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. the 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 guess. matthew eric in montreal. he is a senior fellow at the american university in moscow and director of the rising tide foundation of canada in new york. we are richard wolf. he is professor emeritus of economics at the university, massachusetts, amorous, and author of the sickness is the system. and an albert, we cross a lew rockwell, he is the founder and chairman of the muses in city, our general and cross hog,

well, rules that affect, 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 in 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. nonetheless, 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 mentioned in terms of what he

said, and i'm surprised by it to 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, and or 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. hello lou, along the same lines here. i mean, the, now i live in russia, i'm, i, i'm watching the sanctions. i'm at this point. it's only been 3 months, but it's been quite limited from what i can see, what i've lived, 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 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 america. it's 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 and why it's happening. that it's the u. s. government it's, it's biding the, the congress and the rest of the creeps in washington are 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 see the, the us government step back. milly, 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 that has been to 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 your to happen of matthew. i'm a lou used to word creeps. i use 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 printing money. you don't have. i'm 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 geo political 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 and floated, which resulted in a consumer society cult and the increasing detachment of the monetary system,

the 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 to 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 and in ukraine, you'd be able to invest in things that produce real wealth, things like the belt road initiative, things that russia wants to do right now with the greater your asian partnership that involves creating real wealth. but again, fraction you can end world hunger several times over. so it's a lot, a lack of priorities. on a very high left, 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's been experiencing for the last 40 to 50 years. they've come up with still another excuse. why this is some 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 an, 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 of july 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 and the lives of their, their cities, energy prices, food prices, and all this just for suddenly they just have no geo political or economic value to them whatsoever. it's,

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

a hostage to and 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 thanks in regime state without the use ah, since the break away of the doughnuts, people's republic whew has been ranging and don't boss. ukrainian. artillery has been showing civilian, townsend, mining, villages that your more very lovely deal with what i grew up with

a deal about one of your company a little above the whole of the city of global oswald did. it was bullet one ah, with with both both the models you need to do your book nelson with a, with a grain already. a lot of them bought humor for them was a dealer with all they need that mr. levy and he's out because tanya is normally with

the rest, the personal number here for murder with with ah, welcome back to crowds, stock were all things are considered. i'm peter a bell to remind you we're discussing sanction regimes. ah. okay. in general, i 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,

a memorizing rushes influence on the global stage that you know, the neo con argument and all this. and there's the china 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 say russia, gardner is a lot of wealth because of its energy exports. that's obvious. a european union wants to turn it off because they're saying that's how hooting fans is war here. but we also have the green new deal and build back better. and this is turned in and this is my opinion and we can discuss it and turn into an opportunity to kind of accelerate this 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 di, 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. way back in 22009. 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 locking themselves up in 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 multifaceted 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 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 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 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 older isn't it, as it were, they're the ones that going to, when they're the ones that are pushing this and they will profit from it. and i don't see any one else for 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 an 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 my car 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 of cold war mentality where capitalism is good. socialism is bad and all of that. but if you don't deal with

the capitalist system, it will be the capitalist system that determines what portions of the green new deal ever get accepted. what form that acceptance takes, whose 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'll 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 capital is 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 the 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 lieu of 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, if it's another fraud, if it's too dangerous for on. and it's, i'm one of those who, who likes capitalism, at least the real, very real capitalism. but i think that these people are totally evil. they are there with the people in davos. i have they, they put their, their own 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 their 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. yeah, 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 and so 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 raja, 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, 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, in our company little, you know, 1st world part of the, of society in the transplant community where 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 know, 80 years of, of new 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 include 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 healthy nightmares. you know, richard, again, i've talked to you a number of times about them is a ration of the middle class and working class people. and, and it's real real now. okay. i mean, if you have the war in 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, 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 was 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 the 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 all 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 whatever is running the shell, 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. well that's a very dangerous it when i tried to some of that brace for impact, everybody brace for impact. okay gentlemen, that's all the time we have. i want to thank my guest in montreal, new york, and in albert and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at our dc you next time,

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just don't move any world, yes, to shape out disdain becomes the advocate and engagement equals the trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart, we choose to look for common ground. i am, my name is frank richardson, philadelphia got in the movement in age, 13 or 14. we were violent towards those people because we believe that we're in this race. we were here 1st and this is our country being part of that movement. i got your sense of power. when i felt powerless, we got attention when i felt invisible and accepted when i talked to level life after, hey, is an organization that was founded by for

a skinhead neo nazi white supremacists in the u. s. in canada and they found each other and they knew that they wanted to help other guys get out is 2 parts to getting out of a violent extremely good. the 1st part is disengagement, which is where you leave the social group. and then the next part is d. radicalization where belief systems ology are removed. it was very impactful. when someone finally came along with no fear, no judgement, you heard my story did nothing to challenge it. validate with

that you for that a have them on the west and long range walk it launches may have died. consequences warns rush is called diplomat a flu supreme. we broke up. see it is a die wreck provocation to involve the west in military operations. of course, seen western politicians understand these risks. a thing is both desperation and the destruction of the ukrainian military. deadly shelling of the 1000000000 area from the don't. yes, with last ominous warnings of some, a fuel show to james go on. hated as.