debt. The conversation with the Kansas City Fed President bollixed up that entire conversation.

The second mistake was misunderstanding Keynesian economics by Stephanie Kelton, who should know better. The great contribution that Keynes made in economics is in explaining exactly why monetary policy does not work to get us out of a depression. He explained that government spending for fiscal policy was needed to get out of a depression. This Keynesian explanation is not in conflict with MMT at all.

Rokfin has the podcast Donbass and Crimea – an insider view from journalist Eva Bartlett.

Behind the iron curtain of NATO media lies Today I speak with friend, colleague and outstanding on-the-ground journalist, Eva Bartlett. In 2019 Eva visited Donbass, Ukraine and Crimea. As always Eva brings out the heart of the situation from the people that are being “disappeared” by the criminal legacy media outlets in service to US/UK/NATO predator foreign policy. 1. Under Fire from Ukraine and Misperceived by the West, The People of the DPR Share Their Stories 2. Crimeans Tell the Real Story of the Referendum and Their Lives Since

An important report from the other side of the conflict.

Here is a link to the Blog that Eva Bartlett mentioned In Gaza and beyond.

C-Span carried this talk and provided the translation Russian President Putin Statement on Ukraine,

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced after a Security Council meeting that Russia would recognize the independence of the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Since we, in the USA, are being inundated by anti-Russian propaganda from our “intelligece” agencies and the corporate new media (as if there were any difference between the two), it wouldn’t hurt to consider the possibility that there is a point of view that you are not hearing. C-SPAN certainly can’e be branded as an outlet controlled by the Russian government.

YouTube has the video of a Webinar How Can Spending Slay Inflation?

We’ll look in detail at the debate currently raging between traditional neo-classical economists and the perspectives of Modern Monetary Theory:
How can increased investment help to reduce inflation?
Where should government policy focus and why?
How quickly will the benefits flow through to ordinary people?

They dismissed rather than explain the relation of military spending to inflation. I think this is a serious missed opportunity. Fadhel Kaboub sticks to his explanation of the inflation of the 1970s. The OPEC oil embargo certainly made the inflation much worse. By concentrating on the oil price driven inflation, he misses what started the inflation, which was the guns and butter policy of LBJ during the Vietnam War. The OPEC oil price shocks were a reaction of OPEC to the inflation that was already going on, before they made it much worse. I think this distinction is important because the Vietnam War spending was something we could have controlled. Once OPEC raised the price of oil, we could only react, but not control. The Vietnam War explanation would be a good contrast to the explanation of the control of inflation during WW II

Glenn Greenwald has the video Banishment from the Financial System: the War on Dissent.

Now I get to see the consequences of what I had approved of before. I thought it was good to put this kind of pressure on the KKK. Now I see what abuse this leads to. I have already realized that the use of the USA dollar to conduct economic war on countries will lead to the abandonment of the dollar as an international reserve currency. Bullies can only push so far before the victims stand up for themselves.

Before I read Michael Hudson’s book Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy Of American Empire, I didn’t fully realize the damage the USA has done in the world, particularly starting with WW I and its aftermath ever since.

This is a very complicated issue. On the one hand, I think there are some kinds of economic support that should be stopped, like the Saudi Arabian funding of Osama bin Laden. On the other hand, I can see how this tactic can be used to squelch causes that I find are legitimate. I cannot figure out what rules that can be put in place that can be used to prevent harm but won’t also be used also to prevent legitimate dissent.

Sci Tech Daily has the article Fusion Breakthrough Once Thought Impossible Brings Energy Device Closer to Realization.

Scientists have achieved a remarkable breakthrough in the conceptual design of twisty stellarators, experimental magnetic facilities that could reproduce on Earth the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars. The breakthrough shows how to more precisely shape the enclosing magnetic fields in stellarators to create an unprecedented ability to hold the fusion fuel together.

I stayed away from this article for a while because I assumed it was just the usual hype of seemingly hopeless pursuit of fusion power. Now that I read it, I see that it is more novel than I had assumed.