In June of 2014, a group of American researchers published an article in the American Journal of Public Health, pointing out that, “Since the end of World War II, there have been 248 armed conflicts in 153 locations around the world. The United States launched 201 overseas military operations between the end of World War II and 2001, and since then, others, including Afghanistan and Iraq.” To be sure, each of these wars was duly explained and justified to the American public and for all those Americans who believe that their government would never deceive them, each war was defensible and fought for a good reason. Nonetheless, the fact that one nation initiated more than 80% of all wars in the last seventy years does require an explanation, which I submit below: Continue reading
Category Archives: Politics
Next installment of permanent war: Iran (again)…?
Today, (Friday the 13th of all days), President Trump announced that he is withholding certification of the Iran nuclear deal and announced that he would label Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Again, the U.S. gets confrontational with a rival power in an escalation that could provoke yet another devastating war in the Middle East. As always, this is all perfectly justified: Iran, you see, is a rogue regime, a threat, its military is a terror organization, the country has a general deficit of freedom and democracy, etc…
And let’s not imagine that this is all down to Donald Trump. On July 3, 2015, presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton addressed a an audience at a Dartmouth College campaign event. On the occasion she said, “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m president, we will attack Iran … we would be able to totally obliterate them.” The U.S. establishment has long had Iran in its crosshairs, waiting for a pretext and the opportunity. Continue reading
Amazon.com burns my book: you should know about this!
Update: the book is now available under the changed title, “Grand Deception: The Browder Hoax” in electronic format (Nook, pdf, Kindle). Paperback is available here.
It is ironic that just today I posted an article about the paramount importance of free speech, which numerous government bureaucracies and large corporations in the West seek to suppress in their purported endeavor to police “hate speech.” And just today one of the great media behemoths, Amazon.com suppressed my book (as I expected they might). I assure you there’s not even a trace of hate or hate speech in my book. Continue reading
Freedom of speech should be sacred
“There is no god higher than truth.” – Mohandas Gandhi
Update: just hours after I posted this article, Amazon.com sadly de-listed my book, “The Killing of William Browder.” (I assure you, there was no trace of hate speech in my book)
Across the Western world, government bureaucracies and large media corporations like Amazon, Google, Twitter and Facebook have been increasingly proactive in suppressing “hate speech,” always with bestest of intentions. However, these efforts are unnecessary and will likely prove counterproductive.
Warning about the danger of “disastrous rise of misplaced power” in our societies, Dwight Eisenhower said in his January 1961 farewell address that, “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” can curb the power of the state, “so that security and liberty may prosper together.” Freedom of expression is the essential means of keeping the citizenry alert and knowledgeable. As such it should not be suppressed under any pretext, but encouraged and cultivated. Continue reading
Russian intervention in U.S. Civil War (1861-1865)
U.S. Civil War has become a popular topic of late, but as it turns out, what nearly everyone thinks they know about that event is wrong. My high school and university history classes left me with the impression that the war was fought over the issue of slavery: the “North” (good guys) was against slavery and wanted it abolished; the “South” (bad guys) wanted to keep the slaves, so they all went to war. Good guys won, bad guys lost, slaves got their freedom, and the world was made a better place. That, in a nutshell, is what I thought I knew about the Civil War. I’m not sure why I had that idea so, to make sure I wasn’t mistaken I conducted an informal survey among my American friends and acquaintances, all university educated people, some of them with advanced degrees. I asked about a dozen of them what they thought U.S. Civil War was about. To a person, all of them unhesitatingly answered that it was about the abolition of slavery. Furthermore, none of them were aware that Russia played any role at all in the Civil War. It struck me that maybe my friends and I all had the same basic idea about that event because we were meant to have that idea, which is now pretty much part of the popular culture. However, the popular interpretation omits some critical aspects of history.
Continue readingVladimir Putin’s 17 years in power: the scorecard
The following article summarizes many of the changes in Russia over 17 years under Vladimir Putin’s rule. All of the information presented is based on empirical data, most of it from western sources like the World Bank, Ernst&Young, Vtsiom, Ipsos and Gallup. Virtually none of this information was presented in any western corporate press with the notable exception of Forbes magazine (which took the information down after a few weeks). In addition to the below, I’ve subsequently published an article in three parts titled, “Is Vladimir Putin evil?“
Continue readingSurveillance state: it ain’t about your privacy
We should be very concerned about the surveillance state in the west – but our privacy is not the main reason why.
Wikileaks’ latest dump of CIA documents confirmed what many of us suspected all along, especially after the Edward Snowden revelations: that the NSA (and GCHQ…) use our computers, mobile devices, and even internet-connected TV sets to spy on us. Some people feel they have nothing to hide, so they aren’t bothered about it. Others feel outraged on the grounds that it violates our civil liberties and our right to privacy. But there’s a much more important reason to be concerned about mass surveillance, and it isn’t about the privacy of the vast majority of us. Continue reading
Meet the riff-raff Trump supporters!
Donald Trump and his administration have been at the receiving end of passionate denounciations and scorn from many opinion leaders in the media. At the same time Trump’s approval rating among American voters has ranged between 50% and 60%. Here’s a statistical sketch of this American riff-raff and why they may support Trump.
Fully 35% of Americans do not have enough money to live comfortably (english: they can’t make ends meet). That’s more than 110 million people. These Americans have to supplement their cost of living with credit card debt. The Urban Institute reports that this same proportion of Americans (35%) have debt in collections (180 or more days past due). On average, the households that carry credit card debt are over $16,000 in the hole, paying an average interest rate at 16.1% (that’s $2,600 per year just in interest). Continue reading
Zika hype and how the media fail to serve us
Noam Chomsky wrote that, “Citizens of the democratic societies should undertake a course of intellectual self defense to protect themselves from manipulation and control, and to lay the basis for meaningful democracy.”
Any time the mainstream media latch onto an issue and make it a big story you can be sure that it’ll be spun, doctored and distorted so that the public can’t take a well-informed position on the subject. Examples of this are countless and pervasive. About a year ago, the Zika virus story suddenly burst forth, seemingly out of nowhere, linking the mosquito-borne virus with frightful birth deformities in infants of affected mothers, including microcephaly. The story led to mass trip cancellations, abortions, unnecessary carpet-spraying against mosquitoes (which killed millions of bees), and much hysteria in general. As it turns out, the virus is harmless. Continue reading
Ex UK Ambassador Craig Murray after visiting Julian Assange: it wasn’t the Russians…
After visiting with Julian Assange, former UK Ambassador Craig Murray reported on his blog: “I can tell you with 100% certainty that it is not any Russian state actor or proxy that gave the Democratic National Committee and Podesta material to WikiLeaks.” The full article is here: How to Really Really Upset the Foreign Office and Security Services.
Alex Krainer is an author and hedge fund manager based in Monaco. Recently he has published the book “Mastering Uncertainty in Commodities Trading“.
The Naked Hedgie 