I would agree with ALL you say. The Clintons and most of our billionaires attained their wealth through political influence to favour their businesses. Consider Solyndra, or your example of Pelosi’s husband.
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The so-called “Chubais dream team” (cf. Larry Summers) were responsible for the Russian economy privatization in early 1990s. The Harvard advisers enabled the emergence of the oligarchs and made out like bandits.
Andrei Shleifer, quoted in a 1992 Boston Globe piece: “Once you work with Russians for two weeks, you become a free-market enthusiast.”
In 1997, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) canceled most of its funding for the Harvard project after investigations showed that top HIID officials Andrei Shleifer and Jonathan Hay had used their positions and insider information to profit from investments in the Russian securities markets. Among other things, the Institute for a Law Based Economy (ILBE) was allegedly used to assist Shleifer’s wife, Nancy Zimmerman, who operated a hedge fund which speculated in Russian bonds.[14]
In August 2005, Harvard University, Shleifer and the Department of Justice reached an agreement under which the university paid $26.5 million to settle the five-year-old lawsuit. Shleifer was also responsible for paying $2 million worth of damages, though he did not admit any wrongdoing.[10][16]
Sheifer received the John Bates Clark medal in 1999 for his work in 3 areas: corporate finance (corporate governance, law and finance), the economics of financial markets (deviations from efficient markets), and the economics of transition.
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Victor Davis Hansen comments on this here
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GTBT on the collapse of the Russian economy:
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Michael Savage mentioned @jacksarfatti in his latest podcast just after the 6:40 mark. I’m trying to find a link to the article (by Peter Pry) that Dr. Sarfatti sent to Savage. It’s about the possibility that Vladimir Putin may be playing possum in Ukraine.
I think this may be the article (by Peter Pry) that Savage references:
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Yes, that’s it.
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The Russian Ruble has now recovered 100% of its losses against the US$ after the invasion of Ukraine on 2022-02-24.
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Poignant reminder that while Twitter and the Metaverse consume a lot of energy, they don’t do much in terms of production capability.
Meanwhile, Germany and Austria are letting their populations know gas rationing is actually a thing (link, link, link)
The Reuters piece quotes the memorable words of the Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin (re-elected in 2021):
“If you want gas, find roubles,” Volodin said in a post on Telegram
Is this further proof we live in a Bizarro world?
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Paraphrasing Mark Twain “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”…
While it seems that in the short term, Russians will no longer have access to critical items such as McDonald’s, iPhones, Netflix, Twitter, and many other modern accoutrements, it’s not clear their manufacturing base won’t be able to switch to Indian and Chinese suppliers.
Perhaps Medvedev’s statement that the “unipolar world” is done is actually closer to the objective truth than twitter bluechecks would be willing to accept?
The extent of the sanctions and cancellation drive against Russia and Russians is sure to give Chinese and Indian leaders pause about how far should they be willing to integrate with so-called Western democracies.
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This brings to mind a theme that I’ve not seen discussed much outside of Dominic Cummings’ substack: conventional wisdom assumes that US and Russia nuclear weapon use doctrines are similar.
In the Cold War America based its nuclear strategy on an intellectual framework that was false.
It defined standards of ‘rationality’ then concluded the Soviets would not use nuclear weapons in many scenarios. There was a governing tautology: rational leaders would be deterred otherwise they would be irrational. Given this tautology, more vulnerability improves ‘stability’ (e.g submarine launched weapons), while better defence is ‘ de stabilising’ (e.g missile defence).
The Cold War was won. The West concluded ‘we were right’. Many in the world of policy concluded: there is a reliable theory of nuclear strategy that allows us to send carefully calibrated signals, like ‘escalate to de-escalate’. You can see this false confidence in many politicians, journalists and academics over the past month. E.g Professor Elliot Cohen’s calls for America to attack Russian forces because he’s confident Putin is bluffing.
After the 1991 collapse some scholars went to talk to those actually in charge in Russia. They read documents. They discovered that we’d been wrong in crucial ways all along.
Actually the Soviets planned early and heavy use of nuclear weapons in many scenarios including outbreak of conventional war in Europe.
The theoretical basis of some of the west’s analysis, such as game theory from the likes of the economist Schelling, had been disastrously misleading.
It won’t be the first (or last) time we tell ourselves a “just so” story that sounds plausible and we decide it’s true.
If the current conflict in Ukraine took place in a techno-thriller novel, wouldn’t tactical nuclear first use by the Russian side be a plausible plot device to advance the story? Basically create a hard West/East boundary, separating the top 1B people of the world (US + Europe + Australia + a few others) vs. the rest.
The West would naturally align to the so-called liberal/progressive ideas, including all the bugaboos that preoccupy us these days: diversity, immigration, climate change, gender, … it’s a long and growing list. Sadly, implementing those ideas clearly demands sacrifices in both GDP and standards of living, made worse by more limited access to Russia’s natural resources.
Meanwhile, the East would gradually become more technologically advanced, supported by easier natural resource access in Russia, Africa, and South America. Even more populist leaders would emerge, playing more and more to nationalistic themes underpinned by visible standard of living increases.
The West would be getting colder, hungrier, and more resentful due to the growing sacrifices demanded by its ideological determination to protect the planet, especially since those ungrateful Eastern bastards would be happy to enjoy their new found prosperity. The tactical use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine would become the modern Limes Ucraina between the main antagonists in the story.
Surely no one would buy such an implausible story, right? Oh, wait…
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There are some “experts” (ha!) out there claiming that part of Russian military doctrine is – if you have reason to believe the other guy is going to attack, then hit him first. Indeed, there is a reasonable case that Russia invaded the Ukraine because they were aware that the Ukrainian government was massing forces to attack the Donbas.
If a fight is unavoidable, then make sure you get the advantage of throwing the first punch. With that attitude, how would Russia be expected to use nuclear weapons ?
Not as “messaging” per LBJ’s mis-use of the military in Vietnam. And not as a small-scale limited tactical reaction to a battlefield situation. The only smart use would be an all-out surprise thermonuclear attack on US, UK, EU. If sufficient surprise was achieved, the counter-attack from the West might be significantly reduced in effectiveness. Or not! But if the assessment is that nuclear war is going to happen anyway, then rolling the dice on a pre-emptive attack makes sense.
The big question for the Russian side would be whether to target the DC Swamp. After all, those idiots are doing such a good job of ruining the US and the rest of the West, why stop them?
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Part 1 of Michael Savage’s interview with Dr. Peter Pry.
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This concept is well considered in our strategic plans. Russia might be able to get off a first strike (it apparently was seriously considered in the final days of the old USSR and even then it was considered a bad idea).
First strikes as a pre-emotive strike can have good or bad results. Witness December 7th as bad, vs ‘67 Mideast War (or even ‘73) as good. What most people don’t understand is that it takes a HUGELY ACCURATEi strike with a thermonuclear weapon to knock out a missile silo of ours, and there is no way the Russians can account for the sub ballistic force. We might be knocked back on our heels for a bit, but like the Japs found out, it wouldn’t be for long, and a pissed-off American public is not one to mess with.
As for hitting DC, that‘s a coin toss. I think were it to happen, WE would have a “regime change” that would not be useful to them at all. 
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I believe that under current US doctrine, we continue to operate the so-called nuclear triad, consisting of land-based missile silos, submarines capable of nuclear launches, and a warm standby airborne leg. And so does the Russian Federation. The so-called “strategic first strike” capability is a moot point under any practical scenario, because sufficient elements of the triad would remain viable to ensure practical annihilation of the side that strikes first.
The real question in my view is what is the current RF doctrine when it comes to tactical use.
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Here is an interesting, apparently well-informed, assessment of the situation by a former member of Swiss strategic intelligence.
Jacques Baud – The Postil Magazine
Trigger Warning – Mr. Baud does not have much respect for the Western politicians & media who ignored the 8 years of civil war in the Ukraine that preceded Russia’s invasion.
“The dramatic developments we are witnessing today have causes that we knew about but refused to see:
** on the strategic level, the expansion of NATO (which we have not dealt with here);
** on the political level, the Western refusal to implement the Minsk Agreements;
** and operationally, the continuous and repeated attacks on the civilian population of the Donbass over the past years and the dramatic increase in late February 2022.”
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The truly breathtaking depth, breadth and amplitude of western propaganda are the best evidence one might find as to the overwhelming truth of these statements. The headlines keep getting more comedic, almost silly. It all reduces to “Putin’s fault; he is Hitler”. q.e.d. Were this exclusively Russia’s fault and NATO blameless - as the western state media organs screech - would such protestation-too-much and blatant misinformation be necessary?
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Part 2 of Michael Savage’s interview with Dr. Peter Pry.
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Su-35 downed by an ancient missile(?):
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US, Germany, and Netherlands deploy Patriots to Slovakia to replace S-300 going to Ukraine:
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