ah, hello and welcome to cross top. were all things are considered. i'm peter lavelle in less than 3 months. the west ukraine narrative has been turned on its head. ukraine is not winning. its steadily losing to west is not unified. in fact, divisions are widening. the russian economy is weathering massive sanctions. western economies are in trouble. who will blink 1st? i cross sucking sanction regimes. i'm joined by my guests. matthew eric in montreal. he is a senior fellow at the american university of moscow and director of the rising tide foundation of canada in new york. we a richard wolf. he is professor emeritus of economics at the university, massachusetts, amorous, and author of the sickness is the system and an alber. and we cross a lew rockwell. he is the founder and chairman of the muses in city or general and

cross. ugh, well, rules and effect, that means you can jump any time you want, and i always appreciate. let me go to richard 1st in new york, richard over the past week or so the narrative western narrative in forced and narrative. i'd like to point out on ukraine is shifting. we have the washington post in new york times. we and henry kissinger not to someone i usually what in davos said the same. and then general mili, the postmodern chief of staff of the united states military. he's even said there must be negotiated in none. the less the european union has rolled out its 6th round of sanctions here. so richard, it seems like the sanction regime is turning into a the cure is worse than the disease here because of the not going to get the political outcome they want. but the global south is suffering. and for the 1st time in a long time, western polities and citizens and consumers are feeling the pinch of a foreign policy that is just not very well thought out. apparently, richard. well,

i think that the most important of the people you mention in terms of what he said, and i'm surprised by do a bid, was mr. kissinger. because what he pointed out, basically, if you read between the lines, was that while the europeans for their own domestic political reasons need to keep up the game. here in the united states where the game is directed from. there's already a rethinking going on, and it's not about whether this is a war they want to pursue. i think they still want to do that, but how to do it under what circumstances and with what accompanying ah words and verbiage that's being questioned and changed. and in my own judgment, as an economist, i would have to say to you, ah, we have learned here in the united states, if we are even half awake to what's going on, that mr. trump levied the mother of all sanctions against china for

a set of objectives, pretty much every one of which was not achieved. now we're doing this under a new government against russia, and we're basically experiencing this unpleasant lesson once again. and i think that's the basic reason why you're beginning to sense shifts in figuring out what to do next. along the same lines here. i mean, the, now i live in russia, i'm watching the sanctions. i'm at this point, it's only been 3 months, but it's been quite limited. and from what i can see, what i might live experience except for we don't have access to the global financial system, which might be a good thing in the long run. i will, we'll see how that works. but, you know, lou, i mean, the western economies are suffering. they were suffering before rushes military campaign in ukraine, and it's only gotten worse here. and so what is more important your own citizens

and consumers are i feel good approach that you know, we have to beat the russians. we can't win. that mantra is demonstrating that western consumers and citizens can't win. also lu, what's your is and of course we, what we see going on there is the destruction of the american economy. it's quite, quite something, see it and the course was what biden is doing in terms of inflation and all the, all the he's just doing everything wrong. he's really, he's done everything wrong since he came to office. and i think that i think this is good for the american good. i hate to say, i to say that for the american people since i'm one of them, but i think it's good for the american people to be under to understand what's, what's happening to them, why it's happening. that it's a u. s. government it's, it's biding the, the congress and the rest of the creeps they're washington knew or destroying us. and this needs to stop. and the really, in the long term, of course, the war,

the us should not be putting on this war. and that's a terrible thing too, but it would be great to just see the, the us government, step back, millie. all these people that do nothing, but they're monsters. and they need to be, they need to be to be they did, they need to be sure reigned in and i think that's, i think that's happening. are they more and more americans are realizing what's going on here that we went by and told them that they were going to suffer for the right the sanctions on russia? well, of course there's been a huge suffering and that's, that's a good getting worse. and i think this is, i think this is actually a good thing. this is going to happen in you to happen, matthew, i'm a lou used to word creeps. i used the word ghouls. okay. but at the, basically the same thing here. i mean, this 40000000000 package for ukraine are all in. it's about $53000000000.00. it's a lot of welfare for the military industrial complex actually,

very little of it'll actually end up in ukraine. but none, none. the less, i mean, i'm going into debt for printing money. you don't have and there's been no real debate. i mean, these ghouls inn in congress didn't even debate it. i mean that they didn't even read it. okay. i mean, i, you know, there's been a lot of spending going on a lot of ways, but you, there's always certain $40000000000.00 could go to a good cause. and i can tell you that 40000000000 is not going to a good cause. at least not to people that deserve it. go ahead, matthew. no, absolutely. and it really indicates, i think a of an insanity embedded in the system, which is at the heart of the current breakdown because over underlying this entire race for chaos in ukraine. and the geopolitical manipulations is the breakdown of an entire system that was really shaped with the detaching of the u. s. dollar from the gold reserve system back in 1971 in floated, which resulted in a consumer society cult and the increasing detachment of the monetary system,

a financial system from the physical productive system so that we can create debts increasingly over the past 3040 years that are so detached from anything that has value that we don't realize that yeah, you know, 4550000000000 dollars. that's nothing. we've already spent trillions of dollars. just inflating zombie banks that are we're told too big to fail. they already collapse you 2009. we've been kicking the can't down the road. and like you said, if you put this even a fraction of, of those trillions into something that is not bombing countries in the middle east where he spent, i think, 9 trillion dollars or something on just destroying the middle east since 911 and, and just paying for unnecessary wars in, in ukraine, you'd be able to invest it in things that produce real well, things like the belt road initiative, things that russia wants to do right now with the greater your asian partnership and both creating real wealth. but again, a fraction. you can end world hunger several times over, so it's a lot, a lack of priorities on a very high. well matthew,

matthew along those lines there. i mean, i don't know if, you know, have you been observing the russian rubel that was actually absolutely shattered in the 1st few weeks of the conflict. and now it is one of the strongest currencies in the world. and it's because of commodities. it's backed up by real things. it's not a printing press. it's got, it's grain, it's, it's wait, it's oil. it's got, it's real. ok, richard, let me, let me go to go to you here. i mean, i've talked to him a number of times and it seems to me that this or in ukraine is just another reason not to address the real problems that have been the american people in western world has been experiencing for the last 40 to 50 years they've come up with still another excuse why the system doesn't work for the vast majority of people. richard? yes, well, i don't see it as much of a break. let me explain why. i think you have and i'm exaggerating, but i want to make a point. you have all said the internal problems of this economy which are getting

larger and larger, pretty much along the lines of the growing gap between rich and poor, which is now quite extreme and has become more so over the last 3040 years. and you're seeing, likewise, the threat of the rise of the 1st real economic competitor, none of the united states in a century, namely the people's republic of china. those 2 things are frightening. those who things are not being amenable, they are not amenable to domestic policy. in terms of the economy here, they were not amenable, mr. trump's effort to stifle chinese growth over there. one of the few areas with this political group can see something that isn't frightening, is in the ability to lead nato, weak as it is to expand, to expand to the east,

which is an all the fantasy and dream ever since the end of world war 2 to undo the arrangements that were made then, and ukraine is in a way, a kind of apparently a final chapter if you lie of this one, the area of, quote unquote, good news. they hoped. and i think that's part of the reason why they went in the as intensely as they did precisely because all the other venues for them to make a progress have been shut down for them. yeah, lou, it's, it's, it's been quite bizarre watching the western response, particularly the europeans. i mean, i, it's baffling, destroying their own, their own productivity. ah, and that the, that the lives of their, of their cities, energy prices, food prices and all this just for, for something that is have no geopolitical or economic value to them whatsoever.

it's, i think future economists will be baffled by this go ahead low. while they are chris taking the orders of their, of their bosses in the us as, as they always do. and as ron paul pointed out, that a number of times nato should have been abolished a long time ago. and i think we see right now does what a disaster. it is. what a, what a criminal is a disaster. it is. and it's what it's doing to the peoples of europe, what it's doing, who are there, everybody else on the world is that it's a terrible operation. and i, i hope that that's going to end. we'll see if it does. but i think that into the nato as much undermined. that's excellent. we'll see if it's, if it's underline sufficient to have it abolished, cuz that's what we really need. well it's, it's very interesting because of the, as the alliance may expand it, it shows me its weakness and, and the u. s. is hanging out security guarantees like candy and we'll get to where they will have to come to terms of that. and certainly in the pacific as is, richard has been mentioning china

a number of times when you hand it out to so many times, then you become a hostage to it. i'm going to jump in here gentlemen, we're going to go to a short break. and after that short break, we'll continue our discussion on sanctioned regime state without a long went out. so seemed wrong. when i just don't want you to seek out the theme becomes to an engagement equals the trail. when so many find themselves will to part, we choose to look for common ground. ah,

since the break away the doughnuts, people's republic. whew has been ranging and don't boss. ukrainian. artillery has been shelling civilian townsend, mining villages, that your more very lovely deal with horde. i blew off with a deal about one of the company a little above the whole of the 3 little boys will give us bullet one. ah unconnect across stock where all things are considered. i'm peter belcher, manager, we're discussing sanction regimes. ah okay, gentlemen,

want to set up something that i want us all 3 to discuss it here at the very core of all of these things here. i mean, there's geo politics involved here. obviously, i'm memorizing rushes influence on the global stage that you know, the neo con argument and all this. and there's the china and element as well. but it's a very core of, at least here. and now it's all about energy. and one of the curious things is that what they want to do is they russia garners a lot of wealth because of its energy exports. that's obvious. the european union wants to turn it off because they're saying that south wootton fonts is war here, but we also have that green new deal and build back better. and this is turned in and this is my opinion and we can discuss it. it turned into an opportunity to kind of accelerate this on green new deal by saying they don't want certain countries energy, but they don't want any fossil fuel at the end of the day here. matthew, let me throw it to you because they kind of interestingly dovetail, don't they, matthew? yeah, they do. and i, i think when you get at the green,

new deal of build back better ideology, it really comes down to something that is a little bit uncomfortably religious in its fanaticism. there has been a long standing objective to try to be carbonized the world. we saw this cup caught 14 in 2009 a conference that was supposed to create a new separate type of global governance mechanism. we back in $22009.00 right? that would be able to enforce nation states and have more power than sovereign nation states to force them to obey their carbon reduction quotas. that was sabotaged by, by indian china walking themselves up a room and not participating in any of the proceedings of the conference. and they're trying this again now to essentially use the, the, the multi faceted crisis of the systemic breakdown which is already happening even before the pandemic happened in 2019 there was a systemic crisis. that was right to blow. things have accelerated and now the situation ukraine is being used again as an advantage took to accelerate this idea

of a post hydrocarbon a world that would be entirely relied upon windmills. solar panels, no nuclear, which are ultimately things which destroy nations, capacities to have industrial civilization. the ability to sustain are 8000000000 people at a certain population level and quality of life. that will be an annihilated if these ideologues with their ivory tower mathematical models of what they think human population level should be, is permitted to go through in russia. china are absolutely having none of that. india's having none of that, they don't want to sacrifice their industrial civilization and are population. i'm on on this altar. so we have a fight it richard, you know i, i don't really, i'm not really interested on this on this program. the merits of the green new deal or not, but it seems to me that it's a replication of the current system and it's the same winners and the same losers. okay? because it's being pitched as you know, the brave new world, something completely different. but the way i look at it is it that the, the, the, the, the share holders in it, as it were,

they're the ones who are going to win. they're the ones that are pushing this and they will profit from it. and i don't see anyone else out of the earth might profit from it. we don't know. okay. but it seems to be, this is a, a way to push through an agenda that is not democratically discussed in, in voted upon richard. yeah, well for me, the issue is put this way. ah, if you want to deal with climate change and global warming, and you want to make a sustained assault on our dependence on something that is destroying us. you cannot omit the issue of the capitalist economy. a system that's went on has been the way this has been developed at. this is a pretence. i understand why the people who want to advocate for a d carbonized system don't want to go there because it's dangerous. it gets you the enmity of all kinds of people who remain locked in

a cold war mentality where capitalism is good. socialism is bad and all of that. but if you don't deal with the capital a system, it will be that capitalist system that determines what portions of the green new deal ever get accepted. what form that acceptance takes, who's economic interests will be protected as that happens and who's will be sacrificed? we've seen this over and over and over every technical change that we've had in 300 years has been premised on the notion, isn't it wonderful? because it will make life less hard. we won't have to work long hours. here we are 300 years later. we're still working crazy hours. we're still exhausted as a capitalist system, but we don't want to face that the ideas of improvement that don't deal with the underlying economic system that brought us this problem will not succeed. and until

we overcome that problem, we will be spinning our wheels in the very way that prompts your question. you know, lu, i mean we, we keep hearing that, you know, sacrifices have to be made. sacrifices have to be made. and i think in a most pitiful way for democracy in ukraine, which is just absolutely not true. it's empirically not true. but anyway, sacrifices happened to be made to save the planet. but lou, the same people that are saying that sacrifices have to be made, don't make any sacrifices, do they know, of course they don't. and it's, it's, it's, it's another frog. it's too dangerous for on. and it's one of those who, who likes capitalism, at least the real, very real capitalism. but i think that these people are totally evil. they're, they're the people in davos. i have they, they saw it,

but i don't exactly have the, the, the of the american people or the european people, the african people or any other peoples in this world. they don't have their best interest at heart to have that worst interest at heart. they want to do it, they want to demolish the american economy. they want to make everything much, much worse. they really are the worst people on earth. and we're supposed to listen to them and salute them and do what they tell us to do that. well, lou, the, the, i always find it quite ironic in a very sinister way that these people, these ghouls, they gather every single year to solve the world's problems. but you know what? they are the problem until they arrive to solve problems that they create. and oh, by the way, they profit from also, matthew, one of the interesting things that is going on here is the global south in watching their reaction to washington in london's mom mom, a war drums against russia. and of course, you know, we have, you know,

low low octane thinkers like liz trust, the foreign secretary. she's really ambitious versus rajah. then we go to china. i mean, these people are just detached from reality. the global south is not, they understand what's going on. and they don't want to get involved in these ridiculous parlor games that brussels and london and washington are getting involved in. go ahead. now you, you said it, i mean the, the, the, they've been, they've seen the fruits of what real globalization has been in what real imperial has been for a very long time. we've had it relatively easy and, and in inner company little, you know, 1st world part of the, of society in the transplant community were these countries have faced hundreds and hundreds of regime change assassinations, economic terrorism by the world economic. i mean, the world bank, the i m f with, you know, 40, you know, 80 years of, of neo colonialism. so they understand what that the system is actually wired

around. so when you have a new game in town and you know, russia, china, that entire duration partnership, which includes recently, has iran, india on board that operates on a completely different operating system, founded upon long term thinking, low interest rate loans that provide real, real growth for the real economy, not just making these countries debt slaves, they're going for it. and i think we have increasingly a lot of interest in many countries, argentina, as soon probably get a joint of bricks. we got so many different points of connection with the eurasian policy. the multi polar alliance with south america, with africa. it's as well as southwest asia. it. so there's a lot of points, i think that keep a lot of ghouls, as you call them up at night. i hopefully having some, some helping nightmares. you know, richard, again, i've talked to you a number of times about him is a ration of the middle class and working class people. and it's real real now. okay . i mean, if you have the warrant iraq war in afghanistan and, you know, and,

you know, talking heads like me, can talk about it. but now we have a conflict in, in the center of europe here. and it's people are suffering not only in ukraine, but p, a, working people all across the western world. and the western world prided itself on security and prosperity. it has neither right now and my, you know, the reason why i'm framing at this way is it, what is distress appoints now for working people. i mean, you know, i had a guest on a week ago so we could have $10.00 bread. i mean that, that's not, that's not an impossibility. and, and it's working people that need gasoline. okay. i mean, what is the stress point because we're going to get social instability. richard, we already have a social instability. the way to understand it, and i'm talking here mostly about the united states, where i live and work. we have an amazing situation. now. we have had 30 to 40 years of a systematic, a shift in the direction of greater inequality. we cannot make lee in terms of

income, economically, in terms of wealth, and therefore politically, in terms of who can buy political influence. all of that is on display. but it has really reached a peak in the last 3 years. number one, we were hit by the pandemic. we were not able, as a nation to deal with it very well. hence, we have crossed the 1000000 dead from cold it, a failure for a rich country with a well developed medical system that remains to be faced at the same time. the 2nd worst crash of capitalism. since the great depression is a little statistic, never to lose sight of more than half of the american working class, half of what we call the labor force and excess of 80000000 american workers out of a 100 and $60000000.00 total loss. their jobs for part of the last 2 years, some for only a few weeks, some for the whole time. that is

a cataclysmic blow. and then when that's behind you barely, you have an inflation that is running now at 8 or 9 percent way above the average rate of wage increases and a federal reserve telling us we're going to have a recession as a result of rising interest rates to try to cope with the inflation, this is like the old joke about trying to stop a leaky dike by putting your finger in one. busy hall only to see another one spurting out at you. we are in a position where the working class is suffering. and more and more, it appears that wherever it is running to shallow, whether it's a republican or a democrat, an extreme right is like trump or mr. biden, nobody has a handle on what to do. yeah. with, well, that's a very dangerous entity. when i tried to sum it up brace for impact, everybody brace for impact. okay gentlemen,

that's all the time we have. i want to thank my guests in montreal, new york, and in albert and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r t c. you next time, remember cross top with ah, ah ah

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morning after such financial ah ah, lisa hunter, russian states total narrative as tight as i'm phone and the nurse landscape div. mm hm. and i can also make within 850000. okay, so mine is 2000 speedy. one else about with we will van in the european union, the kremlin. yup. machines. the state, aunt rushes today and school ortiz, sport, neck. even our video agency,

roughly all band on youtube with, ah mm. and united states has always had a variety of tools to use and tax on other countries. economic sanctions are, are often just the beginning. another thing you like to do is place some military pressure on the countries that you're talking about here. and there has to be an effort to demonize that country and the leader of that country. we have

a responsibility for the whole world. and we need to make rules for the rest because without out there we can do oh, here do some is mr. well, in the front of the wall to be awesome loop here, blue field more lovely deal with when it was on.