The @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net approach would be to praise America for subverting that Chinese plan, and I can't really say that's terribly wrong, but the Biden admin October Surprise-ing itself due to potentially dramatically raising oil prices also doesn't seem very productive.

Oil prices are not likely to go higher no matter what(nukes flying into Saudi Arabia excluded).

OPEC+ is currently doing "voluntary" supply cuts. The majority of these cuts are coming from SA and they are under pressure as a result of the long term downtrend they're having a budget crisis.

Right now the issue is some members(inc. Iraq/Russia) have to do their own production cuts to compensate for previous overproduction. However if there is no compliance SA is threatning to cancel their cut which could move oil even lower.

For now all members are reassuring they'll comply with the cuts which is what SA wants to see, but if this doesn't happen the only destination is lower prices. Alternatively any major real war will be a great relief for them as these cuts will then be delayed/reduced overall. It also means there is more than enough supply ready to counter any crisis.

The underlying downtrend is driven by the weak Chinese demand narrative and it wont change in the short-medium term, at the end everyone knows China is the only real growing economy.

It can't be understated, Saudi Minister Warns of $50 Oil as OPEC+ Members Flout Production Curbs(WSJ)

Brent crude was up 5% today, seems like a big jump(it is definitely unusual) but the actual price is still well below and barely recovering from the recent crash.

Keeping in mind in the past these sorts of geopolitical events would have sent oil to near all time highs, these days its barely a bump up. Brent crude needs to go from $73 right now to at least $85 before things start getting interesting again.

You should ignore for a moment the same theories people keep posting here and look at what people like Rand corp actualy say about Russia.

Here this is a great paper by them. Postwar U.S. Strategy Toward Russia(2024)

It shows exactly what they consider to be the relevant points about Russia today. In general these neolibs always see Russia as a geopolitical rival, they don't believe to have "won" per se because there is a deep fundamental distrust and a belief(also racist) that they'll never be truly on board with US interests.

The chart on that page is excellent actually.

I've highlighted the key points from both groups below.

spoiler

World A: After the Less Favorable WarWar outcomes

The conflict ends after a long war of attrition

China provides lethal aid to Russia

The war ends in a weak ceasefire

Ukraine suffers modest territorial setbacks

Strategic setting in the immediate aftermath of the war

Russia is primarily imperialist and also security-motivated

Russia is weakened by the war but poised to rearm

Russia-China relations are very close

Ukraine is focused on territorial reconquest

Ukraine is economically devastated

NATO is divided over wartime policy toward Russia and Ukraine

The U.S. shift to the Indo-Pacific region is limited by the war in Europe

There are U.S.-China tensions because of Beijing's support for Moscow

Global economic fragmentation occurs because of sanctions and counter-sanctions

And

Hardline Approach

Strategic stability

Reject arms control negotiations

Develop new nuclear capabilities and expand force posture

Deploy more BMD installations

Deploy intermediate-range ground-based missiles to Europe

Military presence in Europe

Sustain elevated force levels

Deploy more forces into Eastern Europe

Reject talks on limiting conventional forces in Europe

Security relationship with Ukraine

Provide assistance that enables offensive operations

Integrate Ukraine's military into NATO

Support open door and Ukrainian membership

Policy toward other non-NATO former Soviet states

Support Georgia's NATO integration and membership

Increase security cooperation with regional states

Roll back Russian influence

Economic relations with Russia

Sustain most wartime sanctions

As you can see, its both frightening and elucidating how painfuly obvious they are about their goals and how they consider getting there.

Ukraine is a plan gone wrong and that plan is to contain Russian interests. For example, they've appropriated Imperialism mean a vulgar term completely opposite to Lenin's. Rand corp ghouls and everyone in Washington truly believe Russia is an imperialist competitor.

Here is another of their research papers from 2019

Despite these vulnerabilities and anxieties, Russia remains a powerful country that still manages to be a U.S. peer competitor in a few key domains. Recognizing that some level of competition with Russia is inevitable, RAND researchers conducted a qualitative assessment of “cost-imposing options” that could unbalance and overextend Russia. Such cost-imposing options could place new burdens on Russia, ideally heavier burdens than would be imposed on the United States for pursuing those options.

In the Geopolitical Cost-Imposing Options they included "Provide lethal aid to Ukraine" as medium-high cost and success rates.

In Economic Cost-Imposing Options they put "Impose deeper trade and financial sanctions" as high and clearly listed "Increase Europe’s ability to import LNG from sources other than Russia" which was literaly the opposite of what happened and the reason for EU's crash.

Further below you can read the section Land and Multidomain Cost-Imposing Measures and basicaly note how all options revolve around increasing US military presence in Europe and more militarization of NATO.

It is clear to me these people would not be suggesting this back in 2019 if they didn't think Russia was a real competitor.

Of course I don't think these people are particularly correct or even 100% truthful, but to have a pulse on what neolibs think does require to read and listen to what they actualy say.

Unfortunately we have not moved on from what Michael Hudson popularized in '22. The idea the US somehow wanted this war just to destroy the EU is not accurate. For example the US did not believe energy prices would skyrocket, they even tried the price cap so they could reduce Russian profits and stop the inflation crisis worldwide.

Contrast the scale of these movements with Ukraine begging 2 years for half a dozen abandoned F-16s sitting on a scrap warehouse somewhere.

Their range estimates are way off. The 4000km range west should only hit Instanbul yet they put it almost inside Italy. Xinjiang is exactly 4000km to the Ukraine-Poland border yet they put it almost halfway across Austria. Same thing with Sweden. Its about 10% off.

Towards the east its a whole 1000km off towards the US. That 4000 km range is actualy almost inside Canada which in reality is over 5000 km away.

Yet they managed to get the 4000 km range to Australia quite accurately. If its mean to represent the DF-4 then I don't get it, surely it would make more sense to add the upper bound of 5500km too and not his weird ass projection.

The problem is nobody else learned their lesson either. Why should Iran be any different?

China says US bad twice a day monday through friday and on the weekends they shake hands with Hitler and praise Kissinger?

Russia is not anti-west and Putin is the exception exactly because of his personal experience. If you remove this he is exactly the same anti-communist fascist as everyone else. He is not fundamentally anti-west and Russia is full of MAGA idiots that think [insert Trump-like idiot here] will be better for them because [insert woke garbage here]. If the US political climate swings back towards MAGA in the future how easy will it be to fool these Russian fascists again?

India/Modi actively sabotages BRICS and Brazil is literaly irrelevant as Lula's theatrics fools nobody exactly because the actual Brazilian political climate is extremely biased towards the far-right and besides he is no stranger to neoliberalism at home anyway.

Iran should learn their lesson, there is no normalization and there is no trusting the US. This is obvious, but if the point is this is a learning experience, then I'm pessimistic anyone is learning anything.

The point is that this signals exactly what the western market wants to see, a clear sign that the party is willing to follow neoliberal economics at crucial steps now and in the future.

IMO greed(profit) speaks the loudest, Wall st. doesn't realy care or believe in all these fearmongering narratives, instead they fear the perception that the CPC can "fuck up" the economy at any time by doing that evil socialism thing.

Wall Street loves it because it shows the party is in control and takes the economic data seriously while also showing there should be no fear of the CPC taking any "socialist" measures in the short term. Again it shows what everyone wants to see, that the party cares more about economic data than anything else.

The thought things can be fixed with just pumping money is a slippery slope, yet its no surprise why capitalists are loving it.

But I think it’s safe to say that with the Fed lowering the rates, we are now entering the Phase 2 of the US financial warfare against China. Phase 3 being the ultimate speculative attack by selling its assets all at once.

You should temper your expectations here, China has a lot of room to make stupid decisions still, while the US is entirely built on a house of cards called "economic data" which would be fine if not for the unbelievably asinine attempts made to justify why bad data is good actualy.

The question of soft/hard landing is basically down to how the market wants to interpret the narrative at any point in time.

If you pay attention at all to these narratives the neolibs already flip flopped a dozen times since 2020.

Inflation was bad, then it wasn't, then it was "sticky", then it was "solved" anyway because fuck food and rent anyway so the fed must cut rates, but actualy not yet because if they do it means they're afraid the bad data is bad actualy and they're desperate, but actualy now the bad data is not bad at all because turns out the fed mandate is throws dice who fucking knows at this point so we must cut rates now otherwise it wont be soft landing anymore except any bad jobs report can turn soft landing into bad landing overnight.

I'm not sure I ever believed the US can wage such an economic war, upon reflection to me it seems since 2020 all this current political/economic circus can't be maintained if the US does intend to get serious against China.

All China has to do is stop trading with a country, they don't need to launch a single missile.

I agree but when it was suggested that China should have done this back earlier this year against Israel quite some people thought this unwarranted though.

I used to say these types of economic sanctions were the very bare minimum China could have done to intervene on the genocide against Israel, raise the stakes for the US at barely no risk for China themselves, but instead we have nothing at all at except speeches that say US bad on one hand while countless US officials traveled to Beijing on the other hand.

Its cool to have a weapon you're never willing to use or one which people will bend backwards to justify not using.

China currently worships "non-interventionism" for many reasons, a nuclear threat is the exact opposite of that so I don't think its smart to read this test as a message either.

IDK anymore if there is anything that would actualy pull NATO into this war besides a direct attack, not when Israel is still a major issue after 1 year and they still are keen on baiting China.

Maybe there needs to be a serious bluff calling here. Is the US actualy willing to start a WW3 in Ukraine and potentialy abandon Israel? I'm like 60, maybe even 70/30 on Russia should retaliate if we get to a situation where Ukraine succesffuly hits an important target and that itself is a long shot atm.

You must be joking,seriously there is no way this is your argument lol.

Imagine one comment

"I wish global leftists would focus on material issues since we tend to agree 99% of the time"

and another comment

"You know I don't think nazism, white supremacy, xenophobia or transphobia are not particularly relevant issues, so long as they're helping to build communism I'm fine with any of that".

Would you see that user as a clown or not? You literaly undermine the premise of the first one, what exactly is the 1% if not any of these things? Jesus take your head of your ass lol.

I love how leftists will agree on 99% of things but become sworn enemies with other leftists over AI or masks or outdoor cats or some shit.

I don't care if Norman Finkelstein is transphobic.

What the fuck are you talking about, your other comment is about outdoor cats, now you talk about transphobia as if both are remotely the same thing. You have zero credibility if that is how you see the world.

Building socialism by supporting opinions that directly harm the people you want to help. The most generous take here is you're completely lost.

You're absolutely right about the illusion but IMO the Bernie era gave people including many socialists/leftists who considered him as harm reduction a complete illusion of what the underlying political climate was heading towards.

While Bernie was campaigning on very good vibes and huge crowds asking for healthcare the population was heading increasingly away from the "traditional" both parties values of decades prior.

Its obvious Trump completely destroyed traditional conservatism but for the Democrats to destroy Bernie they had no alternative but plant the seeds of Blue MAGA.

Biden only got there because he was the only alternative to defeat Bernie without the Dems jumping off a cliff politically. Then they pulled this Biden coup only because Biden was absurdly unpopular. IMO if they tried the same shit with the Bernie nomination things would have been very interesting back then.

Dems could have avoided this by just dealing with Bernie as the coward and incoherent fool he is as president, at least they would have had 8 years of probably the most popular president in history.

Instead the year is 2024 and Blue MAGA is not a parody, its the foundation of the party.

I am not sure I agree but it doesn't matter because the most likely outcome is they will be and they'll write articles trying to convince us AI is good actualy before they end up being fired the very next day.

To be fair I wouldn't take these headlines at face value simply given these companies have ridiculous and stupid "expectations". The games are quite profitable.

Stupid expectations of straight line up never ending graphs. Expect everything you make to make as much money as the previous release instead of embracing or simply accepting you're already winning, you're already making stupid amounts of profit, 10% higher or lower doesn't mean anything.

Not only is Rebirth already 4 years late(who cares at this point) FF7 remake was also release exactly in the mid of COVID(April '20), surely people should understand by now you may erase that from memory, that consumption habit will never come back.

Yep absolute cinema, the good old days of... checks notes 2022. lol That the China we needed more of, it was moments like this that gave me the impression China was going to be a lot more adversarial going forward compared to the reality of what actually happened since then.

I think at least since COVID its clear its as much anti-Biden than pro-Trump. For both of them actualy its more about what the opposition says or does than your own rethoric, not to deny that is important, but clearly some people vote more based on what they hate the most.

So we look back and Biden spent 4 years gaslighting people that everything is fine even if your rent doubled. They repeat Fed shit through the liberal media as if people not only understand but agree with all the punching left/down they're doing.

"Inflation is under control", "robust jobs market", "excess savings" lol you know the memes I'm sure.

I don't think they should be banned or anything, but I do think all of their lib showerthought bait comments should be removed. In addition, I don't really value their input on moderation questions as they post a lot of shit I believe shouldn't be here.

I literaly told you I'm familiar with them and I literaly often reply to them too. Stop trying to create a witch hunt, you already made your point, I disagree.

I look at your comment history now and its not even the first time you do this. Chill out dude. You're developing a patter of trying to witch hunt established users over petty shit.

So they have post cringe takes once in a while, who cares? I literaly already told you most people know this. I know this since I reply to them often. I'd take one crazy L in a while, so what, report for a mod and move on.

You're not in the position to tell others to "go to reddit" and your comment history is questionable.

You have a weird definition of bait then, bait is not when you disagree with shit. I don't think they were correct either, I've contested their posts many times btw I know the rhetoric.

But as I said, you're being hostile towards someone that was not even dishonest and often contributes in other areas.

This whole chain points out the amount of cope people post here approaches its own conspiracy theory level. "Iran will retaliate at any day now" is literally becoming a meme. But its the random project whatever post from 3 months ago that is relevant?

What are you even talking about? Nobody took their conspiracy theories seriously or bad enough to dunk on, in fact the always get engagement and post insightful comments about other stuff too. It realy feels like you're not reading the room here. They're not a malicious or dishonest poster, at least not that I can tell.

Stop acting as if you're some authority here trying to clean shit, this is the lamest internet trope to date, that one guy that thinks they're representing others with authority.

Yes, re-industrialization can and will eventually happen, but it won’t happen immediately.

It definitely wont happen exactly because there is a reason capitalists moved to the global south in the first place. Industry in the north is not profitable. This will never change unless the north population goes through either some massive economic shock doctrine akin to a WW2/3 scenario or probably massive climate change catastrophe.

Its like every single time we forget history, the only reason why the US industry grew in the first place, the only reason the west managed to industrialize in the first place, the obvious consequences for Germany when they were put on the dead end of industrialization(e.g entirely dependent on imported energy).

If we consider these things the US is far more likely to collapse and balkanize. I expect chuds shooting liberals well before chuds and liberals hands together working in a factory for $5 an hour which is necessary for industrial profitability nowadays.

This is not to say that America will be a bad place to live in, it is simply that its standard of living will be below what its citizens are currently able to “enjoy” (in relative terms to the Global South). Meanwhile, real economic growth will happen in the East where their living standards will be far above the former Imperial Core, and you can expect many skilled talents would seek to emigrate as well.

If by "East" you mean China yeah maybe if we consider the richest cities, otherwise you need some reality checks on what the average work and life condition in Japan and South Korea is like.