Alternative Visions

With BRICS conferences coming this year and fundamental challenges to US economic empire coming in 2025 and after, the US empire continues to react and fight back. Today’s show reviews the hot spots: In Ukraine, Russia military advances resulting in more NATO escalation including US signaling Ukraine it’s ok to use missiles to attack inside Russia; re China, US policy expands sanctions plus reintroduces a Trump tariff strategy as U...

 In critical week of the Ukraine war, NATO beginning to panic & threaten escalation: Macron, Cameron & Jeffries talk of NATO troops in Ukraine. Russia reacts announcing tactical nuke exercises and call in UK and French ambassadors. Assassination attempt on Zelensky foiled. Ukraine begins drafting prisoners. Russia Kharkov offensive begins early on May 10. Blinken-Yellen visit and threaten China. Importance of coming BRICS c...

Today’s show reviews major developments in various global economies: In USA, the Fed’s latest decision to keep interest rates at current levels + its decision to start buying back US Treasuries (QE by another name perhaps?). Why the liquidity injection? Answer: growing concerns about US banks in 2025? Next, is China growing again or not? The idiocy of US policy toward China as Blinken and Yellen attack it economically but request i...

 The first pass for US GDP for 1st Quarter 2024 was released last week. Today’s show dissects the areas generating growth vs. those slowing US economy. Takeaways from the data are discussed: Contracting now are consumer spending on goods, business private inventories and a big contraction in net exports. Only consumer spending on services continue to drive GDP as government spending slows but remains positive. The show explains why...

today’s show focuses on the theme of the impact of Russian sanctions since the start of the Ukraine war. How the sanctions have failed to impact Russia’s economy while simultaneously helping to wreck Europe’s, and especially the core German economy of the EU. A review of the relative economic data. Also discussed, are the pending US House vote tomorrow likely to pass another $100B in war aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, which wi...

Today’s show covers the key events, economic & political, of the past week: US latest inflation numbers and trends, why Fed rate cuts are off the table, instability in regional banks and commercial real estate continue, Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s remarks on rate hikes at 8% and ‘soft landing’ scenario, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in China. In Politics, whether war between Israel-USA with Iran is imminent, latest development...

2024 is junctural year in Ukraine war. All three parties’ strategies—US/NATO, Ukraine, Russia—are in flux and changing as fallout from Ukraine’s summer 2023 offensive defeat by Russia continues to reverberate in political terms and as Russia offensive in 2024 emerges. What were the parties respective strategies in 2022, how did they shift in 2023, and how are they about to change again in 2024 are discussed in today’s show. Some li...

How the US economy is different today from 1930s and becoming increasing so due to technological change, financialization, and other forces. Why 21st century US fiscal and monetary policies are increasingly inefficient, ineffective and exacerbating the deficits, US debt, and running up unsustainable interest payments on the debt. Income and Wealth inequality thresholds for the 1% in the US economy today. Challenges faced for the fu...

 Latest on evidence of Moscow’s Mall Terrorist attack. Pros & Cons of evidence to date Ukraine sources’ involvement. Putin’s dire warning re. F-16s. Is Macron’s threat to send troops suspended? Will Europe re-arm and create its own defense industry? Euro economy stagnating vs. USA economy modest growth; Why is USA GDP positive in 2024? US recent Inflation statistics. Is the US Treasuries market growing unstable with $23T bonds ...

Today’s show reviews 3 important speeches of the past week: by Putin, France’s president Macron, and US Senator, Chuck Shumer. Speeches related to the US 3 wars in progress: Ukraine, Israel-Gaza, and Yemen. The Macron speech, an interview, reflected his retreat from the threat to send French-NATO (along with Baltics & Czech) to Ukraine. Deeper, it reflects chaos within EU/NATO as what strategy to implement now that Russia is de...

Following initial comments on the Federal Reserve’s just issued Monetary Report’s warning about bank assets declining in value, this week’s show focuses on the topic of how US Presidents become multimillionaires after leaving office. Corruption by politicians promises to be a major campaign theme on both sides in the election this year. Republicans and Democrats are pushing their stories: Trump’s tax avoidance & Biden’s kickbac...

Today’s show is dedicated to a discussion of the current state of the War in Ukraine. The theme is an analysis of the military action and strategies of both sides since the February 2022 start of the war, using the benchmark of the Principles of War famously proposed by Von Clausewitz. Examined are the first Russian offensive of 2022 followed by the Ukrainian offensive later that year. Then the disastrous second Ukrainian offensive...

 Today’s show looks at the important key economies of the world as a growing number begin to slip into recession: new data shows Japan’s economy has been contracting the past six months. Germany has entered recession. So too has the UK. The Eurozone economy as a whole is stagnant. Global manufacturing has been contracting for some months among the G7 economies. Meanwhile China faces growing problems in its property (construction) s...

Today’s show addresses the US media’s practice of reporting the most favorable statistics on jobs, unemployment, inflation, wages, GDP from the mountain of data provided by the US Labor and Commerce departments. Dr. Rasmus gives a deep dive into the statistical reports to show why job gains last month may not be 353,000 but much less; why Biden’s claim of 3.1m jobs created last year may be only a third of that; why inflation is hig...

Today’s show is dedicated to dissecting the just released US first report on 2023 GDP by the Commerce Dept. Dr. Rasmus breaks down the various contributing elements to US GDP (Consumption, Business Investment, Government Spending, and Net Exports) to identify where the changes in GDP in 2023 were strongest and weakest.  Explained as well is how the methodology for estimating inflation (GDP deflator price index) serves to low ball p...

Whether ‘soft landing’ of the US economy—with inflation assumed to continue to abate and GDP to continue to grow—is in the works is the main topic of today’s show. Explained in depth is how US price index estimates are key to determine whether ‘soft landing’ will occur. Dr. Rasmus explains how the 3 US price indexes (CPI, PCE, GDP Deflator) are basically estimated, and why the lowest inflation estimator, the GDP Deflator, which is ...

Today’s show reviews the main economic & political events of 2023. Topics on the Economy include: US GDP & ‘Soft Landing’ talk; Inflation and Jobs trends; the March 2023 regional bank crisis; US Budget >$1T Deficit & $34T National Debt; the June US Debt Ceiling deal in Congress; major union strikes and contract negotiations; Chat-GPT & Artificial Intelligence; the Federal Reserve’s interest rate pause; Russian sa...

Today’s show addresses two important developments of the past year. Dr. Rasmus reviews the major union contract settlements of the past year (Railroad, Teamsters, Longshore, Auto) to determine if the past 44 yrs of union concession bargaining has finally ended in major contract negotiations in the USA. Concession bargaining ‘markers’ like 2-tier wages, in benefits, hiring of temps, ending of COLAs, and other contract provisions are...