richarddwolff

The West, led by the United States, declared economic war against Russia last month in response to the invasion of Ukraine, imposing perhaps the harshest sanctions against any nation in history. President Joe Biden has said that the aim of this economic warfare is to turn the Russian people against its government. Sanctions against Russia’s Central Bank were intended to destroy the value of the ruble. One U.S. dollar was worth 85 rubles on Feb. 24, the day of the invasion and soared to 154 per dollar on March 7. However the Russian currency strengthened to 101 this morning.

Putin and other Russian leaders were personally sanctioned, as were Russia’s largest banks. Most Russian transactions are no longer allowed to be settled through the SWIFT international payment system. The German-Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was closed down and become bankrupt.

The U.S. blocked imports of Russian oil, which was about 5 percent of U.S. supply. BP and Shell pulled out of Russian partnerships. European and U.S. airspace for Russian commercial liners was closed. Europe, which depends on Russia gas, is still importing it, and is so far rebuffing U.S. pressure to stop buying Russian oil. Other Russian commodities, such as wheat, fertilizer and metals have been cut off.

A raft of voluntary sanctions followed: PayPal, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and McDonalds have been shut down in Russia. Coca-cola has stopped sales to the country. U.S. news organizations have left, Russian artists in the West have been fired and even Russian cats are banned. It also gave an opportunity for U.S. cable providers to get RT America shut down. Other Russia media have been de-platformed and Russian government websites hacked. A Yale University professor has drawn up a list to shame U.S. companies that are still operating in Russia.

The West's economic war and lethal aid to Ukraine are in lieu of a direct military confrontation with Russia, with all of the unimaginable consequences that could bring. But so far the sanctions do not seem to be working as planned.

China has come to Moscow's rescue, buying more oil and other commodities from Russia. Beijing has allowed Russia to use its Union Pay banking system, replaced Russia’s use of SWIFT with China’s Interbank System (CIPS), and China and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), which Russia is a part of, are designing a new monetary and financial system that would bypass the U.S. dollar, threatening it as the world’s reserve currency.

That has led the U.S. to try to tie China to the war in Ukraine so that it can impose new sanctions on Beijing , perhaps similar to those on Russia.

The United States is acting as though the whole world is the West and that this is the China of 30 years ago. In its effort to impose its unilateral rule on the world, while its domestic social problems mount, the U.S. has not only driven Russia and China closer together than ever, but it has now brought in India, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East into a new bloc with an economic power that exceeds the West. All of those regions have refused to sanction Russia and continue to trade with it. The U.S. has turned the majority of the world’s population against it. We might be witnessing the end of Western-dominated globalization and the birth of a divided world of two separate economic, financial and commercial systems.

Cutting off trade and finance to Russia has already boomeranged on Western countries, driving up prices, especially at the pump and at the supermarket. Instead of prompting a popular uprising in Russia as a result of its sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity has actually risen since the invasion. Adding China as a target of its economic war could drive the populations of the U.S. and Europe against their own governments instead.

Joining us to discuss these issue are two leading economists, Prof. Michael Hudson,  Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, and Prof. Richard Wolff, Emeritus Prof. of Economics at the MassAmherst and a visiting Prof. at The NewSchool in New York.

It has been a time it seems that many have anticipated, but whose timing could never precisely be predicted.  After 40 years of economic policies designed to create massive income inequality and after 400 years of oppression of African-Americans, and in the midst of an historic pandemic--the social explosion has occurred.

A protest begun by yet another police killing of an unarmed black man filmed with mobile phones spread in days beyond the United States.  One act of police brutality has led to hundreds of horrific incidents of police violence, dramatic exposing what the true nature of the American police appears to be. .   

Forget the shield for a moment and what one sees are heavily-armed, black-clad agents of state violence to protect powerful interests from a population, being defrauded and deceived, suddenly no longer accepting it.  The very essence of a 30-year program to militarize local police seemed geared towards just this moment, when an abused nation would not not take it anymore. 

There is still plenty that we don't know about the coronavirus. We don't know for sure where it came from, how it always behaves, whether you get immunity if you've had it, or how to treat or prevent it. What we do know is that communities are being devastated around the world. Frontline and essential workers, and the elderly and some young are getting sick and dying in alarming numbers.

We know that virtually every government in the world was unprepared for this crisis, despite being warned.  Many governments, such as the United States, preferred to prepare for wars they can't really fight, against Russia and China, for instance, rather than against a real enemy. Because of governments' lack of preparedness they have had to turn to draconian and even authoritarian measures, such as enforced lockdowns and social isolation—measures that were used during the 14th Century Black Death in Europe.

We also know that these measures are leading to what might well became the Greatest Depression since the Great one of the 1930s. With the disease still raging, nations and regions are itching to get back to a normal economic life, while medical experts warn that might trigger another deadly wave.  With us to discuss this critical situation are Jill Stein, a medical doctor and political leader, the former Green Party candidate for president; and the economist Professor Richard Wolff.