Trump economic policy appears nothing but folly:
Overheating leading to high inflation, high interest rate, labor shortage, larger budget deficit and bigger public debt.
Initially, economic growth may stay strong, but it is not sustainable. A mass expulsion of workers in agriculture, hospitality & construction will inevitably lead to higher food and restaurant prices, which will drive inflation.

Suddenly, the US stock market has soured on the Trump presidency. The most obvious explanation is that Fed is not likely to cut the interest rate as much as anticipated, since inflation just rose. But this is hardly the full explanation./1 Trump's policies are all likely to boost inflation:
1. Kicking out millions of immigrant workers when the US has full employment (4.1% unemployment) = wage inflation.
2. Tariffs raise prices (or depress other currencies).
3. Tax cuts boost the huge budget deficit now 6.6% of GDP.

The legacy of Angela Merkel is suitably dissipating.
1. The weeded out strong people, such as Friedrich Merz.
2. During 16 years she pursued no structural reforms.
3. During the euro crisis in 2010 she sat & did nothing for as long as possible, just bailing out the German banks. 4. She supported Putin's geopolitical Nord Stream 2 project, which was designed to attack Ukraine, while claiming that it was only commercial.
5. Merkel assisted Putin with the Minsk process, facilitating his full-scale attack in 2022.

Finally, Russian economic policy discussion has come alive. After Chair of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina raised the interest rate to 21% - inflation is 8.7% year over year, so the real interest rate is extremely high at 12%
Now, 3 top Russian oligarchs have come out protesting against this high interest rate. They are Oleg Deripaska (who is rather outspoken), Alexei Mordashov & Sergei Chemezov, CEO of Rostec. They claim these rates will cause mass bankrutpcies & want to oust Nabiullina.

Seldom has the US seemed more hypocritical than now:
1. Ukraine has been attacked & defends itself, but the US does not give it the arms it needs & tells it not to defend itself against Russia bases. Ukraine obeys to the letter. 2. Israel kills tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians with US weapons & does everything contrary to US desires. The US delivers more arms & blocks justified international protests against Israel's behavior.

I am no military expert, but I listen often to generals Breedlove & Hodges as well as Ian Brzezinski & Fred Kagan, which I wish the Biden administration would do as well.
1. The US compelled Ukraine to a hopeless counteroffensive in 2023... The US demanded the offensive & told all what it was supposed to do, so the Russians built up their defenses. The US did not deliver any air support & a minimum of ATACMS. It made Ukraine bound to fail. Presumably the US sieve passed on all info to Russia.

We receive so little accurate information from the Kremlin that the most reliable method is old-style Kremlinology, checking photos, meetings & official decisions. The picture is pretty clear & damaging for Putin. 1. About a dozen generals & top defense officials have been arrested by the FSB for corruption, but corruption is no crime in Russia but a requirement. This indicates that the whole military top is out & in particular Shoigu & Gerasimov, though still in high places.

A few thoughts about the Ukrainian offensive into the Kursk region:
1. However this ends, this is an extraordinary success for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
2. Clearly, both the FSB & the Russian military have made every mistake in the book.
3. Putin is directly responsible.

https://twitter.com/LdMila810824/status/1821982116365922423

4. We don't know the Ukrainian goal with this action. I suspect & hope we shall be surprised, but I shall not speculate how.
5. The mendacious presentation by Valery Gerasimov to Putin on Wednesday was possibly his last public appearance. Otherwise, why show such nonsense?

A few thoughts on Biden's decision not to seek reelection:
1. Biden & his presidency how look outstanding. He got more legislation done than either Obama or Clinton & appears utterly decent. All rightly praise him now. He stood up for his country rather than for himself. 2. Kamala Harris has become very active and now seems to swiftly round up full democratic support. Nobody appears to challenge her. The party is happy to have one legitimate & competent candidate.

Elementary understanding of Russia:
1. In order to be respected by Russia, you have to stand up to Russia. (Check Germany & Finland in World War II).
2. Not to stand up to Russia is to encourage Russia to escalate. 3. Russia does not recognize any red lines. It goes as far as it can.
4. To invent Western red lines for Russia is to help the Kremlin in the war (note to the White House).
5. Putin will NEVER use nuclear arms because he will not survive that & he is all about himself.

How to look upon Putin's Russia:
1. Putin needs permanent war to stay in power. It gives him imperialist legitimacy & a cause of repression. Therefore, Putin is today's Hitler. He will not stop, so the only end to his war can be his ouster or death. 2. The sooner Putin dies or is ousted, the earlier the war will end. Therefore, the West needs to do everything to make sure that Ukraine wins (not only "prevails") and that Russia is defeated (not only "fails").

For months, the Biden administration has rightly blamed Trump & his GOP for blocking aid to Ukraine, but with the wonderful US Congress decision to support Ukraine with $61 billion, the tables have suddenly been turned. What is the Biden administration doing?! /1 Russia is attacking Kharkiv, Ukraine's 2nd biggest city close to the Russian border, but the US is loudly prohibiting Ukraine to defend itself by using US arms to bomb the Russian bases on Russian territory.
Who was dumb enough to insist on this policy?
Jake Sullivan...?

Since 2004, the Putin group has lived on Gazprom money. Nemtsov and Milov assessed that they embezzled $60 Billion during the four years 2004-7. Their revelation sank the Russian stock market in 2008.
But Gazprom made a loss of $6.9 billion in 2023.
What can Putin steal now? /1 The obvious answer is the arms procurement funds. That requires a change of guard & Shoigu's larceny must be contained.
The loyal Belousov can neutralize the Defense Ministry leadership so that it costs less & does not interfere in Putin's new business. /2

Excellent @washingtonpost article about Russia's new Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, but let me add a few things since I knew him quite well in the 1990s and early 2000s. Belousov belonged to the circle of liberal economists around late Yevgeny Yasin...
washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/… ...at the Higher School of Economics, which also included Elvira Nabiullina, but he was always the most Soviet among them. He could stay in this liberal circle by being soft-spoken, cautious & courteous, focusing on politically neutral forecasting.

A few thoughts on what a Western strategy on the war in Ukraine should look like:
1. Clarify the goal: Ukraine must win, recover all its territory from 2013 & defeat Russia.
2. Therefore, Ukrainian attacks on all Russian strategic & military assets must be welcomed. 3. While it might not be stated as an explicit goal, regime change in Russia must be welcomed. Putin is today's Hitler & he appears to have opted for eternal war, which will only end with his demise.

Right now we are watching the moral & intellectual collapse of US foreign policy (not the first time).
1. The US (the Biden administration & all the more so the GOP) fails to stand up against Russian aggression against Ukraine without any real argument. 2. Clown @SpeakerJohnson has visited Trump & kissed his ring. He must not allow any funding to Ukraine. He intends to hinder it through complications not to seem guilty.
If Johnson allows any Ukraine funds, Trump's loyal Putinist executioner @RepMTG will oust him as speaker.

When Russia started the war against Ukraine, we were a substantial group that called for the West imposing a no-fly zone as in Iraq. Now, the US, UK & France have proven that it was perfectly possible with regard to Israel. Why did they refuse to protect Ukraine?/1 If the West had imposed a no-fly zone over Ukraine (whole or parts), Russia would not have been as aggressive in its bombing as it has been now. Probably it would have done nothing. Putin respect power & nothing else. This was a fundamental & costly misjudgement./2

1. Absurdly, the US House of Representatives has ended up in a situation where one single member has a veto. Matt Gaetz ousted Kevin McCarthy single-handedly & Marjorie Taylor-Greene threatens to do the same with hapless Mike Johnson. 2. In Poland in the 18th Century this was called "liberum veto," one single member of the Sejm could veto any decision. The Sejm could make no decisions & especially Russia bought a few votes. The result was the demise of Poland through partitions in 1772, 1793 & 1795.

I feel enormous frustration, seeing how the West is letting Ukraine down. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed & millions have been forced to flee & the West drip-feeds Ukraine with out-of-date arms, though a few hundred foreign volunteers have fallen in Ukraine. 1. To begin with the West (the US!) should encourage Ukraine to hit hard in the whole of Russia. How can Russia's terrorist bombing of the whole of Ukraine be tolerated?
2. All surplus arms in the whole West should be sent to Ukraine at no cost & not decommissioned.

It is difficult to see the Crocus City Hall terrorist act as anything but instigated by the Kremlin & the FSB:
1. The 4 terrorist arrived in camouflage with kalashnikovs all in one car - no checks on the roads.
2. No security was present at Crocus. 3. The standard metal detectors were turned off.
4. The terrorists stayed 18 minutes in the Crocus City Hall & worked out calmly. No police or security arrived.
5. Police & FSB centers are located within short walking distance from the Hall, but they came only after one hour.

From the outset, the Biden administration (read Jake Sullivan) has been dead frightened to "provoke" Putin, to escalate, to provoke World War III or a nuclear war.
1. In April 2021, Sullivan called back two US destroyers on their way to the Black Sea not to provoke Russia. Thus, Russia ended freedom of navigation on the Black Sea & blockaded all Ukrainian ports from early 2022 before the war. This was a serious US mistake. the braver UK & Dutch naval ships entered the Black Sea in June 2021.